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For the first time in his lengthy career, Al Pacino dons three hats as creator, director and star of Looking for Richard. In the vein of Truffaut's Day for Night or Fellini's 8 1/2, Pacino's impassioned project intertwines the telling of Richard III -- Shakespeare's gripping drama of power, lust and betrayal -- with an intimate look at the actors' and filmmakers' processes as they grapple with their characterizations and with translating their enthusiasm for the play on to film. Pacino takes the cameras on a free-spirited comic romp through the streets of New York, to the birthplace of Shakespeare, and finally, to an emotionally-charged production of Richard III.

An English teacher brought us to a local production of King Lear and after ten minutes of people doing 'Shakespearean acting,' I tuned out and started making out with my girlfriend in the back row. We left at intermission.
--Kevin Kline

The opportunity to present Shakespeare in an untraditional format and make it as accessible as possible for a modern audience charmed a dedicated and benevolent cast including Estelle Parsons as Queen Margaret, Alec Baldwin as Clarence, Kevin Spacey as Buckingham, Winona Ryder as Lady Anne and Aidan Quinn as Richmond. With contagious enthusiasm and the assistance of such respected actors as Sir John Gielgud, Sir Derek Jacobi, Kenneth Branagh, Vanessa Redgrave, James Earl Jones and Kevin Kline, Pacino seeks to prove that everyone can enjoy Shakespeare, and that his tales are timeless in their exploration of human nature.

I'm confused just explaining it, so I can imagine how you must feel hearing me. It's very confusing and I don't know why we're even doing this at all.
--Pacino to producer Michael Hadge during production

While throwing themselves into their characters, Pacino and his actors had to break down centuries of barriers surrounding one of Shakespeare's most complicated and intimidating works. "You don't need to understand every single word that's said, as long as you get the gist of what's going on. Just trust it and you'll get it," says Pacino. In defiance of tradition, the viewer is allowed to go behind the scenes and witness the actual process of acting. The weightier aspects of Richard III are leavened by informal shots of the actors digging their teeth into their roles in an often comic and sometimes heated forum. Pacino's methods of analysis are insightful, amusing and engrossing. As he stands in London's legendary Globe Theatre and in the austere halls of New York City's Cloisters Museum, Pacino transcends the barrier between actors and their audience.

We're getting forty dollars a day and all the donuts we can eat.
--Alec Baldwin

His devoted pantheon of performers evidently had their own heartfelt enthusiasm for the project. "Some of these actors returned the checks we gave them and told us to put the money into the film instead."

While Looking for Richard journeys with the actors both in and out of character, following their struggles, debates and revelations about the play, Pacino also takes to the streets of New York to measure public opinion about Richard III. Pacino's wild energy receives a range of responses from "Richard who?" to opinionated preaching on Shakespeare, as one street person proclaims: "He helped us and instructed us in the art of feeling." Pacino notes, "by juxtaposing the day-to-day life of the actors and their characters with ordinary people, we attempted to create a comic mosaic - - a very different Shakespeare. Our main goal with this project is to reach an audience that would not normally participate in this kind of language and world."

Is this it? Are we done? I'm not going to tell him about the other ten rolls of film.
--Producer Michael Hadge talking to Line Producer James Bulleit

Throughout Looking for Richard, Pacino's appearance undergoes a variety of metamorphoses, visually illustrating the number of years it took to complete the film. His devotion to the project kept him focused, even during the protracted periods he was unable to work on the film due to commitments on other movies. The completion of the film marks the culmination of a journey begun decades ago. Pacino first realized that Shakespeare could be dc-constructed if patiently explained when he was touring colleges in the late '70s. "When I first let the students know I was going to read Shakespeare, they were reluctant to listen to it. But we would talk informally about the play and then I would read an excerpt. Soon, they found the equinox from their world to the world of Shakespeare."

Through his film, Pacino searches, along with the observer, to understand the work's historical background, the methods employed by Shakespeare to develop a captivating portrait of a despot, and even explains the true definition of "iambic pentameter." He manages to lay bare the methods of involving oneself in a part without utterly demystifying it by also presenting the play itself, done in period costume as a darkly atmospheric meditation on one of England's most notorious kings. "We are calling this an experiment," he says " which I think means that we're trying to find a cure for something."

[Additional information on the Pacino film] | [Ian McKellen's Richard III] | [Richard III On Stage and Off]

[Richard III Society Homepage]

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