Richard III (1995)
Richard III was #23 in my 2007 movie challenge. I am abashed to admit that we removed the plastic off our dvd copy that I’m fairly sure we bought new, i.e., in 2000, and two abodes ago. I wanted to watch in it preparation for Looking for Richard, a film I’d recorded on our Tivo soon after we moved to our new abode. In a spate of impulsive programming, G. Grod and I plied our DVR with too many requests, and Looking for Richard was deleted. (Yet, A Better Way to Die was not. And Looking for Richard is at none of my three libraries, and is no longer available. Oh, Irony, up yours.) But I digress.
Richard III was directed by Richard Loncraine, and starred Sir Ian McKellan.
The costumes and settings are a mythic 1930s fascist England. I had a brief moment of trepidation as the film began, and I wondered if I’d understand the language, and the story. The film, though, soon whisked me through the first demanding scene and through to the end at breakneck, exhilarating speed. The language of Shakespeare required a bit of acclimation, and the modern setting required a bit of temporal translating, but things quickly fell into place.
Dark, intense, and satisfying. Very much like a good, scary, roller-coaster ride.