Fair reader, I just want to have a moment of silence for the fact that this film wasn’t directed by Kenneth Branagh. Are you sick of me mentioning him? Too bad. It keeps my brain from atrophying while I try to watch these Complete Dramatic Works of Shakespeare films. So you’ll probably have to live with it for a while longer.
Like last week, I did not make it through this entire film (212 minutes!). I made it through about 45. And there’s not hugely interesting or new things to say about this film. The sets are basically the same from Part 2, except the wood structures have all been painted black. The costumes are still bad and most of the “leather armour” just looks like bad 80s punk fashion. But at least the actors are now age appropriate for their parts so that’s a positive. I was also excited to see the actor playing Richard, mostly because I adored him as Chivery in Little Dorrit (go watch it, it’s awesome). However, the actor playing Clifford has a really badly faked Scottish accent. In my 45 minutes, nothing super exciting happened. I got one battle sequence which was basically groups of men shoving each other back and forth while they both held pikes (not a euphemism, although that would have made things far more interesting). So enjoy the one screen cap of the film I could find (even the general internet hasn’t watched this film much).
I’ll be back on Sunday with Richard III, my penultimate English history play, and our chance to encounter one of Shakespeare’s great villains.
Blitzing Through the Bard 