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When watching the Hollow Crown version of King Richard II I was struck almost immediately by the casting choices. Although Richard makes some awful choices as king, he never struck me as cold, or unfeeling. Simply haughty and prideful. However, in the movie version of this play, the particular actor chosen to play King Richard gave off a very heartless impression. He smiled, but other than that had very little expression in the beginning of the movie. This is the portion of the story where he commits all of his injurious deeds. Instead of seeming like an irrational human who made poor choices, he seemed like he was enjoying the unfortunate circumstances he was bestowing on his subjects. I thought this an interesting acting, casting, and directorial choice for the film. I expected something entirely different, which may be an unfair bias against the film (although I didn’t dislike the film). Was this the version of Richard II that we were supposed to glean from the play? Or was this a version cooked up in a studio to amp up the drama? I’d like to call attention to one of the comments on my previous post about historical context. Erin pointed out that whatever version of Richard II we get is the one that is presented to us through the text. With this in mind, I still wonder at the characterization of Richard in the play vs the movie. Was he meant by Shakespeare to be this unfeeling? To enjoy his poor choices this much? We know that in real life he was not simply a tyrannical villain who enjoyed causing problems and ruining people’s lives. But again, basing our judgment off the play alone, what can we assume about his character? Was this the Richard II that Shakespeare meant us to know?
