Richard III

Every character that's ever turned to the stage or the screen to explain themselves owes a debt to Shakespeare's "Richard III." So any film attempting to bring that play to life carries a big responsibility. Lucky, then, that this 1995 rendition -- directed by Richard Loncraine -- recruits the star of one of the most acclaimed modern renditions of the text: Ian McKellen, who plays Richard with a bilious revelry. The original dialogue has remained verbatim, but the setting is an imagined London of the 1930s, one under fascistic rule.

McKellan's plays the character as one who openly fetishizes the idea of taking control for himself -- every painful step of the way up the ladder of power, we see the twinkle of pleasure in his eyes. The transplanted setting allows McKellan and Loncraine to draw parallels between the Shakespearean power struggles established in the text, and the cutthroat manner of 20th century politics. They frame the film with bookended battle scenes that aim to show the human cost of egotist bureaucracies. And then they let McKellan accentuate every phrase with bellowing charisma -- they let him embody the cults of personality that send men to death.

Twilight Time's Blu-ray features a trailer for the film, and an additional audio track that isolates Trevor Jones' score. And the disc transfers Peter Biziou's cinematography with great fidelity. Which makes it all the easier for us to take in the finer subtleties of McKellen's work. His Richard is a loud and boisterous one -- it has to be, the character itself demands such a performance -- but he's also one beset by tiny tics of personality. You see it in the way he sucks down cigarettes as though they were providing a lifeblood: McKellan hasn't just mastered the character's fury. He's also found the insecurities that fuel it.

"Richard III"
Blu-ray
Screenarchives.com
$29.95