Shakespearean plays have been performed and performed in different formats in order to appeal to modern society and culture. Shakespeare's King Richard III (1593) is an Elizabethan historical play that depicts King Richard's Machiavellian rise to power. Al Pacino's "Looking for Richard" (1996) is an educational docu-drama that incorporates a collage of actors' and academics' perspectives, as well as impromptu vox pops with American audiences to make Shakespeare accessible to the audience. Looking for Richard aims to “communicate a Shakespeare of what we feel and think today.” Al Pacino incorporates fundamental ideas from Shakespeare's play and the Elizabethan era, including the importance of religious morality and Machiavellian ideas, and transposes them into American culture. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay “King Richard III” by Shakespeare, highlights the quest for power and its consequences. By the early Elizabethan period, audiences were familiar with Machiavellian ideas, including "The Prince: Politics Has No Relation to Morality", which contained ideologies such as "Politics has no relation to morality and “It is better to be feared than loved.” The Elizabethan era was a time of tension between free will and providentialism, and religious ideologies are a major theme of the play. In Act 1, Scene 2, Richard courts Anne, whose stepfather and brother have been murdered. Shakespeare portrays Richard as a Machiavellian character and as the protagonist with a secular worldview. In the scene which takes the form of stichomythic dialogues and soliloquies, religious imagery is used in "You have made the happy earth your hell" in order to illustrate Richard's abandonment of religious morality, reasoning for his bad behavior for this cause. Shakespeare also employs an antithesis to criticize Richard's ambitions for power, while the dichotomy between God, earth and hell, reinforces the extent to which the Elizabethans viewed morality in terms of extreme positions. Once Anne has left the stage, Richard proclaims in a soliloquy: “Has a woman of this humor ever been courted? Was a woman in this humor won? Shakespeare's incorporation of anaphora through the repetition of "Was ever", in conjunction with the repeated rhetorical questions, almost forces the audience to admire his rhetorical skill, despite its cruelty, making us complicit in his plots. Shakespeare involves us through the abandonment of our own conscience, in order to depict the corruption of humanity by power. Finding Richard takes place in a secular society, so Pacino focuses on Richard's ambitions and how far he will go to achieve power, rather than religious tensions. . In the scene where Anne is being courted by Richard, the use of medium camera angles and misdirection are used to reinforce the fact that Anne is submissive to the powerful Richard. Al Pacino cleverly uses chiaroscuro using shadows and light, in order to contrast the dark and monstrous Richard with the innocent Anne. The omission of sentences about Richard's physical deformity is incorporated into the scene, in order to make the play relevant to modern society, by focusing the source of Richard's villainy on his psychological state rather than his physical deformities. A voiceover is used in order to give the audience an understanding of the context of the play, while also explaining why Anne fell in love with Richard so easily. “She needsprotection, she was on the losing side of the Wars of the Roses, she is young, no husband, she has no future.” The scholars are used in this particular scene not only for additional information, but also for comedic purposes ("Why is the scholar talking to the camera? /Scholar/: "I really don't know why?" ). Although comical, this brings up the idea that there is a power struggle in the text between the actors and the academics. AlPacino portrays Shakespeare's message that the pursuit of power corrupts humanity, in a form accessible to the community, through the pursuit of one's own understanding of the Elizabethan context. In Act 1, Scene 4 and Act 2, Scene 1, the themes of morality and conscience feature prominently in the scenes where Clarence is murdered. Prophecies and religious beliefs played a major role in Elizabethan society, which centered on religious morality. In Act 1, Scene 4, Clarence's dream/prophecy, which occurs while he is locked in the Tower of London, is filled with negative visual images and biblical allusions. This is evident in "I Saw 1,000 Scary Weirds" and "I Was in Hell." Later in the scene, when the murderers decide how to murder Clarence, the corruption of conscience by the pursuit of power is clear. The murderers, whose conscience "generated a sort of remorse", were corrupt and had gone to the "Duke of Gloucester's purse", thus reinforcing the fact that conscience can be corrupted by greed and power. The biblical allusion is significant in this scene and is used when Clarence warns, “Thou shalt not commit murder.” After Clarence's murder, Shakespeare implements a biblical simile "Like Pilate, would I wash my hands/of this most grievous murder" in order to warn the audience of the evil that results from ignoring one's conscience and of his morality. Al Pacino reshapes key themes and values ​​for modern audiences, whose morality is not influenced by religion, but rather by pop culture. In the same scene where Clarence is murdered in the Tower of London, Alec Baldwin, who plays Clarence, is renowned for his heroic roles in Hollywood, while Al Pacino is known for his complex anti-hero roles. This allows the audience to see Clarence as morally correct, juxtaposed with the morally corrupt Richard. Pacino uses omission in order to vernacularize the battle between providentialism and secularism, in a simplified scenario of good versus evil, adhering to the secular audience. The dichotomy between good and evil is further symbolized by the juxtaposition of clothing, with Clarence wearing only white, while the sinister Richard wears black. The blood prop can also be seen as a metaphor, as the murderer will forever be tainted by the innocent blood. Pacino connects with his modern audience on the issue of polarized religious views presented by politicians in today's world, while the omission of religion from the entire scene makes the mode more relevant to all cultures and classes social. In Elizabethan times, people were superstitious about dreams. They were often attributed prophetic properties. In Act 5, Scene 3, all the ghosts of Richard's victims appear to him in a dream, wishing Richmond good luck and death to Richard. The scene plays out in two stages, with Richard and Richmond both appearing on stage, depicting simultaneous events. Shakespeare uses the epistrophe and isocolon through the repetition of the mantra "Chorus and Die", in order to emphasize Richard's wrongdoing, while foreshadowing their impending battle. Richmond, the deus ex machina of the play, is glorified »..