richard iii - tyranny

Question 1

Olivier production 1.1

Answer 1

Begins with edwards coronation and joyous revelry, zooms in on shut doors and leaves Richard isolated and seperated - alienates

Question 2

Greenblatt

Answer 2

Modern application - RICHARD = PUTIN
Timeless nature of tyranny and power
‘displays all the qualities of a tyrant’ - loncrains film draws clear parallels between r and hitler (modern audiences fear of fascist dictatorship)

Question 3

gunby - vice

Answer 3

‘Like the formal vice’
‘seem a saint when i most play the devil’
‘and soothe the devil that i warn thee from’ - M response to B

a traditional figure in the medieval morality play - simultaneously a destructive agent and a kind of clown (cynical villain and grim humourist who mocked virtue)
- invited to share in enjoyment of evil rather than condemn it by taking advantage of his ambiguous position half inside and outside the dramatic action

classic scourge = final agent of god’s vengeance (delayed good to rest in anothers hands)
richmond = minister who will bring god’s wrath to a close by exacting public justice in battle

result is pointlessness and futility of evil in its ironic development as an agent for good
by being so efficient, he just hastens his own end

Question 4

Moulton villainy

Answer 4

‘a picture of ideal villainy’ - a figure fascinating alike in the totality of his commitment to evil and in the nonchalant ease with which he achieves wicked end – purely archetypal
what marks R as an ‘ideal’ rather than ‘real’ villain is the scale and completeness of his wrong-doing, its motivelessness, and its irresistibility

‘i am determined to prove a villain’

killling the ‘little souls’ prompts his own mother to regret not having aborted him
accursed womb, bed of death