Produced and directed by Al Pacino, Looking for Richard is a documentary which explores Shakespeare’s Richard III. Mingling commentary on Shakespeare with rehearsals and the staging of key scenes, the film is essentially Pacino’s quest for the truth at the heart of the play. This leads him to interview a variety of people, from academics to famous actors to people he meets on the streets, about whether Shakespearean ideas and language are in fact relevant to contemporary life. His journey takes him from New York’s Central Park to the Globe Theatre in London and to Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Pacino often had to interrupt filming to work on other projects, but despite random shifts in time and place and the style of showing director and collaborators at work, he never loses sight of the text. Looking For Richard is not just a film documentary – it is also a lucid and compelling adaptation of the play, and will be useful to students as background study of the film Richard III, which is on the next list of Leaving Certificate English comparative texts.

USA • 1996 • Documentary • 109 mins • Director: Al Pacino