Summary
Richard rejects Buckingham as his right-hand man for faltering in the case of killing the two princes. Buckingham goes off to think about Richard's request, but when he comes back, it is too late and Richard has resolved to reject him. Buckingham requests the title of earl which Richard promised him, but Richard denies him again and again.
We see Estelle Parsons as Queen Margaret rehearsing a scene, interspersed with actual staged versions of the scene. Kimball and Pacino talk about the fact that Richard is on tenuous ground and becomes more paranoid when he takes the throne. Richard calls forth a man named Tyrell to kill the young princes. Tyrell accepts when Richard promises love and preference to him for the deed.
The last act. Pacino discusses the fact that the last act is the most legible because it is the one in which Richard's power begins to falter. A man named Richmond, from the Lancaster family, who fled to France after the War of the Roses, is returning to England with his army to reclaim the throne.
"I have a feeling that your Richard will have earned his death and we really ought to think of some way to do it," Kimball says to Pacino as they discuss the final moments of the play. Pacino reads a history book about the battle in which Richard was killed, the Battle of Bosworth.
In his sleep, Richard is visited by the ghosts of all the people he has murdered. Pacino visits a stage in London where the play was performed 300 years prior. He rehearses the scene, trying to commune with the ghosts in the theater.
We see Richard having a nightmare about all his misdeeds, waking with a start. Richard struggles with his own remorse, reckoning with the fact that he is a brutal murderer. "Alas, I hate myself," Richard says despondently. Frogs croak outside as Richard bemoans his own evil.
Richard is awakened by a man named Catesby, who beckons him to the battlefield. Richard tells Catesby about his dream, but Catebsy comforts the king. Richard prepares for battle, with an impassioned and furious speech.
They go into battle, Richard uttering the famous line, "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse." Catesby urges him to withdraw, but he does not. Richmond pulls out a bow and arrow and shoots Richard, killing him. Richmond then stabs him with his sword.
Suddenly, the scene shifts to Kimball and Pacino rehearsing the scene in New York on the steps of a church, Pacino pretending to die on the steps. We see an actor dressed as Shakespeare laughing at Pacino's antics.
We see Richard dead on the battlefield. Then, in an interview, Pacino says, "I love the silence...I love the silence."
Analysis
In his investigation of the play and the character of Richard, Pacino finds that the deformed illegitimate king is searching for a love that no one can provide. When Buckingham fails to carry out his orders to kill the two princes, Richard is indignant, unable to understand why his faithful servant will not do his bidding. In a helpful footnote, a scholar who is interviewed tells us, "He is bound to be left alone, because nobody can love the king beyond the degree of their own egoism, or perhaps their own goodness." In effect, Richard asks for too much, his needs are too much for those around him to bear. This insatiability is what so isolates him, and his isolation only makes him greedier.
The play Richard III is a portrait of a corrupt politician who is poisoned by his own needs and his own corruption. Because of his nefarious and underhanded way of ascending to power, Richard lives in fear that it will be taken away from him at any moment. That is why he cannot trust anyone and why he maintains a paranoid attitude even after his goal is achieved. The play tries to show how political corruption takes hold of a nation and how bad ethics causes destruction to multiply itself indefinitely.
Once Richard has achieved his aim, the question for Pacino and his collaborators becomes about how they will kill him and end the play, and thus, the film. Kimball thinks that Pacino has played the character so ferociously and hatefully that he will have "earned" his death. Having spent so much time trying to interpret and understand the play, and to make it vivid for an audience, they must now set to work winding it out and concluding it.
A major part of Pacino's acting process is communing with spirits and "ghosts" of the past that might help him in his inhabitation of the character. His process of investigating history has a great deal to do with getting a feel for the places where the work was conceived, created, and performed. It is almost as though he views acting as a spirit possession as much as a conscious act. His research for performing the ghost scene in the play involves him going to a theater where the play was once performed and hoping to catch some inspiration from some of the ghosts in that theater.
The film is a hearty and enthusiastic meditation on the relevance of Shakespeare to contemporary audiences, and the ability of actors to bring to life text and circumstances long left in the past. With a dose of self-deprecating humor and a playful relationship to documentary storytelling, Pacino transmits his love for the play to the viewer and shows them how lively Shakespeare's words can become. The film serves as a testament as much to Pacino's gifts as an actor as it does to the enduring power of Shakespeare.
