Power
Power is the main theme in Shakespeare's Richard III and we watch as Richard seeks to gain all of the authority and power that he can cling to through deceit and treachery. For Richard, there is nothing he wants more than having the power of the crown upon his head. No relationship is sacred, and he murders his brother, his nephews, and his father's closest friend in order to secure his seat on the throne of England.
The theme of power is reflected in the meta-narrative of Al Pacino making the documentary as well. Pacino is not nearly as power-hungry as Richard, but the question of who gets to have authority or power when it comes to interpreting a text comes up time and time again in Pacino's discussions with his collaborators.
Theater
A major theme in this film about Shakespeare's play is, unsurprisingly, theater. Al Pacino is a committed theater artist, and his passion for this project reflects his passion for the theater as an institution. He believes in the beauty, passion, and humanity of the theater, and what he wants more than anything is to communicate this to his imagined audience of skeptics.
To help tell his story, Pacino employs the help of many acclaimed theater professionals and actors, including Kevin Kline, Kevin Spacey, Alec Baldwin, Vanessa Redgrave, Penelope Allen, Estelle Parsons, as well as historians who bring a scholarly attention to the film. Pacino is interested in an acting company's ability to conjure to life the words of a writer long dead, and he is also invested in catching some inspiration by visiting historical theatrical spaces, to see what their ghosts have to teach him.
Accessibility
The film is about Al Pacino's quest to make Shakespeare's work accessible to a 20th-century audience. At one point Pacino asks, "What's this thing that gets between us and Shakespeare?" As a native New Yorker who grew up without a fancy education, Pacino has a personal stake in proving to the average viewer that Shakespeare is worth their time. He believes in the fact that if actors really get to the heart of the play and perform it in such a way that they understand the stakes, it can be not only legible but compelling to a modern audience. This documentary is his effort to mine all the angles and perspectives on one complicated play as a way of making sense of it.
Acting
Another theme in the film, beyond just theater, is acting itself. Pacino's chief allies in bringing the play to life and figuring it out are his fellow actors. Together, they investigate the text closely and seek to find ways to make it come to life, to make the emotions and stakes palpable and moving. We also watch as Pacino himself gets wrapped up in his role, and the lines between him and his character become more and more blurred. We see him delivering the monologues in his street clothes, trying out different ways of saying lines, and then we see him in full Elizabethan costumes, acting out the scenes in a heightened style. We also see the tortured actor out of character, trying to fit himself into a world and a text that is so foreign to him and yet so intoxicating.
Frustration and the Artistic Process
When we are not watching the fully-staged version of the play or a hearing a succinct scholarly explanation from a historian, we are watching Pacino and his collaborations hit walls and get frustrated by their own project. They stop and start, agree and disagree, all in the service of creating a documentary that will enrich people's lives. Pacino is often shown in conversation with his close collaborator Frederic Kimball, who seems to worry about nearly everything. All of the worry and angst that goes into the process is playful and positive, rather than heavy and upsetting, and the viewer can tell by the way the producers are talking, that even when the going gets tough, the film is a labor of love, a true passion project. The film ends up being as much an investigation of the artistic process in theater as it is a close reading of Shakespeare's play.
Corruption
Within Richard III, a major theme is corruption and sin. Richard is a markedly evil and ethically crooked character, who does whatever it takes, even having two young boys murdered, in order to ascend to the throne. His thirst for love and power is so unquenchable that he is completely corrupted by it, and he forces his associates to make inordinate sacrifices and proclamations of loyalty. Thus, at its core, the play is about political corruption and nefarious methods.
Interpretation
Even though Pacino is trying to gather some of the most prestigious opinions that he can find on the play, he is adamant that they are all opinions, not facts. In one argument, Frederic Kimball insists that Pacino is privileging the claims of the academic scholars over the actors' work. Pacino calms him down by insisting that no one in the project has any more authority than anybody else, that they can only have opinions. In this moment, he is making a bold claim about the nature of interpretation: that any assertion about a work of art is nothing more than an opinion. While some are more informed than others, all assertions are opinions, mediated by the person's experience and perspective.
