The utter villainy of the character of Shakespeare's Richard III makes him irresistible to great actors. Both Laurence Olivier and Ian Mckellen have made Richard their own in two different films, and in so doing, given audiences two completely different renderings of the play. One of the more glaring points of distinction is the manner in which Richard's wooing of Anne has been treated, changed, and reconfigured from the playtext. These actors have managed to focus on subtext and character motivation not obvious without the aid of the camera's eye. Shakespeare's scene is changed subtly, but importantly, and with that change Richard is made another type of villain for his audience.

Shakespeare's Richard wins the hand of Lady Anne in one scene (I.ii), through a series of short exchanges over the corpse of her father-in-law, Henry VI, whom Richard murdered during the course of the civil war. The lengthy scene is driven by the power of Richard's use of language and, as with many of Shakespeare's works, leaves movements of body and facial expression open to the actor, with few exceptions. The question of how Lady Anne allows herself to be won by this "lump of foul deformity" (I.ii.57), this "homicide" (I.ii.129), can only be answered by the staging of this scene. The way in which Richard delivers the lines he has been given must make his claims of penitence, of undying love, believable for the audience and for Anne, herself. If one were only to read the play, it seems completely implausible, from the modern perspective, that any woman would be won over by such jarring changes in character. Richard explodes with rage towards the corpse's attendants at the start, "Advance thy halberd higher than my breast,/Or by Saint Paul I'll strike thee to my foot,/And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness" (I.ii.40-42), then offers to take his own life for the pain of his true love, "Speak it again, and even with the word,/This hand, which for thy love,/Shall for thy love kill a far truer love," (I.ii.192-194). The actor must do a dance around Anne so as to make his utterances realistic for the audience as opposed to appearing to be just another aspect of Richard's scheming.

Olivier's first touch on this scene in his Richard III, is to divide the wooing into two separate parts. In the first, we have Olivier speaking directly into the camera, "Meantime, I'll marry with the Lady Anne." He directs the camera to look through a window onto the procession of mourners, with Lady Anne in tow. Olivier then guides the camera to a door; it opens on the procession. There is a quick cut to a larger set of doors which open as the mourners move through, stopping in the center of the courtyard with Lady Anne lit from above. Olivier's Richard eavesdrops on Anne's lamentation over her father-in-law's corpse, an act which is never implied in the playtext. This adds to his characterization as a plotter, as if he is waiting for just the right moment, the most inappropriate time, to invade the scene. He storms in, sword drawn, and threatens the pall bearers. Olivier plays up this entrance with shouting and thrusting of his weapon. His villainy is on display. Anne reveals the corpse to Richard which garners no obvious reaction in his face, and then the camera cuts to a medium close up of Richard whispering in Anne's ear. This shows the intimacy which he feigns and, on the word "bedchamber," she responds by spitting in his face, as the camera zooms out. Richard leaves the courtyard and, safely alone, addresses the camera, "I'll have her, but I will not keep her long," thus ending the first part of the scene.

Part two opens on Lady Anne, now in a different dress giving the sense that time has passed, kneeling at the tomb. There is a cut to Richard as he sees her, then a cut to him walking up behind her. As she notices him, her eyes glance nervously to one side. She appears weaker than in the last scene. Richard kneels as well, next to her, as if to make himself and his pleas for her more accessible. She spits at him a second time, rising and walking away from the tomb to stand under an arch. Richard stands on the other side of the pillar dividing them. He crosses it halfway, signifying that she is almost won, and they lean in, suggesting a kiss. Richard comes around to face Anne as she turns her back, although it is now obvious that she has come under the spell of his words. He kisses her hand and draws his sword, kneeling in front of her. The camera cuts to a medium close up of Anne, her face revealing that she has now weakened completely. Richard momentarily blocks this view by crossing in front of the camera to once again draw his sword. She stops him, he gives her the ring, then clutches her to him from behind, they kiss. Anne is lost. She begins to leave but Richard grabs her violently and kisses her again, her face mixed with fear and sadness. Anne withdraws through a door in the middle of the shot as the camera cuts to a medium close up of Richard. He looks directly into the camera and speaks, "Was ever woman in this humour woo'd? Was ever woman in this humour won?" He exits through the same door, confidently kicking it open with his foot, and casts a menacing shadow on the skirt of Anne's white gown. Richard has got his Anne. Throughout the two scenes, Olivier's Richard is completely certain that he will win the Lady Anne, so much so that he does need not worry about how convincing his tone might be. He obsessively acts out his lines, gives body to the sentiment being expressed. He is a tower of strength and the audience knows that Anne will succumb because Richard's movements on screen will make her do so.

McKellen's Richard is so far away from Olivier's that it only makes sense that his Anne should be won by a different means of persuasion. At the point in Richard Loncraine's Richard III, where Richard seeks out Anne, he still seems to have everyone under his thumb. He has not yet killed that many people and he shows the audience an easiness of character which makes one want him to win Anne over, just to see if he actually can. The scene is all played out in one sitting and starts with Richard addressing the camera, "And now, I'll marry," having just seen Clarence off to the Tower. There is a cut to Anne walking down a corridor in a military hospital, then down a set of stairs, cutting to the interior of a morgue. Bodies are laid out on tables around the room; there are no mourners here, no ceremony. She walks up to the table upon which her husband's body lies, and curses Richard. She falls on the corpse, weeping, as Richard comes up from behind her. He keeps his distance, giving an air of respect for the dead surrounding him. He approaches despite her curses and takes off his hat. Interestingly, in this adaptation, when Richard speaks the word "bedchamber," he does so with his back turned away from Anne, in an awkward close up, whispering so she does not hear it. McKellen's Richard is even more sinister than the Richard of the playtext; he is soft, tricky, convincing. Anne is unrelenting in her anger, it would seem. She does not seem as vulnerable as Olivier's Anne, and Richard, here, seems to plot with her apparent strength in mind. When she spits, he retreats a bit, but then returns, kneeling, giving her the dagger. The camera cuts to Anne with the dagger, then cuts to both of them as she drops it. When Richard holds the dagger to his throat, the camera cuts back and forth a few times to each of their faces, giving an intensity to the scene which almost makes one think he really will do himself in for love of her. Richard takes off the glove of his good hand with his teeth, removes his ring in the same way, adding a strange sensuality to the moment, and places it, wet, on her finger. The cut to Anne shows the face of a woman confused and terrified. Richard stands and salutes the corpse before leaving, with no kiss, embrace, or other signifier of love exchanged between Anne and himself. As Richard walks up the stairs, his villainous character comes back on, "Was ever woman in this humour woo'd? Was ever woman in this humour won? I'll have her, but I will not keep her long." The music changes from woeful saxophone to more boisterous sounds as he laughs down the corridor and dances up the stairs. McKellen's Richard plays the part of the penitent lover desperate for Anne convincingly, and shows the audience that he is a force to be reckoned with.

These two interpretations of the wooing of Anne in Shakespeare's Richard III, prove one point together, although they get to it by very different means: the language must be embodied by the actor in order to achieve the final outcome of the scene. It seems that McKellen's Richard is a far more dangerous character than Olivier's because he so easily changes faces for each chapter in his scheming, whereas Olivier's Richard is a villain on the outside even when he tries not to be, in all of his words and movements. Regardless, both get what they seek out, and within the larger frame of the respective films, both do so in a manner fitting to their characters.

(c) 1999 by the author. All rights reserved.