In Olivier's Richard III, shadows are a striking visual motif, extensively used throoughout the whole movie. As an object, we can consider they are specifically filmic, because theit essential visual quality could not be achieved on stage, because of the nature of the space. And they partake to the "horizontal" elements in so far as they help the narrative being developed. But their function is also similar to the one of a pervading metaphor in a text. How do they work then, and are they specifically filmic? what do they translate or stand for? We will first examine the shadows as a metaphor for Richard's nature, then as a symbol for his plotting activity, and finally as used in a borader scale.

Let us start with Richard's shadow, as it expresses his nature. The first and the most obvious degree of significance of the shadow device is to insist on Richard's deformity, as illustrated in the sequence just after Wooing Scene I. Richard, who has described his tortured body in the opening soliloquy, is replaced by his shadow on the door (as we hear "Clarence beware...") and then on the floor. This limping shadow redoubles the vision of crippled Richard when he walks away from the camera, and shows his back in a long shot, where he looks like a maladjusted penguin with his long hanging sleeves. Later, after having won Anne, Richard stands in front of the stairs, where his shadow appears, regularly twisted because of the perpendicular surfaces of the steps.

Moreover, as Richard's physical deformity reflects his moral wickedness, Richard's shadow also suggests his dark inside nature, his moral characterization as a villain-figure. This goes along with the constant appearance of Richard in dark places and in dark clothes, which is especially striking in some of his dialogue scenes, for example with Lady Anne or with Clarence: in both cases, they stand in the light, their face in the sun, with blue (or light blue) and white clothes, whereas Richard mostly remains in the shadow, with dark clothes on.

The shadow is thus related to the theme of distortion and perversity, running throughout Shakespeare's text. It can also represent tyranny, as suggests Constance Brown. In any case, the shadow device is evocative of a set of metaphors, verbal as well as visual; Richard's shadow, more than any other character's, is everywhere, on the walls, on the doors, on the floor , as a black double, figuring his black conscience and evil purposes. Naturally, his malevolent intentions lead to dark and secret action.

Not only is Richard bad inside, but his badness is staged outside, in particular with his "plot". In many instances, Richard's shadow illustrates the fact he is acting in secret and he is a threat for the other characters. We find this plotting shadow as well when he articulates "Clarence beware! Thou keepst me from the light. But I will plan a pitchy day for thee", on the door and then on the stairs, as when he wins Anne, after Wooing Scene II. In the first case, the shadow translates the light/darkness metaphor, but expresses further Richard's secret and malevolent design. In the second example, just when Richard says "Then bid me kill myself" his shadow covers Anne's face in close-up, and then after a short shot, his shadow rests on the door, which he opens, then stretches on the floor, and as the camera goes backwards enlarging the shot, on the end of Anne's dress while she is slowly walking away. He acts in secret but doing that he infringes on others: his shadow overspreading other characters suggests this hidden violence. The same threatening effect is obtained at the end of Wooing Scene I, when his shadow gradually invades the whole screen, denoting Richard's overwhelming power.

Richard's shadow is also contagious. King Edward and the murderers prove associated, even if passively in the case of the King, with Richard's action when "put in shadow". The scene with King Edward takes place just after Gloucester's dialogue with Clarence; after Richard's shadow has been shown, there is a cut, then we see the monks singing and looking towards the right, the camera moves and shows, on the floor, Richard's shadow walking from left to right, and approaching a crowned figure; the next shot displays Richard (back) and Edward IV (face), then the reverse, and when Richard leaves, we see his shadow going to the left, and then the monks looking to the left.

In the above examples, we can frequently see only Richard's shadow but not Richard himself, which can be achieved only in a movie. In the shots where we see only Richard's shadow, our response as an audience is complex: on the one hand it seems it works along with all that makes us identify with Richard, since we know from the first soliloquy that he himself contemplates his shadow, and we see as through his eyes. All the more as we do not see him. But it still is his shadow, so it stands for him; when we see his shadow, we feel in a priviledged position compared to all the other characters, but it also reminds us that maybe we are not allowed to observe the complete machination. This complexity can be illustrated in the sequence just after Clarence has told his dream: the beginning of the scene is shot through the cell's bars, then the camera comes in and the audience is placed in the cell; yet, when the scene is finished, the camera moves backwards, until it frames the characters through the bars again, and then, resuming its movement backwards reveals by showing that the darkness was the shadow of Richard's head's, suddenly disturbeb by somebody calling him, that Richard had been spying all the time.The next shot includes the "real" Richard, sharply disrupting the process of identification.

The shadow is also used a linking device, that is to say has a function in the "horizontal" dimension of the narrative. Two major transitions where the shadow works as a pivot can be noted: the first occurs between the moment Richard has just decided to adorn himself and the next scene, when we have a shot with Richard, then his shadow, then his shadow adjusting gloves, and Richard in luxurious clothes; in the second Richard and ...'s shadow leavong the deathbed are replaced by their shadow while riding horses. In both cases, the second shadows perform what the first ones were announcing. In these short transition sequences, we have a chiasmatic scheme, and if we take the movie as a whole, these shadows, combined to all the other ones punctuate the narrative and bind together different episodes.

Now, strikingly enough, the moment the shadow device takes an unexpected resonance is after Richard's vision of the ghosts: Ratcliffe tries to reassure / comfort Richard by these words : "Don't be afraid of shadows". It is the only moment in the film where the word is not accompanied by the image....and for a very good reason, since Ratcliff thinks of other shadows, and means the ghosts. "Shadow" thus means something unreal, belonging to imagination only. But it recalls all the shadow images we have been insistently showed, so that we start analysing them again, and that they all start echo in each other.

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