TITLE:

 

THE CORRUPTING FORCE OF POWER: A CONTEMPORARY RE-VIEW OF LAURENCE OLIVIER’S RICHARD III

    

Author:

Manuel Casas Guijarro

Institution:

Universidad de Sevilla

E-mail:

mancasas@yahoo.es       

ABSTRACT


            Laurence Olivier’s Richard III (1955) proposes a critical reflection on the totalitarian power of monarchy together with the corrupting force that power has to subdue and allure the human being. Olivier transcends the Shakespearian historical account to present a filmic production strongly based on the character of Richard, his relation with the spectator and the ambivalent attitude of the “conspiring friend” and the “Machiavellian plotter”. 

 

           Moreover, the film enables a re-view from a post-structuralist perspective so that a complex web of psychoanalytical and political intertexts blend, presenting a vision of the human being associated with that of Hobbes’ Leviathan, the totalitarian threat of the Nazi empire or the vision of power presented by contemporary filmic enterprises, as the Lord of the Rings, by Peter Jackson. Richard’s crown, as the ring for Tolkien, embodies the epitome of absolute power to subdue all living creatures on earth, seducing the human being to the point of consuming body and intellect.
 
PANEL FILM STUDIES