King_Richard_III

King Richard III Ian McKellen adapted William Shakespeare’s play Richard III to a film so that it would appeal to a mass film audience at the decade of screening. Shakespeare is considered to any modern day audience like a foreign language. From its deep and complicated plot development, to the strange and old-fashioned medieval settings, themes and costumes, a mass film audience would not find these aspects very engaging if they were to be maintained. The film directed by Ian McKellen is a version of Richard III in which the text is entirely Shakespeare’s, although edited, but the context is modern and recognisable. In order to adapt the play into a film appropriate to a mass film audience, certain amendments were made by Ian McKellen to the settings, major themes portrayed, language used, characters and dramatic techniques applied. The most evident alteration made by McKellen to be addressed is that of the setting and major themes portrayed. The film is driven away from medieval England and transformed into the setting of a fascist Great Britain during the period of 1930’s. This is fitting, as there are parallels linking the story told in Shakespeare’s work and the European political scene at the time. The film, mckellen, audience, scenes, script, play, mass, text, richard, techniques, modern, period, iii, characters, appeal, way, time, through, portrayed, out, language, dramatic, visually, twentieth-century, sex, settings, scene, rivers, richard’s, medieval, marriage, make, made, elizabeth, violence, very