Voyeurism in Richard III Gianna Rufo College

The villainous character of Richard III creates an intimate relationship with his audience by giving them a voyeuristic window into his most private moments. This sense of voyeurism is important to recognize when analyzing Richard’s character due to his lustful relationship with power and romanticization of violence. Richard Loncraine's film adaptation of Shakespeare’s play heightens this sense of closeness with Richard by breaking the fourth wall between Ian McKellen’s character and the film’s audience. Loncraine’s focus on the element of voyeurism and the sexual and sadistic element of Richard III’s character create the allusion of an intimate relationship with between the actor and the individual viewer, which explains the attractiveness and likability of Richard despite his deplorable behavior.

Shakespeare invites the audience to listen in on Richard’s most private thoughts; Loncraine takes this element of the play a step further by allowing the audience to feel as if they are directly interacting with him in his film adaptation. Loncraine begins to build this relationship between the viewer and Richard in the first scene where we hear Richard’s breathing over the rest of the audio in the background (3:02). In order to...