Pacino LFR & Shakespeare

[changeuponchange]

Hey everyone, so in class we were given an essay: " How does Pacino’s LFR reveal the resonances and dissonances between texts from different historical contexts? In your response, you should consider the relationship between texts, contexts, and values and how they shape meaning." Its a pretty easy question for me to take on but what I'm struggling with is with what direction I should take to answer this question.

[Pearlmilktea]

Hey!!

Sorry I only just saw this post! Although you’ve probably written the essay I still thought you’d maybe still be looking for possible themes to look at.
Please excuse how rusty my answer may be - I haven’t really looked at my notes in a while and have holiday brain haha

I think for me I’d firstly focus on what the specific contexts were- so Elizabethan England vs 1990s America/ New York. This presents one prominent point of discussion imo. Theocentric society vs secular society.
You could really flesh out the significance of religion in RIII and what impact it has on the characters / impact of being religious or non religious.

Then you could discuss the evolving nature of religion and lack thereof in the secular New York. Impact of this? Audience effect etc.

Then also with context you could talk about evolving meaning of the text / challenges with contemporary audiences resonating with and understanding the play e.g. Replacing G with a C in LFR so contemporary audiences could easily see the proprophecies related to Clarence. You could also discuss what this means in terms of integrity of the play and text.

Also could talk about accessibility of Shakespeare - which classes / cultures have previously accessed it and why? What barriers has this created and how has Pacino and LFR tried to combat this?

Hope this helps! These are ideas I would add but it’s really subjective

Also I recommend getting a State Library card so you can access the eresources as they have fantastic critical articles - even comparative ones on the two texts!!

[KC181]

Hello there!
You’re probably already finished with this but I guess I’ll still reply for future reference. So Pearlmilktea gave a lot of great ideas so I’m just gonna add onto it.

This question - and the whole module itself - heavily rely’s on the purpose of Shakespeare and Al Pacino. This purpose is shaped by their texts, contexts and values which the purpose itself I guess is the meaning.

Shakespeare’s purpose = cautioning audience about defying the natural order
Al Pacino’s purpose = making Shakespeare and his ideas more accessible to a modern American public.

The main resonance between the two is that idea of human nature and both texts still explore that because fundamentally humans still haven’t exactly changed. We still have flaws. However, dissonances, include medium (play vs film) and representation of ideas or characters etc. For example, Richard III in Shakespeare is portrayed as simply vile and evil, however Al Pacino portrays Richard as more dimensional. This fits with context because during Shakespeare’s time religion was prevalent and therefore there was mostly good vs evil. But modern audiences don’t appreciate it as much, they prefer characters with complexity which is why Pacino chooses to focus more on Richard’s mental state and essentially ‘psychologically examine’ him.

In the end it all relates to purpose! Shakespeare making Richard fully evil only emphasises his point that justice will always prevail. Meanwhile Al Pacino creating a complex character out of Richard gathers the attention more of modern American audiences who like that stuff - his purpose.

Hope this helps and sorry for the lengthy response!