The film without the cuts. And the book itself.
In the winter of peace, the deformed Richard announces his plot to claw his way to the throne — and woos a widow over her husband’s corpse.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester / King Richard III
A smiling brother who tells the audience he has chosen to become a villain.
London streets
A public road where mourning, fear, and murder plots pass each other in broad daylight.
Shut out from love and joy, Richard turns his bitterness into calculated evil.
Read →Determined To Prove A Villain
RICHARD. Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this son of York; And all the clouds that loured upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths, Our bruised arms hung up for monuments, Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings, Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front; And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber To the lascivious pleasing of a lute. But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamped, and want love’s majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time Into this breathing world scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them— Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun, And descant on mine own deformity. And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain, And hate the idle pleasures of these days. Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous, By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams, To set my brother Clarence and the King In deadly hate the one against the other; And if King Edward be as true and just As I am subtle, false, and treacherous, This day should Clarence closely be mewed up About a prophecy which says that “G” Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be. Dive, thoughts, down to my soul. Here Clarence comes.
Richard builds a false either/or and dares us to catch it. The whole speech first paints the new peace as one long dance, then swings on "But I" to shut himself out of it: his body cannot "caper nimbly in a lady's chamber," so, he reasons, "since I cannot prove a lover... I am determined to prove a villain." Those are not actually the only two choices, and the word "determined" hides a second meaning under the first: he sounds like a man freely deciding, but he also blames "dissembling nature" for shaping him into this, as if the villainy were settled before he chose it. The giveaway is that the plots are already running ("Plots have I laid") while he speaks, so the tidy explanation is a mask he is trying on, and he drops it the instant Clarence appears.
Determined to Prove a Villain
In the winter of peace, the deformed Richard announces his plot to claw his way to the throne — and woos a widow over her husband’s corpse.
The crown
A circlet of power passed from a dying king, to a false saint, to a battlefield victor.
Lady Anne
A widow curses her husband’s killer beside a coffin and leaves wearing his ring.
King Richard III
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