As you watch the documentary, fill out this viewing guide. The larger font questions are about the documentary. The faller font questions are about the play they are discussing, Richard III.

1. What is special about the play Richard III?

2. Who is in the audience watching Al Pacino trying to do Richard III?

3. Why do American actors think they can't do Shakespeare?

4. What does Kenneth Branaugh say is wrong with the way Shakespeare is taught?

5. How do experienced, classical actors handle doing Shakespeare?

6. What is iambic pentamenter? Why is it important?

7. When the play begins, who is the king of England?

8. What is Richard's objective?

9. How does Clarence's name (George) cause trouble for him?

10. How do the laws of primogeniture cause problems for Richard?

11. Explain the irony in Richard's line:
"Poor Clarence...I love thee so that I will send thy soul to heaven."

12. Why don't we need to understand every single word of Shakespeare's plays?

13. Why is the Queen so worried about her husband's imminent death?

14. Who is old Queen Margaret and why does she go around cursing everyone?

15. Whom does Margaret call a "poisonous, bunch-backed toad" and an "elfish, abortive hog"?

16. How does Margaret feel about Richard?

17. What problems do Al Pacino and his crew have when they try to film their documentary on location in England and New York?

18. Why does Al Pacino cast Winona Ryder as Lady Anne?

19 What does Richard say to Anne to seduce her?

20. What does Richard mean when he says "I'll have her, but I will not keep her long."

21. What is Richard's warning to the hired murderers before they "visit" Clarence?

22. Why don't the murderers stab Clarence while he sleeps? Explain the irony in this.

23. During the murder scene, why has everyone else been summoned to the King?

24. What terrible thing does Clarence find out before he dies?

25. How does Clarence almost make Richard's warning come true?

26. How does the news of Clarence's execution hasten the death of Edward?

27. Who is Richard's main ally?

28. Why do Richard and Buckingham go to Ludlow?

29. Why does Richard put the princes in the Tower of London?

30. Why is Hastings a threat to Richard?

31. Who is Mistress Shore?

32. What is the barrier to American actors who play Shakespearean roles?

33. Explain the irony in Hastings' line about Richard being in a good mood.

34. What pretext does Richard use to have Hastings executed?

35. What lie do Richard and Buckingham spread to get the people's loyalty?

36. Why does Richard, even after he's crowned King, want the little princes dead?

37. How does Buckingham anger Richard and turn him into a deadly enemy?
38. What does Richard do when Buckingham tries to claim the Earldom that Richard had promised him?

39. Whom is Richard now worried about? Why?

40. The night before the battle, Richmond prays and Richard yells at his men. How do these two speeches before they meet point up the differences in the two men?

41. What happens to Richard on the eve of the Battle of Bosworth?

42. Why do you think Shakespeare included a scene like the one above?

43. Why did Al Pacino go to the old theatre where Richard III had been performed 300 years earlier?

44. What was Richard III's symbol? How was his death ironic?

45. What is Shakespeare's reaction to the end of the documentary?