Toward the beginning of Al Pacino's Looking for Richard, the star, who is about to go on as Richard III, peeps through the curtain of a small theater to find an audience of one: William Shakespeare. "Fuck" exclaims the actor uniambically. He's right to be concerned, because Looking for Richard, despite Pacino's eagerness to communicate his enthusiasm for the Bard, shortchanges him. Vanya on 42nd Street, the casual rehearsal atmosphere aside, is at heart a brilliant enactment of Uncle Vanya. Richard, by contrast, is described as being "in the vein of Truffaut's Day for Night or Fellini's 8-1/2." Indeed, this documentary about the actor's process does more looking at Pacino (often got up in a Scent of a Woman baseball cap) than looking for Richard.

There are some priceless, and some insightful, moments in the film, which includes snatches of conversation with, in addition to Pacino's cronies, Sir John Gielgud, Kenneth Branagh, and Vanessa Redgrave. (I particularly like the ramble in which iambic pentameter is compared to an anteater.) There are even moments in the stolid if furious Richard III film-within-the-film when Pacino (who first played Richard in Boston, under the direction of David Wheeler) is good in a leering, thuggish way. But it doesn't help that the memory of Ian McKellen's delicious fascisto Crookback is so fresh, or that Winona Ryder is so out of her depth as Lady Anne. Moreover, with all of the kibitzing and analysis (even a visit to Shakespeare's birthplace!), the juggernaut of Richard III is lost. And with the stubble being sported by Pacino, Harris Yulin, and Alec Baldwin, the sons of York look more like the Beans of Egypt, Maine. Screens Saturday at the Kendall Square at 5:30, 7:45, and 10 p.m., and on Sunday at noon and 2:15 and 5 p.m.