1944 Laurence Olivier Production

This work, often considered one of the most influential films in the history of Shakespeare on screen, was directed by Laurence Olivier, who also starred as the title character. The film also featured Leslie Banks as the Chorus; Gerald Case as the Earl of Westmoreland; Griffith Jones as the Earl of Salisbury; Nicholas Hannen as the Duke of Exeter; Michael Warre as the Duke of Gloucester; Ralph Truman as Montjoy, the French Herald; Frederick Cooper as Corporal Nym; Roy Emerton as Lieutenant Bardolph; Robert Newton as Ancient Pistol; Freda Jackson as Mistress Quickly; Harcourt Williams as King Charles VI of France; and Max Adrian as the Dauphin.

Roger Manvell, in his 1971 book Shakespeare and the Film, noted the movie’s “great prestige success” when it was first released; wrote that its “warmth and virility, as well as its nationalistic emotionalism, suited the buoyant mood of wartime Britain”; and commented that “its rich colours and rousing music stirred the imagination” (38). He discussed the film’s varied settings (from realistic to more obviously artistic); observed the debt of “the backgrounds and costumes” to illuminations “shown in such detail in the mediaeval illustrations for the Calendar of the Book of Hours of the Duke of Berry”; and remarked that “[m]any of the sets directly reproduce the shallow stylized perspective of these paintings and miniatures, bringing their own striking theatric quality to the environments in which the action played, the characters appearing like figures moving in a three-dimensional painting” (39).

Discussing this production in his 1977 study titled Shakespeare on Film, Jack Jorgens called it a “classic among Shakespeare films” as well as the “first to be both an artistic and a popular success.” Citing its “unique blend of realism and artifice,” he wrote that it “is brimming over with high spirits, bustling with activity, and full of shifts in mood, fluid motion, and changes in color and texture” (122). Jorgens admired “Olivier’s robust recreation of the Globe” Theatre; the ways the fellowship in the theatre’s audience foreshadows the fellowship among Harry and his men; the memorable ways in which various characters are depicted; and the ways the static French are differentiated from the active English (123–24). Praising the film’s variety of tones, especially during and after the battle of Agincourt (127), Jorgens commended Olivier’s appealing performance (128) while also remarking that although “Olivier’s Henry is not a portrait of much depth, he does convey the king’s discovery of his growing verbal and political power” (129). He enjoyed “the clarity and energy with which the verse is spoken unashamedly as verse, but without the dull incantation that plagues many English productions”; extolled the way the film’s “visual style and music are in complete harmony” (130); and admired the way the film is structured as a “play within a play” by “enclosing it in a frame” (131). Jorgens wrote that the “quasi-allegorical nature of the film is reflected in the emblematic scene in which an Englishman, an Irishman, a Welshman, and a Scotsman—each wearing an appropriate emblem—resolve to fight for Henry despite their differences” (131), perhaps in a way relevant to the Allied war effort against Nazi Germany.

Discussing this production in a 1978 essay titled “‘Henry V’: Myth, Movie, Play,” Gorman Beauchamp wrote that “[i]n only one instance that I know of … has a film been taken as validation of the dramatic effectiveness of [a] play itself”: Olivier’s Henry V. Suggesting that the play had “never been one of Shakespeare’s more popular,” Beauchamp argued that while admirers assumed the film “to be a reasonably full and fair representation of the play Shakespeare wrote, … in fact, it is not” (228). He contended that because the film “distorts its nominal source so radically and tendentiously, its success—critical and popular—tells us nothing, really, about Shakespeare’s play; and thus the attempt of the heroic-myth partisans to employ it as a weapon in a critical controversy must be decisively rejected. Shakespeare’s Henry V, considered whole and sequentially, is not heroic, and the superfluous heroics of Olivier’s Henry V are simply irrelevant to any sort of scholarly consideration of the play itself” (236–37).

Meanwhile, Anthony Davies, in his 1988 book Filming Shakespeare’s Plays, saw Olivier’s Henty V as in part “a cinematic treatise on the difference between cinema and theatre as media for the expression of drama” (26). He then discussed the film’s influence on later stage productions, its treatment of the Battle of Agincourt, the ways the cameras dealt with matters of space; the movement from theater to “realistic” depictions; its use of music, colors (such as red and blue) and imagery (such as water imagery); and its similarities to filmed westerns (26–37).

In his 1989 book Shakespeare, Cinema, and Society, John Collick noted Olivier’s debts to silent films (47); the ways he simplified “the character of King Henry by removing any speeches that cast doubt on either his character or his motives”; the ways he celebrated “an idealised ‘common people’” (49); but also the ways “stylistic inconsistencies” sometimes “undercut the unity of the film, transforming it into a jumble of different structures” (49). Collick discussed the elevated way in which the play’s speeches are spoken; the ways “the spoken word” sometimes “sits awkwardly with the images and in many cases, illustrates, rather than integrates with, the film”; and the ways in which “the oscillation between the fantasy world of the play and the Globe stage draws our attention away from the problematic content of some of the poetry, while rationalising the fact that all the characters speak in highly stylised and often incomprehensible verse,” so that sometimes the text is “used in the same way as the title cards of the silent films: as indications of, or accompaniments to, a visual narrative or episode” (50). Ultimately, Collick asserted that “Olivier’s Henry V contains all those qualities that characterised British Shakespeare production in the Victorian and Edwardian plays and films” (50).

In 1990, in his book Shakespearean Films/Shakespearean Directors, Peter Donaldson discussed Olivier’s Henry V by focusing on “its treatment of gender and its recasting, in cinematic terms, of Shakespeare’s posing of the problem of representation” (1). He argued that in this movie, “in contrast with the playhouse scenes, ‘real’ women are associated with an emotional depth, seriousness, and compassion beyond the range of boy players. But,” he continued, “their presence also goes with a muting of the bawdiness and sexual punning of the text” (9). Donaldson felt that the film “also intimates an integration of the feminine within the king’s personality” (14), so that the “violence of war and the manifestation of that violence in the king’s character are softened and replaced by chivalry, humane reluctance to do injury, and warm and nurturant affection for the troops” (15), with Olivier often combining “great [masculine] confidence and power with [feminine] gentleness,” with the “gentle side … most fully developed, perhaps, in the campfire scene in which the disguised king goes among his soldiers” (16). Donaldson added, however, that although the film “does not question the cultural construction of these [gender] traits but takes them as given” (18–19), it nevertheless “presents the usually rigid boundaries between genders as permeable,” an “achievement” he considered “significant” (19). Relating Olivier’s treatment of gender to developments in Olivier’s own life (21–23), Donaldson concluded that the film’s “final tableau, [depicting] a marriage of male lead and boy actor, evokes the specific terms of Laurence Olivier’s [personal] assumption of an adult male identity” (25). Meanwhile, discussing the film in his 1991 book Still in Movement: Shakespeare on Screen, Lorne Buchman argued that in Henry V, “Olivier maintains a level of illusion so that his film can act as the same kind of trigger for active imagining as Shakespeare’s open stage. In Olivier’s second phase of action, space expands cinematically, but the persistence of a theatrical backdrop always holds that expansion in check” (88).

Commenting on the film in his 1991 book Screening Shakespeare from Richard II to Henry V, Ace Pilkington regretted the failure of some previous critics “to examine the film and its shooting scripts in detail” as well as “the misleading expectations [some] critics brought to their viewings of both the play and the film” (100). Pilkington reported that as Olivier “gave his material its final shape for the film,” he “consistently reduced the violence” and in fact “almost eliminated it in many cases” (103), adding that if “there is no clear sense of an enemy in the film, if there is no exact parallel with Germany, if war and its attendant violence are subordinated to other concerns, it is because Olivier has deliberately made it so” (104). Pilkington felt that, ultimately, “Olivier’s battle scenes are, like their Shakespearean theatrical counterparts, an illusion. And Olivier, like his source, has drawn attention to the illusion from the beginning” (107). Pilkington noted that, “[a]mong many other firsts, [Olivier’s Henry V] was the first Shakespeare film to be made in color, the first to achieve both critical and commercial success, the first to reverse the usual close-up pattern at the climax of a big speech, the first to use period artwork as the inspiration for scenic design, and, of course, the first to look behind the scenes and pose questions about theatrical and filmic conventions,” adding, “It was also the first film that helped to form the critical background of a Shakespeare play” (110). Cutting the number of lines from 3199 to 1505 (111) and using the film to celebrate Englishness by providing an “homage to Shakespeare” (114), Olivier, according to Pilkington, made his audience feel “compelled to adopt the questing, questioning viewpoint of the camera, to look behind the characters at the actors and behind the scenes at the machinery, to look, in effect, through a twentieth-century lens and then to use that same lens to peer into a mirror” (115).

Pilkington felt that Olivier “probably wanted an unfunny Falstaff” who would not distract from more important issues (117); that “we are not allowed simply to sentimentalize the Boar’s Head crew”; that “Hal’s rejection of Falstaff is still a necessity for a king”; and that the film does not imply that “the fairy-tale ending brought about by English victors and French reconciliation has changed all things and all men for the better” (119). According to Pilkington, “[b]oth the play and the film are at pains to intellectually distance their audiences from the material they present while at the same time asking more emphatically than usual for imaginative and emotional participation” (120). “Thus, Henry’s victories … are not so much the result of his own strength as of the strength he draws from his soldiers and his other audiences” (124). Finally, commenting on the mixture of fantasy and realism in the courtship scene and on Henry’s mixture of roles in that courtship (125), Pilkington argued that Henry is performing for Katherine “as he has been (and is) performing for us. His rough French and exuberant English ask for the love and agreement he now has the power to demand. It is yet another demonstration of the power of shared imagination” (125).

In a 1994 essay titled “The Function of Battle Imagery in Kurosawa’s Histories and the Henry V Films,” Michael Manheim claimed that Olivier emphasizes Henry’s heroism but also shows him as a “very self-aware politician” (132), while in another essay from the same year—this one titled “The English History Play on Screen,” Manheim argued that Olivier’s Henry seems a Machiavellian manipulator in various ways, especially in the Salic law episode, in the theatricality of the opening scenes, and in the general artificiality of the three different settings, none of which seems truly realistic (122–25).

William P. Shaw, in another essay published in 1994 (“Textual Ambiguities and Cinematic Certainties in ‘Henry V’”), wrote that “[m]ost twentieth-century critics have abandoned the prevailing view of earlier critics that Shakespeare’s characterization of Henry V is unequivocally favorable; they believe instead that Henry V is riddled with ironies and ambiguities that undermine the traditional image of Henry as the ‘Mirror of Christian Kings.’” According to Shaw, “A number of these critics, however, are perplexed as to why these ambiguities seem incapable of performance.” Shaw therefore examined “(1) why the ambiguity that critics perceive as they read Henry V is usually absent in performance, and (2) why the ambiguity is specifically absent from Olivier’s and Branagh’s film versions of the play. And,” he continued, “since the source of the ambiguity in Henry V resides primarily in a few politically sensitive passages in 1.1 and 1.2, I will concentrate on these two scenes, believing the force of the ambiguity in performance will either be felt or diminished by virtue of the production’s performance text and actors’ signalling devices (i.e., control of tone, movement, facial and vocal expression, gesture, reaction, and use of silences) in these two crucial and pivotal scenes” (117). Shaw concluded that the “Olivier and Branagh films … preferred the sharper, simpler image of ‘the Mirror of Christian Kings’ to the blurred, more complex image reflected in Shakespeare’s words. The films, wonderful as they are in their own right, confine us to a ‘single gestalt’ and consequently remove Shakespeare’s ambiguity as a technique and as a theme” (125).

James N. Loehlin, in his 1996 book on the play (part of the Shakespeare in Performance series [25–48]), while commenting that in “the 1960s and 1970s critics began” to emphasize the “film’s ‘propagandistic’ purpose and the extent to which it neutralised the (newly rediscovered) darker aspects of Henry’s character,” also noted that more recent critics have begun “asserting that the film’s primary concern is not with war and patriotism but with the nature of theatrical and cinematic art” (27). Loehlin considered this production “brilliant and sophisticated,” saying that, “while carrying over the play’s exploration of roleplaying and reality in an exciting and original way,” it “nevertheless presents a progression toward the unity, in an ideal Henry, of an ideal England.” According to Loehlin, while Olivier often “acknowledges the [original text’s] divisions and complexities,” the film works to reconcile those divisions (play/history, theatre/cinema, King/common man, war/peace, England/France, even, perhaps, male/female) in the figure of Henry/Burbage/Olivier, who emerges unbesmirched as the “Star of England” (28). Loehlin offered much discussion of the opening scenes, including the comic Salic law episode, as well as much plot summary and discussion of the specific treatment of particular episodes. For example, he thought France is presented as beautiful but weak; that the film shows a “diverse and inclusive English society taking on the snooty French”; but that the very “elegance and beauty of the French … make them a desirable addition to the English mixture” (38). He admired the film’s frequent juxtaposition and balance of tones (40); the ways Henry is made to “suggest a uniquely English notion of grace and courage” (41); and the way the Battle of Agincourt episode is “lightly cut and given disproportionate importance compared to its status in the original text” (42). According to Loehlin, allusions to typical cinematic fights between the “good guys” and “bad guys” of the sort often found in Western films make the English seem to deserve victory and indeed make their victory seem almost inevitable (45). The battle scenes were “shot only on sunny days to give the scenery and costumes the greatest possible brilliance” (46) and in fact “Olivier’s film looks back to the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century tradition of [Henry as] a faultless hero; but it goes beyond [that tradition] in its self-conscious treatment of the film medium and in its inclusion of some hints of a darker, more modern reading, notably in the sombre [moments] of Falstaff’s death and Agincourt Eve.” Yet Loehlin considered this “an almost entirely positive film,” saying, “rather than a tub-thumper about the English crushing the evil French, it is much of the time a vision of England’s virtues in peace as well as war” (48).

In a 1997 essay titled “Shakespeare’s Kingly Mirror: Figuring the Chorus in Olivier’s and Branagh’s Henry V,” Derek Royal noted that the “Choruses of both films make their last appearances as does Shakespeare’s, in the closing moments of the play. As with the prologue of act four,” Royal thought that “the issue of omission here becomes an important part of the Choruses’ representations. Olivier cuts the reference to Henry the Sixth, but such an omission does not conflict with his ideological intent. Branagh, on the other hand, keeps the epilogue in its entirety, but the effect that it should have on the viewer is not at all clear” (109).

Kenneth Rothwell, discussing Olivier’s Henry V in his important 1999 A History of Shakespeare on Screen, asserted that this “movie not only launched, indeed invented, the modern Shakespeare film, but also showed that the Shakespeare movie could survive in the Palace theatre as well as in the rarified art houses,” adding that “Olivier created a cinematic equivalent to the tantalizing ambiguities that reside in the Shakespearean vision of King Henry V” (52). Noting that the film draws on Shakespeare’s two Henry IV plays as well as on Henry V (52), Rothwell commented that in order to “work as good jingoism, [Henry V] had to be sanitized” not only “by deleting his ‘war crimes,’ such as the obscene threats before the French city of Harfleur” but also by adopting a conservative view of British history (53), although he thought that “the movie still finds some room, however tangentially and tentatively, for the young king’s ethical quandaries” (53) and for the ethical unease he creates in some interpreters. Suggesting that the “enduring value” of Olivier’s Henry V “arises out of its consummate artistry as a film,” Rothwell wrote that it “consciously bridges the gap between theatre and film” (54) and also effectively integrates music and action in the battle scene as Eisenstein had done with the music of Prokofiev in Alexander Nevsky (55). He observed that “[a]fter the battle, like a film run backwards, the same transitions from realism to fantasy and then back to realism occur in reverse order”—just one of many ways in which Olivier “created a great film” (56). On the other hand, in her 2000 book Interpreting Shakespeare on Screen, Deborah Cartmell suggested that the Olivier film accorded “with the dominant Shakespeare critics of the period: he rewrites (or interprets) the play as right-wing propaganda, a reworking which is still prevalent in Shakespeare’s place within the English national curriculum” (98), although a page later she admitted that this view might be “unjust to Olivier” (99).

Commenting on the film in his 2000 overview titled Shakespeare on Screen (42–45), Daniel Rosenthal revealed that Olivier’s “Henry V would eventually cost £475,000, 50 per cent more than the original budget, and, up to that point, the largest sum ever spent on a British feature,” adding that “Olivier used his budget to fashion a stylized and sanitized Technicolor vision of medieval heroism, which feels like three films rolled into one. An amusing simulation of spare Elizabethan stagecraft gives way to more elaborate, fairy-tale scenery and performances, as Olivier’s righteous monarch in shining armour is opposed by sneering, caricatured villains. Then this story-book treatment is spectacularly interrupted by the epic, open-air realism of the Agincourt battle.” Rosenthal liked the first half-hour the best, disliked the simplistic depiction of the French (calling them “lame villains”), and wrote that “the buildup to Agincourt lacks tension,” adding that the “battle itself is a magnificent spectacle, but less involving than it should have been” (42–43). He concluded that the “propaganda element is most noticeable in what Olivier omits: namely all of the incidents which, in the play, take the gloss off Henry’s heroic sheen” (44). On a related note, Douglas Brode, in his 2000 book Shakespeare in the Movies, similarly compared Olivier’s Battle of Agincourt to “a Cecil B. DeMille spectacle,” featuring “panoramic views of brightly colored, magnificently armored knights fighting valiantly under a clear blue sky” without much focus on the psyches of the fighters (80) and with treatment of Henry as “a lofty hero to his faceless troops, an inspirational leader transforming simple clay into a fighting force” (81).

More detailed commentary came from Michael Anderegg in his 2004 book Cinematic Shakespeare (34–40), when he asserted that even when “viewed more than fifty years after its initial release, Henry V, perhaps the most accomplished and certainly one of the most ambitious British films to that time, remains a bold, courageous experiment, one that looks back to silent films with its obvious cardboard sets, forced perspective, and expressionist performance styles, at the same time that it looks forward to the postmodern.” He considered the scenes featuring the Globe Theatre among the film’s most “‘cinematic’ … in the sense that they aim at a documentary-like re-creation of Shakespeare’s stage in a manner that resembles the studio-bound, historic films familiar both in British cinema and in Hollywood” (36). Noting the film’s combination of styles, places, and times (37), Anderegg considered it a work about the problem of trying to film such a play. He thought the Globe scenes quickly outwore their welcome and that the shift to the next phase involved “a kind of prettified expressionism” (38), concluding that, in “mixing styles, periods, and levels of mimesis, Henry V evokes a number of distinctive genres: it is at once a faux documentary of the Elizabethan theater, a medieval pageant, and an action adventure in the Hollywood mode” (39). Like some other critics, Anderegg found the French (except the constable) too foolish to be believed (39) but nicely summed up his overall views by saying that “[f]ar from simply making a wartime propaganda film,” Olivier was both “honoring Shakespeare and simultaneously promoting himself as the world’s premier Shakespearean actor. He attempted,” Anderegg continued, “to balance theater and film, realism and artifice” while also “making a Shakespeare film that at the same time commented on the challenges involved in making a Shakespeare film. In producing an art film aimed at a popular audience, he was promoting both Shakespeare and the British cinema” (41).

In her 2004 book Shakespeare: From Stage to Screen Sarah Hatchuel discussed Olivier’s presentation of Henry’s wooing of Katherine, noting its uses of irony, juxtaposition with an earlier scene, cross-cutting, symmetry, music, and various other techniques (171–73), while in his 2006 book on Henry V (117–22), Kevin Ewert discussed the background and purposes of the film and the opening scenes (117–19); said that Olivier wanted viewers to feel cramped inside the Globe and then wanted a switch to something more realistic and modern (119); and wrote that the “softening of the characters involves both the French and English sides” (120). He felt that “[a]ny potential for conspiracy and bad faith in Act I, scenes i and ii [involving the churchmen] is drowned out by the slapstick” and that the “four national captains seem a good-natured lot” (120). He reported that half of the play’s lines were cut, including Henry’s “potentially nihilistic comment about breaking France all to pieces; everything regarding the three [aristocratic English] conspirators; the entirety of Henry’s threats before Harfleur; [and] everything about Bardolph’s plight, Pistol and Fluellen’s fight and Henry’s decision from Act III, scene vi.” Also missing are the reference to the murder (by Henry’s father) of Richard II and Henry’s own sense of inherited guilt as well as “the entire scene of Pistol and Le Fer; the order to kill the prisoners; all the glove business with Henry, Williams and Fluellen; and the names of the French dead” (120). Finally, other cuts involved “Henry and Burgundy’s off-colour jokes about Catherine” as well as “the bad news contained in the final Chorus. Most of the cuts,” Ewert asserted, “seem obvious considering the wartime context—no treachery at home, please, and we don’t need to see our leader wracked with guilt, and for heaven’s sake don’t tell us our great victory soon just falls apart.” But Ewert felt that “Olivier is also good at subtly pointing what remains to make the passage of the action even smoother” (120). Ewert found the battle of Agincourt almost too pretty; observed the lack of blood; and noted the “chivalric, one-on-one fight between Henry and the Constable where Henry wins the day decisively but bloodlessly.” He concluded by calling the film as a whole “good entertainment, and a compelling fantasy for anyone who, sitting in a London movie theatre in 1944, would wish to think about it in terms of the world outside,” when England was right in the midst of World War II (121).

In his 2007 book Studying Shakespeare on Film (140–46), Maurice Hindle praised Olivier’s Henry V as not just a propaganda piece but a skillfully made work of art (140). He noted the various omissions designed to make Henry seem a “benign and goodly king” (141); called it the “world’s first significant Shakespeare adaptation” (142); and commented on the ways Olivier plays with meta-cinematic devices (143–45). Suggesting that Olivier mocked some acting in the Globe theater to make his own film seem more effective by contrast (144), Hindle also discussed many particular shots and devices (144–46); called the Agincourt battle “the film’s really memorable centrepiece” (146); and admired the way Olivier’s production balances the “artificially ‘medieval’ and the dynamically real” (146).

Russell Jackson, in his 2007 study Shakespeare Films in the Making (70–126), offered a lengthy assessment of the Olivier Henry V, discussing its relevance to World War II; surveying prewar productions of the play, including one featuring Olivier; and commenting on war-time propaganda efforts, including the use of cinema for propaganda, such as wartime non-Shakespearean propaganda films. He described the financing of Olivier’s production, the filming locations, the development of the script, and the decision to structure it by using stories within stories. Jackson offered a detailed discussion of the actual film, scene-by-scene; commented on the need to be careful in characterizing the French; noted differences between the script and the final film; and described contrasts between Henry’s masculinity and the effeminacy of the French. Noting the generally positive reviews the movie received in England, he cited many such assessments and reported that some reviewers found the opening slow, the speech difficult to follow, the film insufficiently realistic, and its relevance to World War II debatable. Commenting on its reception in the United States, he discussed the difficulty marketing it there but cited James Agee’s especially positive review for Time magazine (70–126). Among Jackson’s more specific comments were his discussion of the ways “the scene in the English camp on the eve of Agincourt (iv.i)” has been interpreted, with some calling it “the heart of Olivier’s film, and Dudley Andrew propos[ing] it as the centre of a symmetrical arrangement of real and stylised techniques.” According to Jackson himself, “It certainly has great importance in the pattern of greater and lesser degrees of subjectivity in the camerawork,” so that in “the night scene Olivier for the first time places the camera unequivocally with Henry, implying that we are seeing with his eyes” (103). Later, Jackson suggested “a graduation of private and public behaviour in the central character, in which the privacy of the meditation on the eve of battle is the most intimate moment and (within the ‘core’ narrative) the orations at Harfleur and on the battlefield the most public” (107). Later still, he saw the film as a celebration of “the fundamental ‘English’ traits of commitment, pragmatism and modesty” (114). In contrast to Jackson’s detailed discussion, Samuel Crowl, in his 2008 Norton Guide, could only comment on the film in passing (see 9–11, 22–26, 36–37, 136–37, 170–72), observing that this production “began the great international phase of Shakespeare on film”; discussing Olivier’s multiple roles as director, actor, and coauthor of the script; saying the film emphasizes Henry’s heroism, unlike Shakespeare’s own more ambiguous depiction (9); and describing the film’s unusual opening and its use of Technicolor (9). Crowl called this production the “first commercially successful Shakespeare film” (10); discussed Olivier’s life and career, including how he transformed Shakespeare’s play into an inspiring war film (23, 136–37); and discussed the opening scene and the Agincourt episode (170–71). Also discussing the Olivier film briefly, Anthony R Guneratne, in his 2008 study titled Shakespeare, Film Studies, and the Visual Cultures of Modernity (56–58), observed that this work “combine[s] pictorial beauty with comedy, grandiose action, and rousing orators” (56); praised its effective music; and reported that it received mixed reactions from critics (56). He thought the long tracking shots illustrate film’s advantages over the stage (56–57); wrote that the “English become progressively more cinematic … while the French remained trapped” in medieval art (57); cited the work’s debts to various medieval and Renaissance artists (57); and cited as well the film’s powerful impact on American critic James Agee (58). Even more briefly, Russell Jackson, in his 2014 book Shakespeare and the English-Speaking Cinema, emphasized the focus on Olivier’s own physique in the courtship scene (25).

In her 2008 book Filming Shakespeare, from Metatheatre to Metacinema (116–19), Agnieszka Rasmus explained how Olivier uses the Chorus to facilitate transitions from one mode of representation to another (117) and cited various critics’ responses to these modes (118). She claimed the film is especially “cinematic” during the battles, with Henry as a kind of Western movie hero (118), and said it depicts various ways of performing Shakespeare (119).

Peter Cochran, in his 2013 book Small-Screen Shakespeare (34–35), called this film one of the most effective—if not the most effective—Shakespeare film ever made (despite its often-heavy cutting) because it is “so stylish and unified” (34). He thought the Globe scene particularly well done; admired the illuminated manuscript look of the transitional scenes; praised the battle scenes; and reminded readers that this was Olivier’s first attempt at directing (35). Suggesting that John Gielgud would have been a better Chorus, Cochran noted that he volunteered for the part, but thought that Olivier may have rejected him because he was intimidated by Gielgud’s acting skills (35).

Peter E. S. Babiak, in his 2016 study titled Shakespeare Films: A Re-evaluation of 100 Years of Adaptations (57–59) argued that Olivier’s use of zoom lenses makes the battle scenes seem almost theatrical (57); that this work is less “realistic” than earlier Shakespeare films (58); and that Henry is presented as “morally infallible” (58). Babiak quoted frequently from other critics (58–59); suggested that Olivier uses the Globe setting to question the propagandistic depiction of Henry (59); thought that the film “demonstrates and critiques the ability of the propaganda apparatus to conjure idealized images in the minds of members of the audience”; and contended that this film thereby foreshadowed Orson Welles’s Chimes at Midnight (59).

In her 2017 book Shakespearean Star: Laurence Olivier and National Cinema, Jennifer Barnes set the play in numerous contexts of its own time, drawing, for instance, on newspaper accounts of the impending production and on publicity materials used to promote the film. She stressed the ways the film was promoted as an example of the “British spirit” during World War II; noted the personal emphasis on Olivier in much of this material; reported on the contents of the publicity campaign booklet; discussed the film company’s efforts to compete in the US market; and emphasized the importance of this work as a representative of the British film industry (17–49).

1960 Age of Kings Productions

In 1960 the BBC broadcast a multiprogram series titled An Age of Kings based on many of Shakespeare’s history plays (see An Age of Kings elsewhere in this set). Critics often discuss the series as a whole, but sometimes they focus on individual episodes dealing with the relevant plays. For example, two of the programs—one titled “Signs of War” and the sequel titled “The Band of Brothers”—were based on Shakespeare’s Henry V. These programs starred William Squire as the Chorus; Robert Hardy as King Henry V; George A. Cooper as Pistol; Kenneth Farrington as Fluellen; Alan Rowe as King of France; John Warner as the Dauphin; George Selway as Constable of France; and Judi Dench as Katherine.

Commenting briefly on these productions and players, Peter Cochran, in his 2013 book Small-Screen Shakespeare (155–57), called Robert Hardy “superb” as Henry because of his powerful voice and sense of humor, although he noted that some of the character’s terrifying speeches are cut. He praised the comic dialects; admired Judi Dench as Katherine; faulted the final battle but praised Henry’s famous speech (156); and enjoyed the final tossing aside of a French dictionary. Cochran commended the actor playing the Chorus and indeed the whole production (157).

1979–80 BBC Shakespeare Production

Directed by David Giles, this production was first broadcast in Britain in 1979 and then in the United States in 1980. It starred Alec McCowen as the Chorus; David Gwillim as King Henry V; Martin Smith as Duke of Gloucester; Rob Edwards as Duke of Bedford; Tim Wylton as Fluellen; Paddy Ward as MacMorris; Michael McKevitt as Jamy; Ronald Forfar as Bates; David Pinner as Williams; Jeffrey Holland as Nym; Gordon Gostelow as Bardolph; Thorley Walters as Charles VI, King of France; Keith Drinkel as Lewis, the Dauphin; Julian Glover as the French Constable; and Jocelyne Boisseau as Katherine

Discussing “The Production” (18–25) in the booklet the BBC issued to accompany the initial broadcast of this adaptation, Henry Fenwick reported that script editor Alan Shallcross wanted to preserve as much of the play (one of Shakespeare’s longest) as possible, although he did trim from the Salic Law explanation and parts of the joking about leeks (18). The role of the Chorus meant that the production could be more stylized and less completely realistic than some other plays, although the Chorus’s speeches showed a more abstract setting than the others (19–20). Don Homfray, the set designer, decided to emphasize the play’s theatricalism, while Odette Barrow, the costume designer, wanted the clothes to be “realistic and accurate,” even in the treatment of banners and armor (20). Finding enough armor was difficult; she dressed the French court in “blues, greens, and gold” and the English in “beige, brown, and gold” (20–21). Producer Cedric Messina emphasized Henry’s somewhat harsh maturation from the Henry IV plays, especially in the Harfleur speech, and director David Giles commented that in repudiating Falstaff, Henry hardened himself—sometimes in unattractive ways—and repudiated part of his own earlier character (22–23). Giles argued that the play itself partly contradicts claims made by the Chorus, so that the Chorus presents an overly rosy picture of Henry and of Henry’s circumstances. Giles stressed Henry’s calculating nature and his concern with presenting himself in the most attractive light. And Giles also emphasized the importance of reading Henry V in light of both parts of Henry IV, especially the second part (23–24). Giles saw Henry V as much more public in orientation than the Henry IV plays, with Henry especially concerned about his public image (24). David Gwillim, as Henry, agreed that the Henry IV plays shed valuable light on Henry V, as in such moments as the revelation of Bardolph’s death. Thus, knowing all three plays helps emphasize the challenge Henry faces in Henry V. Gwillim noted Henry V’s emphasis on verse, in contrast to the prose of the Henry IV plays; he agreed that Henry in this play is much concerned with his public image—an image less positive than the Chorus suggests. Gwillim said he tried to portray a Henry suited to the 1980s (24–25).

In their 1988 anthology Shakespeare on Television, J. C. Bulman and H. R. Coursen described and quoted from various early reviews of the BBC broadcast. One reviewer called Henry V “the most chauvinistic and least interesting of [this tetralogy],” adding that “Henry in his public moments seems a great king but a hollow man.” Another critic thought that “Alec McCowen gave to the marvelous verse of the Chorus an intensity and suppressed excitement” but also thought that “David Gwillim’s playing of Prince Hal was not fulfilled in Henry V.” The reviewer for the New York Times called this production “[s]olid, unfussy, intelligent” and considered Jocelyne Boisseau, as Katherine, “a model of captivating innocence,” while the writer for the Los Angeles Times considered the broadcast “[s]olidly professional,” “[r]ather academic in approach, and a bit too stage-bound,” saying that “Gwillim’s [Henry] is underplayed and rather soft of tone and manner” (260).

Paul Cubeta, responding to the production in 1980 in the Shakespeare on Film Newsletter, wrote that “Gwillim is splendid playing a king whose inscrutable surfaces force his audience to judge whether his prayers before Agincourt are pieties or devotion, whether his self-pity as a man can exist without equivocation along with his tormented Lancastrian guilt” (4). Cubeta considered Gwillim “most persuasive in creating a unity of the double reflecting self of Henry as king and man, in a play that holds all contradictions in calculated equipoise,” but he thought that this production’s “Chorus plays an Alistair Cooke [known for introducing televised masterpieces] smugly providing exposition as though we couldn’t enjoy the play without his presumably indispensable commentary.” According to Cubeta, director “Giles is never intimidated by the Olivier movie, his monumental predecessor. He succeeds as Olivier did by making the medium express in its best mode what is available to each in Shakespeare’s text,” so that “entrances from various angles skillfully create the sense of larger spaces” in the battle scenes. Cubeta wrote that the “troubled vision of the ‘French Chorus’ Duke of Burgundy in showing a France suffering the horrors of war is somehow more effective than the chauvinistic pronouncements of the English Chorus” and that the “suggestive close-ups of Canterbury and Ely ostensibly kneeling in prayer while they plot political advantage bring the thematic paradoxes of the play theatrically alive in the opening moments” (5).

Ace Pilkington, in his 1991 book on the filmed history plays, wrote that “the central interpretation that emerges from [the BBC] film is Hal’s transformation from boy to king,” arguing that “[h]e could not have been played simply as Henry V without to some extent disavowing the BBC productions that had gone before.” Thus “the film focuses on Hal’s earlier life and on his past and present emotions in a way that is essentially foreign to many productions of Henry V.” Pilkington thought that the BBC production offered “a radically different approach from Olivier’s, where we first meet the actor-king as a fully formed personality” (87). Suggesting that the supposedly “less naturalistic sets … may have produced a feeling of greater freedom in relation to camera movement, a greater willingness to indicate the director’s presence,” Pilkington praised much of the production’s “precision,” especially since it was filmed in only six days. He admired Giles’s frequent use of meaningful “profile shots”; said the script was given “careful thinking and painstaking cutting, a matter of taking out lines here and there and. most often, of shortening the rhetoric of speeches”; and commented that perhaps “the most noticeable omission is the truncation of Henry’s threatening speech before Harfleur, so that most of the horrific details disappear” (89). Noting that Giles tried to avoid being influenced by Olivier’s film, Pilkington suggested that the director, influenced by recent criticism, sometimes made Henry seem too dark and made the Chorus seem too untrustworthy (90). But when commenting on the wooing scene, Pilkington thought that some of Henry’s language genuinely “suggests a young lover and not a playacting conqueror” (98–99).

James Loehlin, discussing the BBC production (72–83) in his 1996 book on Henry V, called this version “something of an oddity in the production history of the play. While it to some extent fits into the general twentieth-century development from patriotic pageant to anti-war analysis, it incorporates various heterogeneous elements that at first appear anachronistic and irreconcilable.” He wrote that its “fairly full text includes many episodes modern productions use to darken Henry’s character, yet its basic interpretation derives from mid-century criticism that approves Henry’s growth into an ideal king,” even though its “low-key, thoughtful Henry has the contemporary tendency to downplay patriotic rhetoric.” According to Loehlin, this “conflation of contradictory materials suggests something eclectic and challenging; it is a function of the production’s consummate blandness that the interpretation seems all of a piece” (72). Arguing that the BBC adaptation drew on the ideas of politically conservative mid-century critics who saw Hal as an ever-maturing potential and actual king (73), Loehlin felt that the production “only humanises and sentimentalises Henry,” making him seem heroic and failing to question the Chorus’s equally positive interpretation of his character (74), so that Hal seems mere “blandly noble” and “amiable” (75) and even the filming seems “extremely conventional, mostly in midshots with a static camera that occasionally zooms in for closeups.” He thought that this version revealed “the unsuitability of television as a medium for Shakespeare production,” partly because the “grey-white light and chilly, flattening quality of soundstage video drains all the life out of the actors, while the mid-to-close range of the recording makes the language seem grotesquely artificial” even as it also reveals the unappealing aspects of some actors’ faces (76). Although Loehlin did praise the effectiveness of the conspiratorial clergymen and the production’s good Fluellen, he felt that Henry’s “order to kill the [captured French] boys is spoken so quickly and blandly it almost goes unnoticed” (77) and that “David Gwillim’s Henry is a gentle soul who seems to have no capacity for atrocities” (78).

Loehlin argued that Gwillim, with “his slight build, wide mouth, big deep-set eyes and historically correct bowl haircut, … conveys a kind of earnest mediocrity, like a naive, idealistic young monk,” one who seems incapable of humor and one who seems only occasionally coldly cynical but who is more often presented in sentimental ways, as when he confronts the traitors in ways that make him seem actually sympathetic. Loehlin thought that Gwillim’s Henry seemed sometimes mawkish, sometimes genuinely sensitive, and sometimes simply odd in his line delivery (especially when besieging Harfleur; 78), but also often flat rather than truly complex (79). Loehlin called the “Harfleur threats … considerably cut,” adding that “those that remain are delivered in measured tones suggesting neither bottled brutality nor desperate bluff, merely the kind of puzzled earnestness that characterises many of Gwillim’s readings,” and although he seems more genuinely moved by news of Bardolph’s death, he “is quickly back to his smug good humour” and later is once “again unflappably cheerful and modestly confident” (79). Loehlin thought his “final speech with Williams … [is] this Henry’s best” (81).

According to Loehlin, the French king is presented as “a bumbling incompetent”; the “arrogance of the French men is offset by the grace and charm of the French women”; the English lesson scene “is delightfully played, but with no ominous undertones”; and the “fairly full text gives the women in the play more lines than they often get, but it doesn’t accord them any particular critical stance” (82). Objecting once again to the production’s generally positive view of Henry (much of it achieved through cuts to the text), Loehlin concluded that the production in general “offers few surprises or complexities” (82), being “neither original nor surprising” its “greatest fault [being] its bland smoothness, its apparent lack of contradiction, in spite of the manifold contradictions out of which it is built” (83).

Kevin Ewert, in his 2006 book on Henry V (122–24), likewise called the BBC version “bland, unexciting, and uninspiring,” although he thought “the opening speech by the Chorus may be its best feature” (122) and considered the scene with the clerics effectively done because it emphasizes real politics, whereas he found the rest of the opening weak. Mocking the inept performances of the tavern crew; dismissing Henry’s “tearful sense of betrayal” by his treasonous lords as resembling “soap opera”; and ridiculing the “raucous inhabitants” of the French court (123), Ewert also called the “Harfleur material … bland, with the more ugly of Henry’s threats cut, and … more coarse acting from a Fluellen whose comic shtick begs for a response that no laugh track is there to provide.” He considered the “language lesson … interminable”; found the “scene of the French camp the night before Agincourt” merely “boring”; and compared a scene with Fluellen to “second-rate Monty Python,” and even worse (124). To Ewert, Gwillim’s Henry seemed “understated, inoffensive, and not particularly forceful,” with “a light comedic, almost jokey energy to many of his big speeches,” such as the St. Crispin oration, where we seem to be “watching a Henry played by Hugh Laurie, or Hugh Grant.” Ultimately, Ewert wrote that this “production eschews judgement of Henry or his actions not through whitewashing cuts but through pedestrian choices and often noncommittal playing,” as in the Harfleur episode, the discussion with Williams, and the order to kill the French prisoners (124).

Similarly dismissive was Peter Cochran in his brief assessment in his 2013 book Small-Screen Shakespeare (157–58), who considered Gwillim ill-suited to play Henry V. Cochran found him unable to seem threatening or inspiring and disliked his facial expressions, his uncertain tone, and his shallow playfulness. He also found the Chorus and the whole production boring (157) and considered the final battle far too short (158).

1989 Kenneth Branagh Production

This film is widely credited with sparking the revival, in the 1990s, of major Shakespearean films. Directed by Branagh, it stars him in the title role, along with Paul Scofield as Charles VI, King of France; Derek Jacobi as Chorus; Ian Holm as Fluellen; Brian Blessed as the Duke of Exeter; Emma Thompson as Katherine; Judi Dench as Mistress Quickly; Michael Maloney as the Dauphin; and Richard Easton as the Constable of France.

Reviewing Branagh’s film in 1990 in an essay title “Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V: The Gilt [Guilt] in the Crown Reexamined,” Kenneth Rothwell wrote that the film “is, and will be recognized as, one of the outstanding Shakespeare movies of the century. Rooted in but not fettered to Adrian Noble’s 1984 Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production, it connects word and image without betraying either literary or cinematic values. The camera,” Rothwell continued, “does not merely record but probes into the text and subtext for meaning. The establishment, for example, of the heart-rending context for Bardolph’s hanging enlarges a few lines into a mini-essay on the duties and responsibilities of the prince,” and a “Branagh close-up [typically] lays bare the innermost feelings and motives of Shakespeare’s characters. Unlike Olivier’s Henry V, which was epic in scale and long in shot, Branagh’s film, without diminishment in power, is introspective and keyed to the mid or close shot” (173). Rothwell thought that a “measure of the movie’s power is the way that it invites us to go back to Shakespeare’s play and re-think its smallest implications. It helps us to see that Henry V, far from being an epic without dramatic conflict featuring an insensitive warrior-hero, as has often been said, can actually be a dynamic portrayal of a Hamlet-like conflict within the soul of a sensitive human being.” He predicted that “[l]ong after its current run in movie theaters, this thoughtful production will generate dialogue in classrooms not only about Shakespeare and his world but about our own world. Appearing near the end of the first century of filmed Shakespeare, it offers a bright prelude for the shapes that the genre may take in the twenty-first century” (178).

On the other hand, Curtis Breight, in a 1991 essay titled “Branagh and the Prince, or a ‘Royal Fellowship of Death,’” wrote that while “Olivier’s choice of Henry V, Shakespeare’s most patriotic play in the view of traditional conservative critics, also signals his subservience to the reigning powers of British society, … Branagh’s Henry V is more complex yet ultimately similar to Olivier’s representation of political power.” Breight thought that although “Branagh may actually feel that he has made an anti-war film, … his personal ambition has led him to construct a film ideologically conducive to Thatcherism [the ideas of Britain’s then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher].” According to Breight, “The explanation for Branagh’s schizophrenic Henry V lies in his autobiography entitled Beginning, which reveals that he divorced himself from one royal ‘patron’ (the Royal Shakespeare Company) only to find that he needed another—Prince Charles. Branagh’s careerism and need for patronage, curiously evocative of the conditions under which Elizabethan playwrights operated, involve subordinating any supposed ‘leftist critique and liberal pacifism’ about war to dubious overlapping ideologies conceivable as responsibility of leadership and militaristic brotherhood” (95–96).

In another essay from 1991, Dympna Callaghan, in “Resistance and Recuperation: Branagh’s Henry V,” argued that the new film tried to erase “deep, excoriating national divisions” between England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales in order to replace them, through Henry’s leadership, with a unified, “positive Britishness which becomes a moral virtue rather than a designation of national origin. Not only is this unionist position telling, given British imperialist policies in Northern Ireland [where Branagh was born], it is also a significant strategy which commodifies patriotism for a global market.” Thus, in “the battle scenes, the film’s confluence of imperialism and ‘realism’ is most vivid. Henry in spite of all adversity manages to reap moral and military victory —the lackadaisical troops, the interminable rain, fog and other misfortunes do not deter him.” According to Callaghan, “Branagh’s production … presents doubts and resistances only to incorporate them and enhance Henry’s sovereign power,” and “Branagh’s realist aesthetic further serves to suggest that film is capable of fully realizing the reactionary political project that Renaissance mimesis [imitation] was technically unable to discharge” (6).

In another essay from 1991—“Taking on Shakespeare: Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V”—Peter Donaldson wrote that “Branagh’s attempt at a ‘darker, harsher’ Henry V is more modernizing on its surface, more politically and ideologically wary” than Olivier’s film. “Deeply cognizant of ‘political’ and ‘alternative’ Shakespeares, Branagh,” according to Donaldson, “plumbs more of the play’s ironies, more fully engages the dissonance beneath the surface of Shakespeare’s epic history than Olivier does. But while Branagh is aware of the play’s severe interrogation of its own political premises, he also responds to the more affirmative, optimistic side of Henry V.” Thus, “Branagh begins as an avant-garde film artist, unmasking the cinematic apparatus in a move that parallels Shakespeare’s disjunctive treatment of the relation between epic history and its theatrical representation. But this critical stance undergoes a gradual aphanisis, or fading, in the course of the narrative, as Branagh moves from Brechtian counter-cinema to an affirmation of cinema’s traditional claim to present real people with authentic feelings; from cynicism about the war to something like acceptance of its tragic necessities” (71).

Samuel Crowl, in his 1992 book Shakespeare Observed (165–74), noted this film’s similarities to and differences from Olivier’s (166); observed that Branagh’s adaptation has been seen as less effusively patriotic than Olivier’s; reported that it was based on a preceding stage production directed by Adrian Noble (167); and observed that it provided insights into Henry’s “doubt, anger, rhetorical genius, [and] sense of humor” (168). Crowl commented on the emphasis, both in the film and in the stage production that preceded it, on such matters as “the weather, the intimacy and tension with which Henry confronts Scroop, the death of Bardolph, the metacinematic style, the emphasis on the killing of the boys, the singing of the ‘Non Nobis’ spreading through the company, and the comic playing of ‘here comes your father’ in the wooing of Katherine” (168). Reporting that Branagh wanted the film to be neither jingoistic nor cynically “anti-heroic,” Crowl explained that Branagh “was interested in Henry’s psychological complexity, his doubt and guilt,” adding that the gritty battle scene in Branagh’s adaptation differed from the one in Olivier’s version but resembled the one in Orson Welles’s Chimes at Midnight (171). He observed that the long battlefield tracking shot lasted “an incredible four minutes” and symmetrically ended with a return to a cart resembling the one from which Henry had spoken before the battle began, with the cart alluding to a similar cart in Olivier’s film. According to Crowl, Branagh “gives us neither the confident hero nor the anguished tyrant but a worker-king, more bulldog than greyhound, who puts his shoulder and body into the messy scrum of history and emerges … ritually cleansed, having achieved his final and most miraculous transformation as the film cuts from his battle-stained face at Agincourt to his freshly scrubbed one come wooing to the French court” (172). As the film ends, the Chorus “confides directly to us that the image of union [between Henry and Katherine, and thus England and France] we see over his shoulder will not last, as the great doors [with which the movie opened] slowly close to end the film” (173).

In a 1992 essay titled “Rabbits and Ducks: Olivier, Branagh, and Henry V,” Sara Munson Deats wrote that “Olivier and Branagh have produced two very different films for two very different times. Olivier shaped Shakespeare’s material into an emblematic fable of good against evil, a fable designed to inspire and sustain his own beleaguered island in its battle against a mighty foe. Branagh,” on the other hand, “has crafted a gory, realistic battle film for a disillusioned age wearied with wars and rumors of war. To achieve their contrary visions, both directors altered Shakespeare’s text, deleting and adding scenes and characters, while skillfully exploiting the resources of the camera to evoke the desired audience response. Neither film is Shakespeare’s play exactly as he wrote it, but both comment brilliantly on certain aspects of the text” (291).

Also publishing in 1992, in an essay titled “Playing the Game: Branagh’s ‘Henry V,’” Michael Pursell argued that “Branagh is clearly concerned not to return us to an idealized past but to a visibly constructed present. In this sense it is just wrong to suggest that the film lacks any political element. Presenting any event as the Great War”—as Pursell thinks Branagh does with the battles in this film—“is to construct it as negative and futile. Branagh goes one step further and visualizes Shakespeare’s [game-playing] metaphors to reveal the kind of thinking that was by no means unfamiliar in 1914. Or in 1991. Nor is it hard to see in the official English enthusiasm for war and the woefully inadequate task force a loose allegory of the Falklands conflict. Yet by moving that much closer in time … Branagh strays into potentially destabilizing territory.” According to Pursell, “The weeping-for-Bardolph Henry; the bareheaded I’m-one-of-the-lads Henry; the Olympic victor Henry; the damn-nearly-singing-St. Crispin’s Henry all suggest a dangerously seductive figure and an equally dangerous and seductive nationalism. Yet which discourse, the critical or the nostalgic,” Pursell asked, “is pulling which inside out? To put that another way, does the Vader image inform our view of Henry throughout, or is it rather a case of love on the rebound? By contrast with the Vader figure, the Henry of Agincourt looks positively human, his chicanery redeemed by his heroism” (274).

Finally, in another essay from 1992, this one titled “Theatrical Influences on Kenneth Branagh’s Film: Henry V,” Patricia Tatspaugh wrote that “Branagh’s Henry V is an important document to film—and theatre—historians. To the theatre historian Henry V is important because it offers the chance to study how a creative film director successfully modifies and incorporates concepts from recent stage productions. Branagh,” she continued, “records contemporary readings of Shakespeare’s character King Henry V through the eyes of the Chorus, who sees an episode in his country’s history from the vantage point of the late twentieth century; of Montjoy the French Herald, who watches King Henry as an outsider; and of Exeter, an insider, who guards his nephew Henry. Implicitly Branagh’s artistic vision reminds us that both theatre and film are collaborative.” She saw Branagh’s movie as “far more than a challenge, conscious or unconscious, to Laurence Olivier’s film,” adding, “As I watched Branagh’s film for the first time, I recognized the influence of recent stage productions” (280).

In another essay from 1993 (“The Siege Oration in Branagh’s Henry V”), E. A. Rauchut commented that when Branagh’s film is compared with Olivier’s, one notices that “Branagh includes Henry V’s speech before the gates of Harfleur, a scene conspicuous by its absence from Olivier’s version.” Rauchut sought “to throw some light on the historical background of Henry’s speech and, in doing so, to underscore Branagh’s skillful handling of it.” He explained that in military practice the “siege oration is largely a set piece, governed by the law of arms. Such a speech consists of two parts: an initial offer of peace and a denunciation that vividly describes the violence that will follow a rejection of the peace offer. Henry’s speech before the gates of Harfleur in Shakespeare’s Henry V conforms to this type, and Branagh stays close to Shakespeare’s text” (39). Rauchut concluded that “Henry’s effective rhetoric [ironically] renders his savage threats superfluous,” adding that this “is, of course, not the case in Holinshed [Shakespeare’s main source], where [the king’s] threats are carried out. [Henry’s] oration [in Shakespeare and Branagh instead] provokes a surrender, allowing him to consummate a bloodless siege, a general’s noblest victory” (39).

In an essay from 1994 titled “‘When Blood Is Their Argument’: Class, Character, and History-making in Shakespeare’s and Branagh’s Henry V,” Robert Lane argued that Branagh’s film removes “troubling implications [from the play], reversing the complexity and doubt Shakespeare evokes about masculinity in war. He cannot resist the seductive visual feast that battle affords the camera, the opportunity for spectacle, however ‘gritty’ and ‘realistic.’ His battle shots climax with a series of slow-motion close-ups of various individual soldiers, focusing on their faces in the midst of mortal combat. None show any trace of fear. Instead, the slow-motion style underscores the intensity of their effort, portraying them at the very limits of their capacities.” According to Lane, “Especially striking is the series’ random mixing of French and English soldiers whose nationality, because of the mud, cannot be identified. As the battle has progressed, the national identity of the participants has waned in importance, replaced by the shared quality of their ordeal, the mortal threat and the material obstacles of rain and mud that all endure together.” Lane thought that “[c]ombat thus takes on the character of a joint and communal enterprise. Friend and foe having become indistinguishable, the common—male—character of the conflict becomes ascendant,” and “Branagh confers on this masculine experience a beneficent force.” Whereas earlier the Dauphin had “been nothing but a brash braggart,” Branagh gives him another character’s lines and makes him seem heroic. “Soon thereafter, Branagh (but not Shakespeare) has him confront Henry on the battlefield and match him in combat. By drawing out qualities we would not have suspected from this blowhard, the film displays armed conflict in the full force of its redemptive power.” Therefore, “Abandoning Shakespeare’s probing examination of the problematic origin and product of male comradeship in war, Branagh instead reinforces the cinematic spectacle’s rehearsal of the timeworn notion that warfare provides the optimal occasion for men to achieve their highest fulfillment,” whereas Shakespeare has a character warn “that when men ‘nothing do but meditate on blood,’ they ‘grow like savages’” (45–46).

Michael Manheim, in “The Function of Battle Imagery in Kurosawa’s Histories and the Henry V Films,” one of two essays he published in 1994, wrote that although he first assumed that Branagh was trying to undermine Laurence Olivier’s heroic depiction of Henry, he finally found Branagh’s film more ambivalent, mixing both positive and negative views of Henry, with Manheim seeing the final emphasis as perhaps slightly more negative than positive. But in another essay from the same year—“The English History Play on Screen” —Manheim claimed that Branagh’s Henry, unlike Olivier’s, is “not Machiavellian” but is instead “sincere” (128) and asserted that he matures as a king, whereas Olivier’s Henry is already mature (128–29). He argued, however, that Branagh’s Henry “generates a complex reaction because he seems heroic in some ways but brutal and murderous in others” (130–31).

In another essay from 1994 (“Textual Ambiguities and Cinematic Certainties in ‘Henry V’”), William P. Shaw asserted that “[m]ost twentieth-century critics have abandoned the prevailing view of earlier critics that Shakespeare’s characterization of Henry V is unequivocally favorable; they believe instead that Henry V is riddled with ironies and ambiguities that undermine the traditional image of Henry as the ‘Mirror of Christian Kings.’” Reporting that a “number of these critics, however, are perplexed as to why these ambiguities seem incapable of performance,” he sought to examine (1) why the ambiguity that critics perceive as they read Henry V is usually absent in performance, and (2) why the ambiguity is specifically absent from Olivier’s and Branagh’s film versions. Commenting that “the source of the ambiguity in Henry V resides primarily in a few politically sensitive passages in 1.1 and 1.2,” Shaw concentrated “on these two scenes, believing the force of the ambiguity in performance will either be felt or diminished by virtue of the production’s performance text and actors’ signalling devices (i.e., control of tone, movement, facial and vocal expression, gesture, reaction, and use of silences) in these two crucial and pivotal scenes” (117). He concluded that the “Olivier and Branagh films … preferred the sharper, simpler image of ‘the Mirror of Christian Kings’ to the blurred, more complex image reflected in Shakespeare’s words. The films, wonderful as they are in their own right, confine us to a ‘single gestalt’ and consequently remove Shakespeare’s ambiguity as a technique and as a theme” (125).

Commenting on Branagh’s production in his 1996 book on Henry V (128–45), James N. Loehlin said the film “provides a compelling illustration of the way an ostensibly revisionist, ‘secret’ version of the play can be both challenging and conservative.” He noted that the Branagh movie “was hailed on its release as a radical, anti-war statement, courageously reversing previous notions of the play at every level,” but Loehlin argued that things were not quite so simple—that the Branagh film, like Olivier’s, emphasized Henry’s “heroism.” Loehlin thought that although Branagh did depict the horrors of war, his film also deemphasized “those horrors by its unremitting personal focus on the King and his transcendence of them” (128), focusing on Henry’s “growth to maturity and heroism” while ignoring important issues of class and gender. According to Loehlin, the “dual nature of Branagh’s film, revisionist and conservative, radical and populist, anti-war and pro-heroism, is linked to its cultural background in the England of the late 1980s,” when the conservative Margaret Thatcher was prime minister and Britain had just been victorious in its war to recover the Falkland Islands (129). Although conceding that Branagh himself was “a left-leaning populist artist from a working-class Belfast background,” Loehlin set his “astonishing rise to success as an actor, director, writer, producer and film-maker” within the context of “the entrepreneurial, aggressive, individualist climate of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain,” contending that Branagh’s “whole approach [to Henry V] fits very well with the attitudes underlying Thatcher’s economic policies” (130).

Loehlin suggested that, “[u]nlike Olivier’s, Branagh’s Henry does not really believe God is on his side until after the battle; a fact that makes him considerably more attractive to a contemporary audience,” just as the focus on Henry and his men as individuals during the battle scene “is very effective” (140) because it simultaneously “present[s] a realistic, brutal war while retaining, and even increasing, audience sympathy for Henry.” According to Loehlin, “the slow motion and restrained, poignant music give an aesthetic contour to the scenes of combat, far removed from the grisly mechanised apocalypse of Welles’s Shrewsbury in Chimes at Midnight” (141), and Branagh also “modulates the shift from the horrors of the battlefield to the political/romantic comedy of the final scene with great finesse. The post-battle scenes are crucial in the film’s elevation of Henry above the horrors of war it has apparently been condemning” (143). While admiring Henry’s gentleness in dealing with the body of the dead boy (calling it “the most memorable [sequence] in the film”), Loehlin noted that “there is not a word of Shakespeare in it” (144), thereby suggesting the power of images over words in this production. Asserting that Branagh’s film “condemns war but celebrates individualism” (145), Loehlin considered it revealing that Branagh “shrank from” the moment when Henry orders the “massacre of the French prisoners” since this “would be the one atrocity from which Branagh could not redeem his young hero-king” (145).

In an essay from 1997 titled “War is Mud: Branagh’s Dirty Harry V and the Types of Political Ambiguity,” Donald K. Hedrick, calling Branagh’s movie “[n]either anti- nor pro-war,” wrote that “the film studiously maintains what I will preliminarily term a conservative rather than a critical ambivalence, progressive merely in the weakest sense of its openness toward some undecidability, but undecidability here really an alibi for a tactical indecision. What is ambiguous” in this film, he continued, “is not produced as a risk” but “follows more directly from the consumerist principle that the customer, hawk or dove, is ultimately the rightful sovereign. The customer is always divine, and right” (49).

In another essay from 1997 (“Shakespeare’s Kingly Mirror: Figuring the Chorus in Olivier’s and Branagh’s Henry V”), Derek Royal argued that Branagh “keeps the [ironic] epilogue in its entirety, but the effect that it should have on the viewer is not at all clear. The reference to Henry’s ‘heir,’” Royal suggested, “is another means by which Shakespeare undercuts the whole idea of politically motivated authority by showing all of Henry’s exploits to be ultimately futile. In Branagh’s film, that severe critique is lost upon the viewer after being inundated with unambiguous images of Henry kneeling in prayer before battle, carrying a dead child through the bloodied fields of Agincourt, and boyishly courting the all-too-willing Katherine. If anything,” according to Royal, the Chorus’s closing “reference to Henry the Sixth comes across as a condemnation of the son who could not live up to his father’s glory, not a solemn report on the state of English politics. If Branagh’s intentions had been otherwise, then one might overlook his growing and uncritical empathy for Henry. However, as his problematic handling of Shakespeare’s Chorus demonstrates, Branagh became a victim of that very disturbing ideological presence he set out to critique” (109).

Discussing the Branagh film in his 1999 book A History of Shakespeare on Screen (246–50), Kenneth Rothwell commented that although “Olivier’s king was an invulnerable matinee idol,” Branagh’s was “vulnerable and plain-spoken, outwardly a warrior king but inwardly a Hamlet figure, torn between duty and compassion.” Rothwell quoted Branagh as “speak[ing] of trying ‘to realise the qualities of introspection, fear, doubt and anger’ which he saw in the character and which dictated more close-ups than long shots.” Observing that “Olivier’s camera tended to pull back and up so that the actors’ voices grew and flourished in rhetorical splendor as the bodies diminished,” Rothwell also wrote that “Branagh’s movie often begins a sequence in mid-shot and then moves in tighter and tighter to peer more and more closely at faces” (247).

Rothwell admired the way, at the start of the film, that Charles Kay, playing an archbishop, “takes a brain-numbingly boring passage on the legitimacy of the French monarchy and actually makes it engrossing, without resorting to the clowning of the two clergymen in the Olivier movie.” He added that the “panning camera tracks the faces of his auditors during his labyrinthine recitation, a masterpiece of legalese, of learned double talk, which justifies an immoral invasion of France. When he ends by saying that all this is ‘as clear as is the summer’s sun,’” the “nervous barons catch the irony and relax into sniggers” (248). Noting how Branagh abandons Olivier’s romantic depiction of the battle of Agincourt for grim, Wellesian realism (249), Rothwell also admired the charming, convincing wooing scene and concluded that even the Marxian “cultural materialists who loathe Branagh’s politics might concede that this Henry V, while not so breathtaking as Olivier’s film, far overshadows any televised version, including the recent transmission of Henry V for the inaugural program at the new Globe Bankside” (250).

Tanja Weiss, extensively analyzing Branagh’s Henry V in her 1999 book Shakespeare on the Screen (49–87), provided a useful “descriptive outline” of the film (49–54); and discussed “Shakespeare’s and Branagh’s Choruses” (55–63), emphasizing Branagh’s film as a film (55), explaining how variously he uses the Chorus (55ff), and commenting on many specific details (55ff). She discussed the “Adaptation of Act I” (63–70); noted that four-fifths of the dialog of 1.1 has been cut; and commented on the “establishing shot” (63), Henry’s thoughtfulness (63, 68), the ways the film questions the legitimacy of Henry’s territorial claims (64), the ways the film builds tension (65), the effectiveness of Henry’s entrance (66), the contrast between his initially imposing image and his youth (66), his self-control (67), the complexities of his behavior in the tennis ball episode (68), and the effectiveness of the darkness of the whole council scene (69–70). She then considered “The Reshaping of Act II” (70–75), discussing Branagh’s treatment of Falstaff (70–71), his use of a flashback (71), his ambiguous treatment of Henry (72), and his emphasis on the theme of friendship in Henry’s betrayal by Scroop (72–73). She next commented on his use of close-ups and close shots (73), the tension between Henry’s anger and his need for self-control, his use of wordplay in references to the Dauphin, and the film’s emphasis on other characters’ reactions to Henry (75). Weiss next discussed the film’s “Battles” and its depiction of Henry as a “Soldier-King” (76–87), including its emphasis on the superior French army (77–78), the up-close depiction of the battles (79), and Shakespeare’s own realistic verbal depiction of fighting (79–81). Exploring the impact of the war on common people (80–81), the treatment of the characters of the “comic subplot” as relevant to the main action (80–81), the ways Henry is presented sympathetically not only after the Harfleur battle (82–84) but also after the hanging of Bardolph (83–84), Weiss concluded by stressing the film’s overall emphasis on Henry’s solitude (84–85), its focus on his sense of his kingly values as well as his human complexity (85–86), and the ways Branagh’s movie mirrors Shakespeare’s own ambiguous portrait of the king (86–87).

In her 2000 book titled Interpreting Shakespeare on Screen, Deborah Cartmell argued that Branagh “reverses many of the editorial decisions of Olivier,” particularly by “turning the French into worthy opponents and even mak[ing] the Dauphin a likeable figure” (101). She thought that Branagh’s exploration of Henry’s “dark side” directly contrasted with Olivier’s approach and was “undoubtedly the product of the influential new historicist or cultural materialist revisionist readings” of Henry’s character that became prominent in “the mid-1980s” (102). “Branagh,” she suggested, “seems to do to Olivier what [critics Jonathan] Dollimore and [Alan] Sinfield do to [the earlier critic] E. M. W. Tillyard in attacking the notion of a natural hierarchical order in Shakespeare” (103). Arguing that the film “simultaneously glorifies and condemns Henry’s war” (104), Cartmell thought Branagh was influenced by “contemporary Vietnam War films—or the ‘buddy film’—which present a simultaneous fascination [with] and contempt for war.” Arguing that Branagh’s Henry “is constructed as Margaret Thatcher’s ideal hero,” Cartmell added that “[e]ventually Henry is transformed into the ideal 1980s man: rugged, yet a lover of children, confident yet self-mocking” (105), adding that “Branagh’s version, although initially questioning Henry’s manipulation of power, ultimately confirms his right to rule,” with the Chorus increasingly identifying with the king, so that his “conversion from cynical observer to enthusiastic recruit mirrors the volte-face of the film as a whole” (106). In fact, Cartmell called the movie “more a product of right-wing ideology than is Olivier’s,” so that it “cunningly consolidate[s] Shakespeare as an ideological force” upholding British nationalism (107). She concluded that “Branagh’s Henry V is a Hollywood-styled, consumer-driven production in the tradition of Star Wars: while seeming to speak for future generations, it is a flashback, a tale of long ago,” in which Henry starts as a kind of Darth Vader but transforms into a Luke Skywalker or even Obi-Wan Kenobi, so that, “like Star Wars, this nationalistic ‘authentic’ Shakespeare belongs to a world of make-believe” (108).

Sarah Hatchuel, in her valuable and detailed 2000 A Companion to the Shakespearean Films of Kenneth Branagh, noted that Branagh had played Henry for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1984 (44); remarked that that production had influenced his film (44); considered his clergymen in the opening scene more calculating than the ones in Olivier’s film (45); and called Branagh’s speech before Harfleur “much more desperate” than Olivier’s (45). She stressed the differences between the comfortable French and the more impoverished English (46); quoted Branagh’s view of Henry as an “‘intensely private man … forced to live completely outwardly’” and “‘under pressure from all sides’”; reported that Branagh had “made his ability to break into volcanic anger a key to his 1984 stage performance” (47); and discussed how he used close-ups to increase intensity and take us inside characters in ways theater cannot (48–49). According to Hatchuel, Derek Jacobi’s Chorus “neither disturbs nor problematizes anything” (49) and in fact enhances Henry’s attractiveness (50), but she thought that although Branagh eliminates Henry’s final order to execute the French prisoners, he still makes the king a partly ambiguous figure (51).

Hatchuel spent much of her time comparing and contrasting the 1984 RSC stage production with the 1989 film (33–56), finding the transition from final battle to the closing scenes in the French court less effective on film than it had been on stage (53). She reported that in the film the wooing scene is “slightly less comedic” than it had been on stage because the film’s princess “is a tougher prey to catch” and is “much more aware of the political action behind her courting” (54). The filmed Henry is “a lover with a deep respect for the woman in front of him” (54), so that this final episode presents Henry positively, as “a king whose sins have been wiped clean” (55). According to Hatchuel, Branagh’s treatment of the Chorus character diverges most from the 1984 stage performance, where irony had been emphasized. She concluded that in the film Branagh presents Henry as both an “earnest” and a “cruel king” (56), later remarking that although the movie tried to depict him as a “hero of his time” (92), Branagh also “wanted to defy nationalist and chauvinist interpretations … by insisting on the horror of war” (92). She thought that various simplifying “textual cuts keep the film well-paced” and fairly brief (92); noted that Branagh modifies Shakespeare’s text to include three flashbacks (93); and said that these flashbacks “humanize” Henry, partly by giving him personal memories and making him more sympathetic (95). “Branagh’s Henry,” according to Hatchuel, “is always shown sharing the same hard conditions as his men,” and his doubts make him seem both sympathetic and introspective (96). Reporting that Branagh had consulted with then-Prince (but now-King) Charles about how to play the role, Hatchuel said that Charles had told him that “only religion could help a king find comfort in isolation and loneliness” (97). However, the churchmen in Branagh’s film are clearly Machiavellian, perhaps reflecting Branagh’s own rejection of Catholicism (98).

According to Hatchuel, the opening of Branagh’s film “removes a major ambiguity from the play” by presenting Henry not as the churchmen’s accessories but almost as their victim (98–100)—an interpretation that one critic said is Branagh’s invention, not Shakespeare’s. Hatchuel thought that Henry’s speech, in the film, about “ceremony” emphasizes his “human side” and that Branagh often cuts any indications of Henry’s Machiavellianism (100). She noted that critics have disagreed about the ways Branagh presents Henry’s low-life friends (101); said that Jacobi’s Chorus does not ironically undercut or complicate our view of Henry and is in fact his ally (102); wrote that the film does not employ many “great technical effects” (117); and observed that it stresses “a palette of primary colours and a succession of medium and close shots” (118). She asserted that “through close-ups, voice-overs, and flash-backs,” Branagh emphasizes Henry’s introspection (118); that the production’s “huge wooden door … separates the present from the past [and] reality from fiction”; and that Jacobi closes the door at the end “to finish the film with dignity and solemnity” (119). At the film’s beginning, Branagh first shows Henry’s power before then exploring his “human and fragile condition” (120); later uses close-ups of English faces during the battle of Agincourt; “plunges immediately into the scrimmage” on the battlefield “to follow the fate of each fighter”; and makes the battle “a muddy and bloody chaos,” but also, “thanks to the easily recognizable characters, presents the humanity and pathos of the [individual] soldiers” (121). According to Hatchuel, by filming the earlier Harfleur fighters with their backs facing the audience, Branagh “adds realism to the action” (122) while, in the final Agincourt shot, the composer, Patrick Doyle, scores an important theme “on a grand scale and makes it even more lyrical to convey the king’s redemption,” so that “Doyle’s music draws the film away from the pains and mud of battle” (124). Hatchuel saw, in Branagh’s film, allusions to Western and adventure movies; to televised coverage of sports, especially soccer and rugby (151); to war movies (152); thrillers (153); science-fiction films (especially Star Wars [156]); and to the techniques of various television serials. It would be hard to ask for a more comprehensive and probing analysis of Branagh’s Henry V than this one by Sarah Hatchuel.

Discussing the Branagh Henry V in her 2000 book Framing Shakespeare on Film (99–114). Kathy M. Howlett suggested that the opening shots of Henry give him mythic status by emphasizing the “film’s quasi-mystical lionization of masculine kingship, as signaled by a magically protective circle of young noblemen who immediately rise to meet the monarch” (99). She saw, in the hefty Earl of Exeter, a different kind of companion for Henry than the portly Falstaff (who played such a major role in the king’s youth), even seeing Exeter here as a kind of “parody of [Orson] Welles’s Falstaff in Chimes at Midnight, himself a parodic version of chivalry and knighthood” (103). Howlett considered Branagh’s Battle of Agincourt “arguably one of the most stirring battle scenes found in Shakespeare films,” echoing the combat in Chimes at Midnight (“particularly in the symbolic implications of shooting the scenes at eye level and in slow motion, with the camera’s concentrated focus on the mud, fallen men, and the clash of battle”) and wrote that “Branagh intersperses in the chaos of the battle individual moments that are poignant and heroic” (107). In fact, she thought that Branagh “substantially departs from Welles, and from Shakespeare, in his cinematic concentration upon particular individuals whose deaths evoke images of blood sacrifices and ritualized slaughter” (108) and thus remind us of the personal prices that particular soldiers pay to achieve victories for their leaders and nations. Howlett also discussed, however, the power of Henry’s words, both in his speech to his troops before the Battle of Agincourt and his speeches to Katherine when he tries to convince her to become his queen (100). His words appeal, on some level, to modern audiences as much as to medieval fighters and females (111; see also 114). According to Howlett, “In the cynical backwash of our modern times, the film leaves its audience emotionally moved by what it knows not to be real” (114).

Daniel Rosenthal, in his 2000 book Shakespeare on Screen (46–47), asserted that “Branagh’s decision to show the hanging [of Bardolph] and its effect on Henry and his soldiers in harrowing detail typifies his bold, moving treatment of the play, concentrating on the human cost of war, rather than its heroism.” He compared “parts of the Harfleur sequence” to a “World War I movie, as MacMorris (John Sessions) and Fluellen (Ian Holm) seek cover from explosions in a narrow trench” and credited Branagh himself with “a thoughtful, understated performance” (46). Meanwhile, Douglas Brode, in a 2000 book titled Shakespeare in the Movies, compared and contrasted Branagh’s film with Olivier’s, writing that “Branagh’s men are carefully particularized as individuals; their leader draws his inspiration from them,” especially in his St. Crispin’s speech, where Henry’s words themselves matter more than the man speaking them (81). Brode contrasted Branagh’s final battle with Olivier’s “good war” presentation; saw an influence on Branagh’s version of such films as Oliver Stone’s Platoon (82); and wrote that “Branagh’s Henry, though necessarily harsh, is nonetheless sensitive in a way Olivier’s blissful once-and-future hero-king is not” (83).

Also concerned with the relationship between Branagh’s Henry V and earlier movies was Stephen Buhler, in his 2002 study Shakespeare in the Cinema: Ocular Proof (106–11), which focused mainly on echoes from Olivier’s film and Welles’s Chimes at Midnight. Like other critics, Buhler emphasized the ways Branagh individualized and humanized his soldiers before and during the final battle, as in the contrast between Welles’s rotund, fighting Falstaff, who “is lost for a time in the chaos,” and Branagh’s portly Exeter, who “keeps his dignity and something of his humanity even as he displays savage glee in smashing his opponents” (108). According to Buhler, “Following Welles, Branagh is more overtly concerned with the costs of this enterprise than Olivier is” (109), whereas Branagh’s flashbacks to Hal’s “tavern world” are both more “grimly realistic” and “sentimentally hazy” than Olivier’s depiction of it had been, so that “nearly all the comic scenes” in Branagh’s film “smack more of pathos than humor” (110).

Describing Branagh’s film in his 2003 book Shakespeare in the Cineplex, Samuel Crowl agreed with Kenneth Rothwell that “the critical controversy surrounding the film was inspired as much by its maker’s biography as by its images.” He noted the influence—including on the film’s “ideological ambiguities”—of the 1984 stage production from which it grew but also commented that its “power was in its surprise,” since nothing like it had emerged from the British (or American) film industry in almost two decades (34). Commenting in passing on the film itself, Crowl also set it within a brief history of Branagh’s prior and later career and also explained how it helped spark a renaissance in Shakespearean films. Meanwhile. W. B. Worthen, in his 2003 book Shakespeare and the Force of Modern Performance (69–72), called it a movie that, although set in the distant past, featured “present-tense realism” in its acting and, in various respects, became part of the then-popular trend of so-called heritage films associated with the Merchant-Ivory production group.

Commenting on Branagh’s adaptation in his 2004 book on Cinematic Shakespeare (120–23), Michael Anderegg asserted that “Henry V exhibits a freshness and formal simplicity, a ‘clarity’ as both a narrative and a dramatic text, not thus far recaptured in any of Branagh’s subsequent films. Virtually every scene is carefully etched, the dialogue and speeches projected with full understanding, the actors interpreting the verse even as they speak it.” Suggesting that Branagh used flashbacks less to provide information than to flesh out his characters, Anderegg admired how the “minimalism of the sets and props” and “the subdued elegance of the costuming … effectively support the spare script.” He was impressed by the “long take” used in the “four-minute ‘non nobis’” as well “the less showy scene where the tavern characters speak of Falstaff’s death” (120). Suggesting that the movie is only superficially “a post-Vietnam War film (in the British context, post-Falklands as well),” Anderegg at the same time argued that “the potential jingoism of Henry V is tempered by Branagh’s emphasis on the personal development of the king: it is almost as if the war exists primarily to test Henry’s mettle” (122). In another book from 2004 titled Shakespeare, from Stage to Screen, Sara Hatchuel discussed Henry’s wooing of Katherine, emphasizing such topics as her seclusion, the expectation that she learn English, her fear, a reversal of gender expectations when Henry seems embarrassed, and an ultimate stress on romance (173–76).

Anita Helmbold, in an essay from 2005 titled “‘Take a Soldier, Take a King’: The (In)Separability of King and Conflict in Branagh’s Henry V,” discussed “how disproportionately influential judgments about the king’s personality have been in shaping final assessments regarding the film’s stance on war. For many,” she reported, “it seems axiomatic that the decision to portray the king as likeable is, de facto, a decision to portray his war as honorable and justified. Those who find Branagh’s Henry (and his war) vindicated do so by ignoring the witness of the scenes” reflecting “the murky atmosphere of (im)moral maneuvering in the decision to declare war, the bloody rapacity threatened before the gates of Harfleur, and the suffering portrayed in the aftermath of Agincourt. Moreover,” she continued, “as regards Henry, critics have consistently associated the term ‘likeable’ with ‘heroic.’ Is Henry likeable? Yes—and for many, this is precisely the problem. Is he heroic? On this question, judgments will differ, but if heroism consists of outstanding courage or nobility, then Henry would seem to have no particular claim to make. The film,” she thought, “is careful to show others’ courage as at least equal to that of the king; although he must make difficult personal choices, he does not distinguish himself for bravery in any outstanding way. As to nobility, the film calls into question the lightness of the war from its opening scenes; it portrays the victory as having been achieved at enormous cost; and it closes by reminding viewers that Henry’s ‘victory’ endured for less than a generation and merely engendered further loss” (287).

Returning to Branagh’s adaptation of Henry V in his 2006 book The Films of Kenneth Branagh (19–36), Samuel Crowl wrote that Branagh’s movie both challenged Olivier’s and inspired many later Shakespeare films (20). He discussed Branagh’s career as a director and actor before he made this film; compared his relative inexperience with Olivier’s much greater experience before he made his Henry V (21–22); asserted that Branagh’s film opens with an “intense claustrophobic atmosphere” (in contrast to Olivier’s opening emphasis on comedy); and commented on Branagh’s early allusion to Henry as a kind of Darth Vader who morphs into a young Luke Skywalker (23). Crowl discussed Branagh’s quiet delivery and his skill at reciting so many lines without seeming to take a breath and said that Branagh knows the importance of a film’s score, so that this work in some ways resembles an opera, with music emphasizing language (24). Describing the score (24–25), Crowl noted its echoes of various kinds of music (25); called the Chorus a kind of “embedded reporter” (26); and noted that he opens doors at the start of the film and closes them at the end (26). Crowl observed that Henry’s courtiers are mostly young (26); suggested that Henry sees the treason of some of those courtiers as both political and personal; noted his close relations with his men; and said that after Henry rejects Falstaff, he tries to build a new “family” in France. Observing that the film emphasizes “intimate” relations rather than grand heroism (27) and offers a homosocial emphasis through its focus on Falstaff, Exeter, Williams, and Fluellen, Crowl considered the Falstaff flashbacks more visually interesting than textually successful (since the text is cut and rearranged) and commented that this Falstaff seems remarkably young, as does Henry in their interactions (28). Exeter, in contrast, is Henry’s “guide and protector” (28) and, as played by Brian Blessed, is a large and influential figure (29), whereas Williams, as played by a veteran stage actor, is part of a band of the kind of foot soldiers often found in American war films (29). Crowl reported that Ian Holm (who plays Fluellen here) had earlier played Henry in the 1960s (30) and commented that Fluellen, a comic figure in Shakespeare’s play, seems more serious here and is a key supporter of Henry (30–31, with his Welsh background reflecting Branagh’s Irish (rather than English) origins (31). Commenting that another important group of characters consists of the tavern denizens (31), Crowl remarked that the tavern without Falstaff is lifeless (32) and that the depressed Judi Dench of the tavern scenes foreshadows the depressed French king. He considered the scene of falling arrows at Agincourt the “film’s most vivid image”; wrote that Branagh, unlike Olivier, emphasizes the brutality of the battle (32); observed that the battle both begins and ends at the cart from which Henry speaks; and said that Henry here is presented as a “worker king.” Crowl ended by admiring the effective shift from the grimy battlefield to the clean French court, where we witness, subtle, complex, and humorous scenes between Henry and Katherine (330).

Summing up his impressions of this adaptation, Crowl argued that Branagh emphasizes the various constraints Henry faces (33); “manages to straddle the medieval and the modern through his own powerfully naturalistic performance”; and creates “a sense of mystery surrounding the king.” He noted that the film presents “a series of landscapes dominated by fires, torches, shadows, doorways, mud, and rain rather than fully representational movie sets” and suggested that it uses “a camera style that constantly moves in on the action and concentrates on the contours and secrets of the face rather than pulling back to overwhelm us with the distancing power of spectacle” while nonetheless “providing that missing visual sweep and spectacle musically through Patrick Doyle’s rousing score” (34).

In another book from 2006, Kevin Ewert, in his study titled Henry V (128–30), began with appreciative comments about the opening with the Chorus; admired the film’s music (128–29); and argued that “when we finally see Henry he is unprepossessing, very young and, with his fresh face and tousled hair, almost cute. This,” Ewell suggested, “may be meant to undercut the grandiose entrance with a more human reality, but the effect of the contrast between the foreboding silhouette and the lad perched on the throne is not ironic but endearing. The big image gets undercut, but we are drawn closer to this ‘real’ Henry,” from whom we are offered little critical distance (129). Offering a detailed discussion of the very moving execution of Bardolph (131–33), Ewert thought that “Branagh’s audacious move in bringing the execution of Bardolph into plain view and playing it out at excruciating length … actually has the effect of making us feel sorry for Henry, not for the man in the noose.” Later, Branagh alters the text to make a French soldier, not Henry, responsible for Nym’s death, so that the film is repeatedly “designed to make us feel for Henry, but not to measure his culpability or the ideological underpinnings” that make deaths and other losses seem unavoidable. Offering a detailed and appreciative discussion of the wooing scene while comparing Branagh’s version to the ways this scene was handled in earlier films (133–38), Ewert ended by discussing how Branagh’s film calls attention to the real complexities of the play itself (139).

Emma French’s 2006 book Selling Shakespeare to Hollywood (69–76) mainly discussed marketing strategies for Branagh’s film, including the ways it was released, the posters created, other advertisements, etc. Citing other scholars’ reactions to the film, she suggested that “[o]ne of the reasons for the film’s breakout success is its dual appeal both as a stirring, patriotic British film and as a gritty Hollywood war film.” She thought that although it “arguably contains anti-war elements, they are generally countered and contained by more straightforward patriotism in the marketing,” which sought to appeal “to both sceptics and patriots,” so that and “the pragmatism, dark cynicism and horrors of war are emphasised, for maximum marketing appeal, alongside the jingoism associated with Lawrence Olivier’s classic film version” (70).

In his fine 2007 volume titled Studying Shakespeare on Film (147–51), Maurice Hindle suggested that Branagh’s Henry V was intended to raise and deal with complicated questions in a compassionate way; that it is darker than Olivier’s film but more focused on challenges the individual characters face; and that it emphasizes, in Branagh’s words, “close-ups and low-level dialogue” (147). Hindle thought that while Olivier’s Henry is aloof and some other characters presented in his movie are bumbling stereotypes, Branagh emphasizes “mid shots and close-ups” to delve into his characters “inner lives” (148). Devoting much attention to Branagh’s cinematic methods and techniques (148), Hindle commented, for example, on the opening contrast between the Darth Vader imagery and the subsequent presentation of Henry as a “young, boyish and vulnerable king”; noted the film’s emphasis on “male bonding”; and observed that whereas Branagh’s Henry speaks in a way that seems “spontaneous, natural and convincing,” Olivier’s speeches seem more “controlled and declamatory” (149). Citing Branagh’s allusions to various Vietnam war films (150), Hindle observed that whereas Olivier used a long tracking shot to show the French moving into battle, Branagh reversed this technique in his own, instantly famous tracking shot showing Henry carrying the corpse of a boy across the muddy, bloody fields of Agincourt (150–51).

Commenting once more on Branagh’s adaptation, but this time merely in passing (16–18, 35–37, 83–84, 122–25), Samuel Crowl, in his 2008 Norton Guide, observed that Branagh’s film had proved as influential as Olivier’s movie (16); provided biographical information about Branagh (17; see also 35–36); said that Branagh’s work had helped ignite new interest in Shakespeare on film (17–18); and discussed the influence of Vietnam War films and other kinds of movies on this production. Crowl described Branagh’s Henry as “a man of flesh and blood” (122); praised Branagh’s acting; and noted that his delivery often begins quietly but then becomes louder and more forceful (123).

In another book from 2008—this one titled Shakespeare, Film Studies, and the Visual Cultures of Modernity (214–17)—Anthony R. Guneratne noted the influence of Branagh’s film on the revival of Shakespearean cinema (214); observed Branagh’s focus on his characters’ “inner psychology” (215); commented on Henry’s occasional anger; but also reported that Branagh used boom microphones to transmit stage whispers (215). He thought that Branagh drew on his audience’s familiarity with previous movies; noted that flashbacks were used to remind viewers of Falstaff (216); commented on Branagh’s allusions to and departures from Orson Welles’s Chimes at Midnight; and explored Branagh’s interest in father figures, including both Falstaff and the French king (217).

Agnieszka Rasmus, in her 2008 book Filming Shakespeare, from Metatheatre to Metacinema (110–22), noted how Branagh’s film immediately calls attention to its status as a film, with the Chorus as a kind of director (119). She argued, however, that Branagh makes the Chorus more and more a part of the film—an actor in it rather than a director or observer of it. Saying that Branagh abandons the film perspective to provide an alienating perspective, partly by making the Chorus so sympathetic to Henry (120), she asserted that the film itself endorses Henry, a view shared by various critics (121). Rasmus maintained that Branagh treats the Chorus ambivalently and ultimately makes Henry sympathetic (122).

Peter Cochran, in his 2013 book titled Small-Screen Shakespeare (42–46), noted Branagh’s emphasis on Henry’s psychology; found this film’s Falstaff too young and the depiction of him too confusing; regretted some of the casting; and considered the presentation of the archbishop botched, since this character should make a convincing case for the invasion. Contrasting Henry’s first appearance in this film with his first appearance in Olivier’s and in general finding Olivier’s film much stronger, Cochran considered Branagh’s acting unimpressive (43) but did admire the performances of Paul Scofield and Geraldine McEwan; called the battle scene impressive (even though the number of fighters is too small); and praised the long shot of Henry carrying the dead boy across the battlefield (44). He noted how differently Branagh and Olivier deal with Henry’s pre-battle encounter with Williams (45); considered the music sometimes inappropriate and mostly unimpressive (45); and mocked the way some of Henry’s former friends speak, finding insufficient variety in their accents (45–46).

In his 2014 book Shakespeare and the English-Speaking Cinema, Russell Jackson briefly referred to the Chorus as a “timeless war correspondent” (25) and suggested that the film’s low budget dictated the use of mostly indoor sets until the final open-air battle (25–26).

Peter E. S. Babiak, in his 2016 survey of a century of Shakespeare Films (136–41), noted Branagh’s use of flashbacks to the tavern scenes from the Henry IV plays (137); said that Branagh emphasizes Henry’s “frequent personal commitment and public calls for subservience to God”; thought that these are presented as “completely sincere,” with “no hint of irony or cynicism”; and wrote that Branagh omits anything suggesting that Henry is manipulative or malicious, such as the brawl he instigates, in Shakespeare’s play, between Fluellen and Williams (137). Babiak compared and contrasted Branagh’s film with popular Hollywood movies, suggesting that they all simplify their protagonists; said that Branagh present’s Henry’s character “in terms of interpersonal relationships,” so that each of his actions and speeches “is presented in terms of its relation to another character in the film”; and thought that Henry is shown as reluctant to hurt Falstaff, implying “the emotional depth of their relationship” (138).

According to Babiak, in the Bardolph hanging episode, “Shakespeare’s opportunistic and morally ambivalent King Henry is … transformed by Branagh into a King Henry so morally infallible that he justly punishes crime even at the expense of great personal pain,” adding that “Branagh provides the omniscient point of view only to the Chorus and the audience, implying that we, as ‘members of the audience,’ are Henry’s “true intimates and confidantes,” so that “[o]nly the audience and the Chorus are aware that the young king is deeply uncertain of the legitimacy of this course of action” and so that “only we can see that he is relieved when his threat [to destroy Harfleur] works” (139). Thus, “he has used the threat of rape and murder as a bluff to trick the governor into surrendering, and had no real intention of pillaging and sacking” the city. Babiak thought that Branagh “constructed his character and his narrative in order that a mainstream audience could identify his King Henry as the type of protagonist current in the mainstream blockbuster films of 1989.” Citing similarities with Olivier’s Henry V (including performances within performances), Babiak concluded that “where Olivier’s film is intended to inspire his audience to the cause of war, Branagh’s film asks his audience to consider the cost of war” (141).

In her 2017 book titled Devouring Time, Philippa Sheppard, in a chapter on propaganda in Branagh’s film (254–81), suggested that Branagh, like the makers of other recent war movies, presented “the enemy in an egalitarian, respectful manner” (265), making “the French appear civilized and modern in contrast to the English. Throughout, he treats the French seriously, never guying them as Olivier did,” so that their “court is airy and well lit, the nobles brightly clad,” and “their council chamber is arranged conference-style, chairs in a circle. By contrast, the English court is dark and sinister, with tall pews as in a church or an old-fashioned schoolroom. Henry appears cloaked in darkness, more like Darth Vader or Count Dracula than the ‘mirror of all Christian kings’” (266). After discussing Branagh’s complicated treatment of the Irish (266–68), Sheppard suggested that Branagh makes us “feel an elegiac longing for a time (real or imagined) when leaders were brave, their causes just, and their people eager to serve them” (269–70).

1991 English Shakespeare Company Production

This adaptation, part of an English Shakespeare Company series of plays titled The Wars of the Roses, was based on an earlier, traveling stage production. Directed by Michael Bogdanov, it starred Michael Pennington as King Henry V; Francesca Ryan as Katherine; Philip Bowen as Montjoy; Paul Brennen as Pistol; John Dougall as Nym; and Andrew Jarvis as the Dauphin.

Commenting on the production in his 2006 book on Henry V (125–28), Kevin Ewert considered the film a decent record of the stage production (125); noted some disappointing changes, one due to the death of the actor who had played Pistol onstage (126); regretted the way the Chorus, who was onstage all throughout the stage version, saw his complex role diminished in the film version (126–27); and wrote that “[m]uch of the performance as captured on video lacks the intensity, energy and scope of the live staging, but many memorable moments and distinctive choices still come through. The clerics here seem hardly conspiratorial but actually quite comfortable in what they’re getting up to” (127). He concluded that “this Henry V is an invigorating and useful reappraisal of the play and of many of the received ideas that became attached to it. The performance allows for and encourages critique of Henry and his project, something Kenneth Branagh in his feature film offers with one gritty, realistic hand only to take back with the skilful (cinematic and emotional) manipulations of the other” (128).

Peter Cochran, in his 2013 book Small-Screen Shakespeare, considered this version partly an antiwar film, with the Chorus, Henry, and the two churchmen all undercutting our faith in the king’s character, although he found it hard to see any Marxism in this production (158). He described the funny preinvasion scene; noted the modern costumes; and reported that all four national dialects are used (160). He thought the final battle needed to be shortened; called the production’s tone incoherent; and said the concluding wooing produces a mixed effect (160).

2012 Thea Sharrock Production (The Hollow Crown Series)

The Hollow Crown, a British television series devoted to Shakespeare’s history plays (discussed elsewhere in this set), included two episodes focused on Henry V. Directed by Thea Sharrock, they starred Tom Hiddleston as Henry V; John Hurt as the Chorus; Simon Russell Beale as Falstaff; Edward Akrout as Louis, the Dauphin; Tom Brooke as Corporal Nym; Jérémie Covillault as Montjoy; Tom Georgeson as Bardolph; Maxime Lefrançois as the Constable of France; and Mélanie Thierry as Princess Katherine.

Discussing this adaptation in his 2013 book Small-Screen Shakespeare (160–64), Peter Cochran noted that the archbishop’s speech is greatly cut, perhaps undermining Henry’s rationale for war (161). He questioned various production decisions and cuts (162–63) and thought this “shady, ambiguous Henry” could not play the wooing scene comically and said the film finally runs out of steam (163–64).

In a 2015 essay titled “Silenced Voices: A Reactionary Streamlined Henry V in The Hollow Crown,” David Livingstone wrote that “[p]erhaps no other play in Shakespeare’s oeuvre has been so misunderstood and bowdlerized as Henry V. It is nevertheless one of the most popular of Shakespeare’s plays and has been made into several well-known films. The film versions, however, have seen the play streamlined, with the removal or shortening of so-called episodes or ‘throw-away’ scenes with a consequent misrepresentation of the issues of war, patriotism and nationalism. In addition,” Livingstone continued, “the minor characters, so key to reaching an understanding of the play in my reading of the work, are often silenced or neglected. I would like to argue that those elements, repeatedly cut from the film versions, actually provide possible alternative readings of the play which turn it from a flag-waving jingoistic celebration of Britain’s superiority over France into a profound critique of honour, nationalism and religion used to justify military aggression.” Calling Sharrock’s version “visually spectacular and brilliantly acted,” he wrote that nonetheless “the film once again butchers the play and thereby neglects much of the subversive details and characters” (87). He felt that “The Hollow Crown by streamlining the plot to almost exclusively revolve around Henry rejects the many progressive advances championed by Feminist, Marxist and Cultural Materialist critics, to name but a few” (99).

Bibliography