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Special Features
- Shakespearean Royalty: A Chronology of England's Rulers
- Stills Galleries: the Book of Hours, production photos
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And lest you're expecting a camera pointed at a stage, don't worry. Olivier, who produced and directed most of his Shakespeare films, has actually used the film medium to enlarge his plays' visual scope, while maintaining the intimacy that is the essence of live theatre. Moreover, Olivier is mindful of how daunting the language of Shakespeare is for modern audiences and has modified much of the original script to be more comprehensible, while preserving the feel of Elizabethan English.
Olivier's "Henry V" was to England what Eisentein's "Ivan the Terrible" was to Russia - a familiar history rendered as a national epic, for morale purposes, while audiences were fighting off the Germans during World War II. There are other parallels. For example, both use static, formalized composition, in Henry V's case, meant to resemble the images in medieval illuminated manuscripts and books of Hours. (In Ivan's case, according to Kael, like Japanese Kabuki.) Thus, a soundstage "exterior" backdrop becomes a tableau that serves to enhance, with its flat perspective and subjective scale, the view we have of that fabulous Age of Chivalry, for which the play's Battle of Agincourt was the closing act.
I've always sneered at the extravagant accolades which show business gives its own. But after seeing this film, or the equally brilliant "Hamlet," I can understand why this man was so good that a knighthood wasn't enough, and why he was raised to the peerage.
By the way, the Criterion DVD is beautiful.
By the time when the Treaty of Troyes was signed in 1420, Charles VI not only accepted Henry as his son-in-law but passed over his own son to name Henry heir to the French crown. Had Henry lived a mere two months longer, he would have been king of both England and France. However, he had prematurely aged because of having lived the hard life of a soldier, became seriously ill, and died after returning from yet another French campaign. Catherine had given birth to his only son while he was away but Henry died without ever seeing the child.
The historian Rafael Holinshed, in Chronicles of England, summed up Henry V's reign as follows: "This Henry was a king, of life without spot, a prince whom all men loved, and of none disdained, e captain against whom fortune never frowned, nor mischance once spurned, whose people him so severe a justicer both loved and obeyed (and so humane withal) that he left no offence unpunished, nor friendship unrewarded; a terror to rebels, and suppressor of sedition, his virtues notable, his qualities most praiseworthy."
It would be a disservice to compare and contrast this film with the version which Kenneth Branagh directed 45 years later. Each has its own unique strengths and both are worthy of high regard. The year is 1413. As Shakespeare's play begins, newly crowned Henry V (Olivier) attempts to resolve animosities between England and France. In the film, however, Olivier creates a truly magical introduction which enables us to wend our way out of London and across the fields to a performance at the Globe Theatre. Once inside, we observe the audience around us but he also takes us backstage as the actors prepare. Following a welcome greeting by Chorus (Leslie Banks), the brief portrayal of a live performance continues as a film in 15th century England. This is a brilliant device. For many years, I showed this opening sequence to my English students before their reading of one of Shakespeare's plays. The "You Are There" effects are compelling and unforgettable.
The quality of acting throughout the cast is outstanding, notably Olivier, Robert Newton (Pistol), Renee Asherton (Princess Katherine), Esmond Knight (Fluellyn), Leslie Banks (Chorus), and Felix Aylmer (Archbishop of Canterbury). Special note should also be made of the cinematography (Jack Hilyard and Robert Krasker) and production design (Carmen Dillon), given the severe limits on what could be done (and what could not be done) when producing a film in England during World War Two.
Whereas Branagh chose to film Shakespeare's play in intensely human terms, and does so with great skill, Olivier takes a more formal approach after the initial scenes discussed earlier. His is a more regal Henry V, cunning as well as eloquent to be sure, but (or so it seems to me) a far more mature, self-assured monarch. Stated another way, Branagh's style reminds me of Mel Gibson as Hamlet or Braveheart whereas Olivier's style reminds me of, well yes, Olivier: In total self-control and of all he surveys. Never for a single moment did I doubt that his Henry V would conquer the French and wed Katherine. And so he did.
Probably close to ˝ of the dialogue is cut from this film version. Olivier is very loud, but not particularly emotionally expressive. Read more
