{"id":10480,"date":"2020-04-05T10:39:03","date_gmt":"2020-04-05T14:39:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=10480"},"modified":"2020-04-05T10:43:11","modified_gmt":"2020-04-05T14:43:11","slug":"shakespeare-in-film-part-8-henry-v-oliviers-1944-version","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2020\/04\/05\/shakespeare-in-film-part-8-henry-v-oliviers-1944-version\/","title":{"rendered":"Shakespeare in Film \u2013 Part 8 \u2013 Henry V \u2013 Olivier\u2019s 1944 Version"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another Olivier film in which he starred and directed.\u00a0 He also was one of the producers and had a part in the screenplay.\u00a0 Shakespeare\u2019s plot revolves around young King Henry (or Harry to his friends) defending his claim to the throne of France.\u00a0 His Norman ancestors shared lineage with the French kings and here Henry is demanding from the French king that he be named his successor.\u00a0 But the Dauphin (the king\u2019s son and heir) answers for his father by sending an insulting \u201cgift\u201d to substitute for Henry\u2019s claim.\u00a0 He sends him a box of tennis balls.\u00a0 That starts the war.<\/p>\n

The action is divided between Henry\u2019s prosecution of the war, scenes among the French leaders and several personal vignettes.\u00a0 One set of vignettes involve Henry\u2019s former companions; Ancient Pistol, Bardolph, Nim, Mistress Quickly and Sir John Falstaff.\u00a0 In his youth Henry was an irresponsible wastrel that associated with these disreputable characters.\u00a0 But these knaves were very popular from two earlier plays, Henry IV Parts 1 & 2, and here they are brought back for a final curtain call.\u00a0 Their actions are for comic relief and as a contrast to the heroics of Henry and his warriors.\u00a0 Then there are scenes with the three captains Fluellen, MacMorris, and Jamy from respectively Wales, Ireland, and Scotland.\u00a0 These three men speak in heavily accented dialects reflecting their ethnicities.\u00a0 They are also provided for comic relief with mockery of MacMorris being the primary focus.\u00a0 And finally, there is the scene of Princess Katherine and her Duenna talking about King Harry in a scene where the Princess attempts to learn a few words of English seemingly in anticipation of meeting Henry.<\/p>\n

The story\u2019s climax is the momentous battle of Agincourt where according to Shakespeare\u2019s reckoning an army of 12,000 Englishmen, mostly infantry and archers, defeated an army of 60,000 Frenchmen that included a large contingent of heavy cavalry.\u00a0 After the English victory we have a scene where the French King agrees to make Henry his heir in exchange for Henry\u2019s marriage to Princess Katherine.\u00a0 And this is completed with Henry winning Katherine\u2019s heart in a scene that is meant to signify his passionate and determined nature.<\/p>\n

So how does Olivier handle this complicated and fragmented plot?\u00a0 After all, some scenes take place in a palace, some in an inn but others are in the middle of a pitched battle and others in a bivouac.\u00a0 In Shakespeare\u2019s day, in his little circular theater, interior scene changes were hard enough but battle scenes could only be handled by suspension of disbelief and by heralds arriving to announce distant action.\u00a0 Olivier pays homage to this by starting the play in the Globe Theater.\u00a0 We see the actors behind the scene dressing and preparing to enter the stage.\u00a0 Even Olivier as Henry is shown first as an actor about to enter his first scene.\u00a0 The following scene at the inn between Ancient Pistol and company are also handled as scenes in the theater.<\/p>\n

But once the action moves afield, we get exterior shots of the English and French countryside (actually Irish, this was shot right before D-Day and England was on a war footing while neutral Ireland was not).\u00a0 And it\u2019s outdoors that Olivier gets to give the rousing St. Crispin\u2019s Day speech.\u00a0 And the big battle includes an actual cavalry charge.\u00a0 After the battle they use a strange combination of exterior shots with painted backgrounds that are sort of picturesque in conjuring up a theater.\u00a0 And a theater is where the finale happens, right back in the Globe Theater where the Narrator closes the curtain on Henry and Katherine and reads the epilogue.<\/p>\n

So, how did I like this mess?\u00a0 Well, actually, quite a lot.\u00a0 I can\u2019t help but admire the way Olivier takes the conventions of a Shakespeare play like the exits and entrances of the cast and makes them part of an internal joke by showing the cast as actors going onto a stage.\u00a0 He even takes the speech that explains his claim to the throne and makes it a comic scene with bishops and clergymen dropping and finally throwing ancient manuscripts at each other in their confusion at trying to prove Henry is the legitimate King of France.\u00a0 To a modern audience the base and crude friends of ancient Pistol seem strange and exotic but Olivier has his Globe audience filled with Pistol\u2019s spiritual kinsmen who cheer and catcall in approval of their low antics.<\/p>\n

By modern standards the battle scenes are somewhat theatrical.\u00a0 After you\u2019ve seen elves and men mowing down orcs in one of the Lord of the Rings movies the knights on horseback can\u2019t be very convincing.\u00a0 And Olivier is no Errol Flynn swashbuckling with a sword.\u00a0 But what Olivier has is the ability to take Shakespeare\u2019s lines and turn them into dramatic speech.\u00a0 I think the fact that Olivier had done Shakespeare on the stage with the best English actors of his generation was what gave him the ability to give the words the inflection and cadence that turns them from a museum piece into a dramatic scene.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen the St. Crispin\u2019s Day speech done by Branagh and Olivier.\u00a0 Branagh gives it all the intensity and emotion he can.\u00a0 Olivier is calmer and quieter but he infuses his speech with the storyteller\u2019s charm of what it will be like to look back at a victory from the vantage point of many years.\u00a0 Maybe my admiration of his skills is idiosyncratic to me.\u00a0 But even though he is an actor from an earlier time I do not think our modern method actors can compare.\u00a0 They always reach for emotional affect and seem to overdo it.<\/p>\n

Henry V is a special play in Shakespeare\u2019s list.\u00a0 Everything but the epilogue is a reflection of the will and fortune of a fortunate king.\u00a0 All his ventures succeed and his reign is fortunate.\u00a0 Only the epilogue reminds us that the War of the Roses is yet to revive in his son\u2019s time and erase all his glories and end the English sovereignty on the mainland.\u00a0 But the play gives the audience a chance to hear of victory as a contrast to the tragedies that will follow.\u00a0 Olivier made his production as a morale boost for the English who were about to join the Americans in the D-Day invasion of France.\u00a0 The story of an earlier invasion of France by Henry was supposed to provide hope for the nation worn out by years of bombing raids and setbacks in the war.\u00a0 And so, Olivier omitted the defeats from the epilogue.\u00a0 Wise decision.<\/p>\n

This version is dated in terms of cinematography and stylized in some aspects of the acting but I recommend it to those who enjoy Shakespeare\u2019s plays.<\/p>\n

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