HENRY V
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Kenneth Branagh shows that there is
more than one way to play Henry, though his way does not
always seem convincing. Visually the film is splendid.
Rating: +2.
The advantage of the longbow over its shorter predecessors is, of course, range. It is entirely feasible to create a shower of falling arrows that your enemy must enter before he can even come near you, provided you have brought enough arrows along. This is *probably* the reason that the English at the Battle of Agincourt were able to kill what is quoted as ten thousand French while losing only 29 of their own numbers. Bill Shakespeare's script for the current HENRY V tends really to downplay the technological advantage the English had at the battle, implying the imbalance in casualty figures can be attributed instead to the fact that Old Hank really knew how to give one heck of a good pep-talk. Well, song- writers tend to glorify song-writers, and film-makers like to make films about film-makers, so it isn't surprising that Shakespeare's stuff tends to glorify wordsmiths. Even though the actual casualty numbers were probably closer to 200 and five thousand, Shakespeare still seems to over-rate Henry's speech-making.
That technical issue aside, how is HENRY V anyway? I do not claim to be a judge of Shakespearean acting and presumably the main virtue of this film is Branagh's much-vaunted interpretation of Henry. I can tell you that in the early scenes he delivers his lines with very little expression at all. I am sure this is intentional, but after a supremely dramatic entrance he strikes the viewer as being a sort of a cold fish. As time goes by he puts more emphasis in his words, and by the love scenes at the end he seems not just human but positively likable. One gets the impression that henry was a wild teenager who rises to his office as king while we watch. Still Branagh seems only a good actor who has the audacity to cast himself in a great role. He may become a Rupert Pupkin of Shakespearean actors.
This is a Shakespeare for the late Twentieth Century, with far more dramatic visual images than in previous versions. Notable particularly are Henry's entrance and a scene of Henry on a rearing steed at "the breach," back-lighted by fire. The battle scenes are beautifully filmed, somewhat in the style of EXCALIBUR. Ironically, the narrator tells the audience to work hard to picture the scene while the audience have only to sit back and let it flow over them.
While they did not remove the line to tell the audience to work to visualize the scene, some liberties were taken. Flashback scenes were added to show Henry's past with Falstaff. Presumably Branagh undertook to write these himself in a Shakespearean style. There was a deletion to references to the English killing French prisoners which probably would not play as well on modern audiences as it did in Shakespeare's time.
This is a memorable film and probably one that will be playing on PBS in 2010 when most of the rest of this year's films are forgotten. My rating is a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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