A quick look back at Kenneth Branagh’s historical epic debut feature…
By Oliver Thomas
Left, Emma Thompson as Princess Catherine of France and , right, Kenneth Branagh as Henry V
O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention, A kingdom for a stage, princes to act And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
So, starts Henry V, Derek Jacobi as the chorus striking a match, beheld from the shadows before establishing our setting by turning on the stage floor lights. Walking through an abandoned set, reminiscent of the Master of Ceremonies in the opening of La Ronde, he is our guide to this play. Opening the stage doors, he transports us back to 15th century England and through this theatrical prologue, the play is transitioned into the medium of cinema. As Kenneth Branagh dons a fake nose and an extended forehead to play the bard in new release All is True, it seems only appropriate to reflect on his entry into adapting Shakespeare for the silver screen.
In 1989, at the age of 28, Branagh directed, adapted, and starred in Henry V prompting many headlines to compare and herald him as the new Sir Lawrence Olivier. Christopher Nolan, however, at last year’s British Academy Britannia Awards sited Orson Welles as a more accurate comparison. Welles and Branagh share an affinity for ambitious filmmaking and an inclination to present an accessible synergy between high culture and mass entertainment.
As the new king of England Henry V through the influence of his courtiers declares war on France, interspersed with this action Branagh adds flashbacks from Part I and II of Henry IV primarily as a way of contextualising the news of the death of Henry’s old friend Falstaff. Additionally, this creates a counterpoint in the film between Henry’s jovial and reckless younger self with his new position as leader and King of England. The task set before any adaptation of Shakespeare into a mainstream film aiming for a wider audience is accessibility, this is relieved by the acting talent on board with the likes of Brian Blessed, Ian Holm, Judy Dench, Robbie Coltrane, Emma Thompson, John Sessions, and a young Christian Bale.
Compared to Olivier’s 1944 adaptation with its glossy Technicolor, flamboyant costumes and sun-lit battle sequences, Branagh presents in contrast, a more stark and gritty aesthetic. The performances reject a conventional Shakespearean theatricality favouring a more naturalistic approach. Released 6 years before Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, the battle sequences depict a no-holds-barred brutality soaked in mud, rain and gore. Theses scenes are excellently directed to establish through the intercutting of close-ups and wide-shots, a vast scale battle on a personal level.
Lawrence Olivier as Henry V in the 1944 adaptation; Olivier mustered out of the navy to adapt the Shakespeare play during World War II
Shakespeare adaptations suffer from the hardship of rendering familiar lines fresh and truthful to the original meaning of the text. So, when Branagh as Henry speaks the quotable line “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers” on the dawn of the Battle of Agincourte, his delivery soaring through the misty morning air, the success of his performance manifests in its evocation to accurately convey the ardour of a patriotic army prepared for battle. Productions of Shakespeare are often interpreted as being reflective of a particular moment in time. In the case of Henry V, the play is about leadership, among other things, perhaps a prescient reflection of a society fascinated by leaders and those in power in the late 1980s from Thatcher to Reagan.
The film’s only limitation is a structural one and perhaps lies in Branagh’s faithfulness to the play and his inexperience as a film director. For while his acting is exemplary the film’s pace feels baggy throughout weighed down by a slow opening scene, long battle sequences and the quite exhausting final courtship of Princess Catherine of France.
Nonetheless, the film is an unequivocal success catapulting Branagh to the Oscars where he was nominated for Best Actor and to Hollywood where he would go onto to make his follow-up film noir Dead Again. Not only does Henry V remain Branagh’s best work to date – perhaps only challenged by Thor or his ambitious adaptation of Hamlet – it is up there with Kurosawa’s Ran and Polanski’s Macbeth as one of the best Shakespeare film adaptations ever put to screen and for that reason is definitely worth revisiting.
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