We begin the War of the Roses with Henry VI part 1.
This is a play that I had neither read nor watched before today. Partly this is because I like Henry V so much and know what happened to his heir.
Henry VI part 1 is all about how the victories of Henry V fall apart.
England loses France.
Here we get to see Joan of Arc as an evil witch.
Already I don’t like this as I have a special theatrical place in my heart for her. My first proper play attendance was to a very moving production of St Joan by George Bernard Shaw. I loved that play and that Joan and this version seemed so flat and cartoonishly villainous in comparison.
We also saw the downfall of Henry Vs noble brother, now the Lord Protector and regent of the young Henry VI.
This downfall includes ham fisted cat fighting, more witchery and violent murder.
There was so much whichery that I wondered if this could be a Jacobean play, but no.
Henry VI part I also shows the disassembly of the union of the nobility, church and ruling classes that Henry V managed to hammer together in his brief rein. By the plays end the lines are drawn and the Game of Thrones backstabbing is well underway.
Henry VI part 1 also destroyed the happy romantic feel that swept me away with the courtship of Hal and Catherine, leaving the audience with a manipulative petty wife and a husband built to provoke her with piety and ignorance.
Things I liked about this production: The Hollow Crown continues to wow me with casting, location and costuming.
I think Henry VI (Tom Sturridge) was fantastic and really I don’t think anyone was bad…
Or not bad with the acting.
I think maybe some of the direction was over the top but also the writing here just feels ham fisted to me.
Analysis for this play posits that it is a very early one in Shakespeares career, maybe only his 2nd play and that could account for some of the linguistic and dramatic lack of subtlety, that I so enjoy in some of his other works.
There also a very strong argument that he was only the coauthor of this play, with 1-3 other playwrights heavily involved (Marlowe comes up a lot here and given all the occult stuff I buy it).
One analysis I saw said that only about 18% of this is actually Shakespeare.
I mostly find that reassuring as I’m not in love with this one.
But the thing I find most compelling is this idea that in this play the violence is very show don’t tell and that feels very unShakespeare.
I can only think of Titus as having this much Michael Bay style fight/curse/death pacing.
Henry VI part I - 3 stars
Mom score - 0 There are a few moms here but you wouldn’t know it. It’s all witches and bitches.
Well that was fascinating in the way that you can't turn your eyes away from something horrifying is.
Henry VI, Part 1, The Hollow Crown. was the first of the Henriad plays where I finally started to understand the family tree well enough to keep everyone straight. It’s very likely the repetition starting to make sense plus the fact that it’s literally the same family squabble from four plays ago.
This play continues with the conflict created by Henry IV when he showed everyone that actually maybe you don’t have to respect the divine right of the king. Unfortunately, they have not figured out what other authority gives you right to the throne. The Bolingbrooke line already showed up the divine right but don’t necessarily want the “power is right” authority because that just encourages other people to try and take it from them. That is why I had to laugh a little at Henry VI’s uncle bowing to the infant king. They’ve got themselves in a right mess.
Quite early on, I had a trepidation of: is Henry VI an idiot? I can’t remember the exact moment, but it came early. I was so surprised to realize that it was Henry VI who said, "For blessed are the peacemakers on earth." What a great line to waste on that situation. I can't believe we ever quote that line seriously given the context it was said in.
I don't totally get Henry VI and we're back at the madness question. Is he actually falling into insanity? Is he mentally deficient? Is he just easily influenced? Or is he just weak-willed? Since Shakespeare lumps all that together usually, it's hard to tell. At first, I thought he was just being tempted by a woman, but then it seems like he's not even sleeping with her. I didn’t understand his interest in her if he wasn’t being physically tempted by her. Does it make sense that he feels good about her marrying him if he doesn’t physically understand the prize? Possibly, if everyone is telling him so.
The dramatic plucking of white and red roses was great. At first, I wasn't sure who's side I was on. Then I realized, I was on no one's side. Both York and Somerset were horrible people which I full realized in the scene of the burning of Joan of Arc. This was the most disturbing scene I've watched so far in a Shakespeare play. York had her burned and Somerset snacked through the whole thing. But I did laugh when York captured her and she yelled, "I prithee, give me leave to curse a while." Lady had some priorities.
Margaret of Anjou as told by Shakespeare was quite despicable. But when I looked up the history, she's not even rumored to have done most of the things Shakespeare has attributed to her. So Shakespeare really didn't like her. I made the observation that he seems to think the downfall of all great men is through women, (Macbeth, Othello, Henry VI, Duke of Gloucester) but Missy made the point that he's careful to say strong English women are fine, strong Scottish women, very suspect, and strong French women, just rank evil.
I'm more of the opinion that we should be blaming Henry VI. Man was just giving away France. I felt bad for the Talbots who were fighting for a fickle king.
I read something about how the Duke of Gloucester, is one of Shakespeare's few unambiguously good characters. Loved that, because Shakespeare's penchant for the ambiguous morality of all is realistic but drives me nuts. Poor guy, he could have had a Kenneth Branagh hero movie as Henry V's brother in his own right.
I liked the visuals in this even better than Richard II. The story was engrossing if a little lurid. I get why this was the inspiration for Game of Thrones, now. It's very dramatic. I am now invested in the Henriad.
After talking to Missy, I've decided that the fascinating part doesn't overcome the lurid for me. I understand the lineages of everyone better now for the fact that everyone is SO memorable for their horrific actions but other than that, it's a little nasty. And I look down on that in modern works and I find that after thinking about it, I don't think it's better for being Shakespeare.
Henry IV part 1 and 2 were about Hal being a debauched youth who either by design or by circumstance (can't tell still) turns into a brilliant king. Here we see him as the brilliant king.
He outs traitors.
He hangs one of his own ex-friends.
He wins battle after battle and makes speech after speech.
The British longbow is impressive and the archery was really fun to watch. Not the dying but the arrows flying.
Now admittedly, I don't believe in his cause. Who should get France? I don't have an opinion either way. BUT, I do appreciate his guilt for having the crown and for how he/his family got it. I don't believe in guiltless kings, so I am glad that his conscience is uneasy. It should be.
The play itself may not have impressed me so much, but I think Branagh did a great service to this play. I think he understands Shakespeare's work. He's willing to play it serious when someone else would play it goofy and slapstick. He brings depth to words that could easily be light and shallow.
The scene where Falstaff dies and his friends remember him was such a scene. The humor in the grief was perfect and real, exactly how someone may remember their old friend. This is EXACTLY how you would sit, all crowded on the stairs together.
He also did the cost of war really well. I think it's difficult to do in one movie, in the space of a couple of hours without doing it cheaply and he did not. He's not trying to manipulate you and I appreciate that. That may be Shakespeare too but I am happy for Branagh sticking to that.
The romance was the only light and funny part of the play and Emma Thompson is beautiful.
I think it didn't overplay it for what it was. They were kind of obliged to marry each other but they made the best of it and I do believe that is sweet in itself.
It should have been Much Ado About Nothing, but this is the play that convinced me to watch all of the Branagh Shakespeare.
After all that, the play ends with us being told that Henry VI loses France in the next play??? Ugh. Well on to Henry VI. It's back to the Hollow Crown for us.
This is my favorite bit of the score for the 1989 Henry V. It is the first film scored by Patrick Doyle, that’s him starting the singing.
Behold! A painting (semi contemporary) of Henry V, with his distinctive bowl cut and sleeves.
Here is Kenneth Branagh with hair, costume and set matching nearly exactly that painting.
I dig historical reenactment.
Henry V was his big directorial debut. He also wrote and adapted the screenplay. He also started in it. Hands up for Branagh!
This is a film about war, and it is graphically that.
It’s got the glory and the pathos and the cynicism. It has the debased pitiable nature and sorrow of war in full measure.
But given all of that it is an easy watch, highly accessible.
The cast here is unparalleled.
Great Shakespearean actors like Dame Judy Dench and Derek Jacobi are joined by little known but soon to be famous Shakespearean actors like Emma Thompson.
Even a very young Christian Bale is here.
When it came out pretty much everyone loved it for its approachability and quality.
Look at this from the Wikipedia article.
“ Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, praising Branagh's performance and writing, "There is no more stirring summons to arms in all of literature than Henry's speech to his troops on St. Crispan's [sic] Day, ending with the lyrical 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.' To deliver this speech successfully is to pass the acid test for anyone daring to perform the role of Henry V in public, and as Kenneth Branagh, as Henry, stood up on the dawn of the Battle of Agincourt and delivered the famous words, I was emotionally stirred even though I had heard them many times before. That is one test of a great Shakespearian actor: to take the familiar and make it new“
There are so many moments here that I love.
I love the chilling brutality of the Harfluer Ultimatum speech.
Enter the King ⌜of England⌝ and all his train before the gates.
KING HENRY, ⌜to the men of Harfleur⌝ How yet resolves the Governor of the town? This is the latest parle we will admit. Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves Or, like to men proud of destruction, Defy us to our worst. For, as I am a soldier, A name that in my thoughts becomes me best, If I begin the batt’ry once again, I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur Till in her ashes she lie burièd. The gates of mercy shall be all shut up, And the fleshed soldier, rough and hard of heart, In liberty of bloody hand, shall range With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass Your fresh fair virgins and your flow’ring infants. What is it then to me if impious war, Arrayed in flames like to the prince of fiends, Do with his smirched complexion all fell feats Enlinked to waste and desolation? What is ’t to me, when you yourselves are cause, If your pure maidens fall into the hand Of hot and forcing violation? What rein can hold licentious wickedness When down the hill he holds his fierce career? We may as bootless spend our vain command
p. 99 Upon th’ enragèd soldiers in their spoil As send precepts to the Leviathan To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur, Take pity of your town and of your people Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command, Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace O’erblows the filthy and contagious clouds Of ⌜heady⌝ murder, spoil, and villainy. If not, why, in a moment look to see The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand Desire the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters, Your fathers taken by the silver beards And their most reverend heads dashed to the walls, Your naked infants spitted upon pikes Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry At Herod’s bloody-hunting slaughtermen. What say you? Will you yield and this avoid Or, guilty in defense, be thus destroyed?
I love the someone-said-the-quiet-part-out-loud opportunities of the campfire scene.
To the King in disguise ( a this is all on you buddy moment):
Bates - Ay, or more than we should seek after, for we
know enough if we know we are the King’s subjects. If his cause be wrong, our obedience to the King wipes the crime of it out of us.
The Saint Crispian speech is genuinely, for me, get up on your feet inspirational.
Then there are things that I think the movie does better than the stage play. It’s no little thing to improve on Shakespeare!
The killing of the baggage train boys is an aside in the text of the play but on screen it breaks my heart and makes me cry.
The final walk through the field of Agincourt is very theater theatrical but has a scale you just can’t achieve on a stage.
A scene I don’t see talked about much is the French nobility’s preparation for the battle of Agincourt. In it the three top French brass snootily review the assumed outcome of the day, but the Dauphin in this movie is made to seem a fool instead of just a poetic fop.
The Dauphins horses and hawks speech is pure lyrical bombast in most versions of the play, but a few eye rolls on screen and the entire character is suddenly a dismissed foolhardy and dangerous brat.
Those things not are from the folio.
All of them hit just right and add humanity and depth to the characters.
And the humor of this move version is, for me, perfect.
At the death of Falstaff the talk goes from grief to chuckled reminiscing in a way that feels so real and relatable.
Damaged people are often the sharpest and funniest of all and here Branagh takes the slapstick humor out and pushes up the damage.
The bawds are biting and laughing in their pain and sorrow, and they are funny.
Especially in the final wooing screen the humor brings a lightness and joy rarely felt in a History play.
This scene, done in this way, was such a hit for my husband and myself (not even dating at the time) that we still quote it to each other.
Surprisingly this for me is also one of the most successfully romantic pieces of Shakespeare in all media.
The chemistry, sincerity and humor between Branagh and Thompson (married in 1989) is palpable. A real breath of fresh.
It is sweet and funny and light after all that death and sorrow.
It is perfect. It is cold water to a dry throat. I adore it.
Henry V - 5 stars for everything
Mom score - no stars, no moms although again there is a father daughter.
I started off with the lectures for this one and they were quite good. It mainly talked about the progression of Shylock as the honest to God villain in early versions of the play and then gradually as history unfolded in the unfortunate way that it did, how eventually Shylock became a victim. It also talks about what makes a good man hero in Shakespeare and I don't know. I'm unconvinced, not by the lecturer's argument but by what Shakespeare thinks makes a good hero.
I liked the movie for itself. It is a riveting story and the historical setting was enjoyable and beautiful. The R rating was for topless women, the fashion in Venice at the time.
I really just want to talk about two things.
One was Shylock as a dad. It pissed me off that Lorenzo and the other guys just dismissively believe that Shylock doesn't have a right to his own daughter because they think less of him. It was very familiar because I see people have this attitude around Muslim men, where they are considered subhuman, bestial, abusive, ugly, just unlikable, so their female relatives (the beautiful ones who aren't like the others) are open for picking.
It's demeaning the man and his daughter. It strips dignity from the man, but it also reduces the woman to a prize to be taken and makes them very unsafe. My heart broke for Shylock when he found Jessica gone.
By the way, Jessica pissed me off too. By all means, run away with a loser if you want to, it's your life, but why did you have to steal from your father?
Antonio and Bassanio were just sad to me. Whatever relationship it was, it was very lopsided.
Like why did he have this face the whole time
for this goofy face?
I don't get it. That, by the way, is Voldemort's brother. Who knew.
I don't have much to say about Portia and her suitors storyline. It almost felt like an afterthought to the immense gravity of Shylock's story. This is not how the play was written, from what I understand. The play wrote Antonio and Bassanio as charming companions, the romance as sweet, and the villain’s defeat as satisfying, even comedic.
Which leads me to the next thing I want to talk about.
WHAT WAS THAT PRANK AT THE END?
Portia and Nerissa disguise themselves as male lawyers, outmaneuver Shylock in court, and then after saving their husband manipulate those same husbands into giving up their wedding rings as tokens of gratitude. Then they return in their original identities and berate them for it, accusing them of giving the rings to other women, threatening their marriages only to reveal, *giggle giggle* that they had the rings all along and were *gasp* the lawyers.
It was probably meant to show how girlboss these women were which I admit was ahead of Shakespeare's time and probably cracked up his audience more than enlightened them given how unlikely the whole scenario was. But it made me furious. Those couples didn't deserve each other or maybe they did. I can understand using manipulation for power when you have no other way, but to use it for nothing but to whip around your power is just toxic.
So why did I like the movie so much? I think it was a very modern take on topics such as anti-Semitism and women's choices. It made it easy for me to agree because it is modern rhetoric and I do agree. I think this movie may be the play that was most changed from its original in tone but it is also one of the worst to age so I don't think I can disagree with the choice. I wonder if I watched it in its original tone whether it would be even more disgusting or it would successfully sweep the horror under a rug of laughs and kisses. Ick.
Next is Henry V. It's a Branagh. I have high hopes.
I think this is a wonderfully done version of The Merchant of Venice that suffers from some inevitable balance problems.
I don’t think the casting, costuming or cinematography could have been better and the soundtrack is a particular triumph.
It’s a difficult and problematic play and this production did much, possibly too much, to address the issues inherent therein.
This is a Pacino vehicle and that’s saying something considering the cast. (Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes, Lynn Collins)
He glowers and gnashes and stares forlornly in a way that feels sympathetic and off putting all at once.
He’s taken a role that was meant to as a caricature of a morality play villain and turned it into a fully realized human being. He’s done a better job at it than I’ve seen and kept to the text. The successes and failures of the rest of the play lay mostly at the feet of the choices he’s made to do that.
The Merchant of Venice is a comedy. We must bear in mind that comedy means happy ending in these plays and not as we modernly define it (as funny).
Because Pacino succeeds so well with humanizing Shylock none of the funny stuff lands.
I know this is a directorial/production decision as well and I can’t fault it because I doubt very much the movie would have been made otherwise.
So given that the tone is so grim, how does everything else fit?
It feels like Venice in the late 1500’s.
It does a good job of effective scene setting. It is lush and beautiful.
Just look at these gorgeous shots.
They could each be a painting.
Lynn Colin’s has the least encumbered role of the main cast and plays an interesting and effective Portia.
The Great Courses lecture advises us to view this play as a fairy tale. That is the best and most valid reading in my view as well.
In its romantic plot Bassanio woos Portia and wins her by choosing the right box of 3 while solving a riddle about the nature of love.
Bassanio has spent all his own money and needs to borrow some from an older friend (lover?) Antonio.
Antonio is out of ready cash but he has 3 ships out, any of which is worth lots of money. Antonio therefore an agrees to co-sign on a giant loan so that young Bassanio can go woo in style.
They get the loan from Shylock. Shylock is a money lending Jew who hates Antonio and will only give the loan with a pound of Antonio’s flesh as collateral.
In Venice of the 1500s a money lender (Usurer) was pretty much guaranteed to be a Jew as that was the only group of people allowed to lend money.
It’s important when watching this play to pay attention to how it’s been viewed in the past.
By the time the movie gets to the pivotal courtroom scene all the characters have been fully established and they get to be their best or at least most authentic selves.
Bassanio is a slimy bastard, Antonio is a pitiable victim, Shylock is a stubborn and vindictive fool, and only Portia comes out well as the (Shakespeare typical) cross dressing young lawyer.
The argument that Shylock is Shakespeare's first tragic hero is strong here. He paints himself into the corner of merciless inflexibility and suffers for it.
After this scene the movie falls apart. The “happy ending” feels jarring nasty.
I think Mariam will write more about that as it bothered her more.
Things that potentially could have worked in a slapstick/vaudeville style are uncomfortable in a serious drama setting.
The couples (Bassanio and Portia) and their servants (including Shylock’s now Christian daughter Jessica) all pair of happily in prosperity and joy.
The movie knows that this ending doesn’t work and follow it up with a no play scene of Shylocks daughter Jessica looking forlornly into the Venice lagoon.
I don’t love this play but am impressed by the movie.
None of the characters are speaking to me and I don’t like the dehumanizing of Shylock.
I think the fairytale reading is right but it’s not a fairytale I like either.
It’s weird that I’m giving the 4 star rating given all that but it’s just so well done.
Mariam said that it’s one of the most contemporarily relevant plays we’ve watched so far. That probably has something to do with it.
I think it was the music that took me from my expected 3.5 up to a 4.
It’s just transporting.
The Merchant of Venice - 4 stars for production
Mom score - 0 stars
This play really could have used some moms. I feel like a mom or even better some wives and moms would have injected a modicum of sense and restraint and maybe even compassion into the heads of these stories.
This is probably only due to my mom-ness.
They after moms did nothing of the sort for Romeo and Juliet.
I watched this play almost a month ago and it is startling how much I remember of it and how consistently my opinion of it has stayed the same. It was perfectly pleasant and entertaining to watch. It was very forgettable. So why did it stay in my memory?
It was beautiful for one. I love a good pastoral setting and there were beautiful gardens, Japanese bridges, and beautiful costumes. The lighting was good too although it was into the 2000s now so it was starting to lose that nostalgic 90s feeling.
I do have one gripe which is there was absolutely no reason for this movie to have been in Japan. Apparently Kenneth Branagh was in Japan (?) or a Japanese garden (?) and thought, "now couldn't this be the Forest of Arden?" And so he did it. At first, I thought he wasn't going to have any of the Japanese characters speak at all which would have been very weird but thankfully he didn't do that. I think he got away with it not being offensive, but a Japanese person needs to fact check that.
I was not a fan of this couple.
He was horrible to her and she did not deserve that. It was pitiful how happy she was for him to make a wife of her and how much she was willing to give him and he was just trying to trick her. I didn't find it funny at all.
I thought it was insane the game Rosalind played with Orlando, pretending to be a man and "allowing" him to practice his courtship of Rosalind on her. But I also got it. Who doesn't want to hear the honest, tortured thoughts of your lover? But mostly I'm with Celia here:
I liked Celia. She was sweet and good and loyal. She fell in love a little too fast but they all did and at least it was mutual.
I do wonder, if the right cast could add depth to this play. Like Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh in Much Ado About Nothing. That could be a fluff play but they brought some depth to it that wasn't written explicitly into the script.
This was very much a fluff production, but IF someone could do this with depth, I would love to see it. Perhaps there is no depth here though. Missy has mentioned some of his plays are not so strong and I can see that this might be one of them.
Oh, one interesting As You Like It mention I came across soon after watching it! I was reading The Orient Express by Agatha Christie for my Ramadan book club (theme is Orient Express this year) and one of the characters is an actress named Linda Arden. She took that on as her stage name for the Forest of Arden from As You Like It. I had not expected to ever come across a reference of this play much less so soon!
We are on to The Merchant of Venice next which I hear is a good production but cringey and horrid and anti-Semitic. And rated R which I certainly hope is not for violence or a "pound of flesh".
