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.
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.
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.
