Introduction
Received Pronuniciation
Dated?
War Propaganda
The Folger Shakespeare Library

Introduction

While this film is often seen as one of the best versions of Shakespeare on film, when I use it in my teaching, it is often the students like the least. Many of them say that they don't understand it at all. One reason for this is that the film is old as films go, and I wonder if it is not dated to young eyes. It is 60 years old in 2004. For many reasons, it's an alienating film, but one of the most frequent complaints I hear is about the delivery of lines.

In this film, you have a chance to see the "Speech Beautiful" or "Classic Shakespeare" or "Olivier/Geilgud Shakespeare" that many of the modern directors we've heard talk about. This is the "classic" presentation of Shakespeare, and Laurence Olivier had much to do with its acceptance. It's also the type of Shakespeare against which many modern directors are reacting.

The earlier Shakespeares, as strange as they might be to contemporary ears, have their own majestic beauty.

Students don't enjoy this film, but is that important? Or perhaps the question is, do they appreciate it? The aesthetics of the period are very different from our own. This is Shakespeare as "high culture" with all the trappings.

But film was different in the 1940s. Directors were not as concerned with verisimilitude in costumes and settings. Even filming looked different. You may have noticed that the colors seemed different in this film--perhaps not as natural as you'd expect--rather bright. But the colors are lovely. That's because the film was shot with a process called Technicolor, one of the first methods of making color movies. The process was invented in the 1930s, but because of its cost, it did not become relatively common until the 1950s. According to John Cunningham, "There's much more to the technical side of this, but the bottom line is that Technicolor produced a rich, vivid, lush color, which was capable of capturing very subtle differences of tone and hue. There are some colors which even today's modern professional film stocks cannot reproduce as faithfully as the Technicolor process did."

Some of the early, famous Technicolor films are Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, both from 1939. And this Henry V was famously shot in Technicolor, with the only Technicolor camera in England at the time, for a very good reason.

Olivier was released from duty in England's Royal Navy in order to shoot this film partially as war propaganda. The year was 1944, England was in the fifth year of its horrible war against the Nazis. The British government gave its permission for the project (most of England was on an austerity budget because of the sacrifices of the war) because it was planned to be a very patriotic film which could be used for propaganda purposes, namely to remind ordinary Britons of a past glorious victory against a European enemy (in this case the French not the Germans) at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.

In fact, at the beginning of the film, there originally appeared this dedication: "To the commandoes and airborne troops of Great Britain, the spirit of whose ancestors it has been humbly attempted to recapture in some ensuing scenes, this film is dedicated." It is almost always missing from modern releases.

Because of the devastation to England caused by the war, the movie was filmed in Ireland, which was a neutral country during WWII. According to J.R. Costa, an American film critic, the film, "does have its quirks, however. In the 'unto the breach' scene, Olivier had to make do with American soldiers for Henry's army. They can be identified as the ones with their helmets on the back of their heads like baseball caps."

And Costa continues, "But it was the spirit of non-defeat and patriotism that Olivier captured so well. Even the courting scene of Katherine and Henry has a fairy-tale beauty about it. Although some of the bits, such as the 'leek' scene with Fluellen, may be a little difficult to understand, this film explains why Olivier was so respected for his in Shakespeare on film and set the standard for the remainder of the 20th century. This film is a must-see."

Of course, Olivier's version is an edited version of the play, and some of the cuts made were made with the idea of making the English look more noble--Henry's speech during the siege of Harfleur is gone, as is the killing of French soldier-prisoners.

Olivier gave the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, a copy of the shooting script of the film. On their website, I found this:

"The world was still at war when, at the request of the British government, Laurence Olivier directed, produced, and played the leading role in a film of Shakespeare's Henry V . The resulting movie was not only a remarkable treatment of Shakespeare's work but also a brilliant piece of wartime propaganda, presenting as it did a hopelessly outnumbered band of Britons prevailing over a Continental foe-and all through the words of the Englishman who has been called history's greatest playwright. Few at the time of filming could have missed the relevance of Henry's cry before the siege of Harfleur of "Once more unto the breach, dear friends," although the war was on the way to its European conclusion by the time the movie was released in late 1944."

But the film was more than just a good piece of propaganda. We wouldn't be watching it 60 years later if that were the case. As the Folger comments, "Filmed in brilliant Technicolor, Henry V was a remarkably successful attempt to solve the problem that had defeated so many others-putting the archaic language and staged situations of an Elizabethan play into the modern medium of film. In a directorial sleight of hand, Olivier set the first portion of the play inside the Globe theatre-the "wooden O" of the prologue-so that when the camera at last moved outward to the greater world audiences felt liberated, and the inherent "staginess" of the work was obscured. He audaciously cut Shakespeare's original text by almost half, and in some scenes incorporated surrealistic painted backdrops based on period illustrations. Elaborate costumes like the one worn by Olivier in this hand-colored publicity photograph added still more to the cost of production, which ultimately exceeded that of any previous British film. The result has been called "one of the canonical works of the Shakespearean cinema."

So in the name of the war effort, and from his love of Shakespeare, Olivier created a lasting piece of art. But it's hard to get away from the propaganda aspect. The film was produced in 1944. World War II had been waged in Europe since 1939. It was a dark time, a hard time. When the Americans entered the war in 1941, Europe thought the end would be coming soon. But in 1944, the end was still not seeming close. (The European War finally came to an end in April 1945. The Pacific War with Japan dragged on till August 1945, when the US dropped nuclear bombs on Japan.) Almost every film made in Britain during this time, and there were quite a few, had some reference to the war. You have to be sure that the war was never far from Olivier's mind.

In fact, he talks about it in his autobiography, Confessions of an Actor (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982), especially in the chapter "Call to Arms," pp. 88-106.

As Jack Jorgens notes, "In the midst of a war, the pressures on Olivier must have been very great to make an entertaining nationalist film uncomplicated by Shakespearean irony. Certainly the patriotism is there to complement the escapist fantasy, the hymn to Britain's past glories, and the "twentieth-century conception of a sixteenth-century conception of a historical fifteenth-century king."

Nevertheless, it is to Olivier's credit that in spite of these pressures he retained a few of the complicating elements of the play and made something more than a brilliant showpiece of propaganda." (p. 126)

While researching, I did find this list of things to note about the film version on Dr. David Hart's website:

  The number of times the flag of the St. George cross is displayed. (St. George is the patron saint of England)

  The "storybook" feel to the film with the painted backdrops (based upon medieval tapestries) and cardboard cut-out castles and walls (Harfleur)

  The decadence of the French court is contrasted with the youth and vigour of Henry V. The French admit their "mettle is bred out" and that French women would prefer to have children by the more vigorous Englishmen.

  All English atrocities and any doubts as to the justness of the English cause have been censored by Laurence Olivier:

  Henry V's summary execution of the pro-French conspirators

  Henry V's threats to King Charles that war will devastate the civilian population of France

  Henry V's threats before the gates of Harfleur to rape, pillage and torture the inhabitants

  Henry V's doubts before the battle about the legitimacy of his father usurping the crown from Richard II and thus the very legitimacy of his undertaking

  and his decision in the battle to slit the throats of his prisoners.

You can see the rest of Hart's List here

No review one sees of the film can ever avoid the fact that it was indeed, a wartime film. As Damian Cannon writes, " In the making of Henry V , two aims were paramount; first, to create a piece of influential propaganda and, second, to make a great film. Given that England was under constant enemy bombardment and weighed down by attrition, the first consideration lay uppermost in Olivier's mind. It's thus a testament to his immense ability that Henry V is one of the most impressive movie adaptations of Shakespeare. With severe budgetary constraints, economies were required all over and yet these barely show -- the costumes, put together from scraps of material and silver-painted wood, look both convincing and realistic. The most outstanding limitation is the heavy use of painted backgrounds and models, all of which aim to integrate with the action yet have distractingly fake qualities. Thankfully the climatic Agincourt battle avoids these, allowing it to become a rousing spectacle of immense proportions."

Now I've talked about Olivier being one of the great English actors. Cannon had this to say about his performance, "Olivier is stupendous as the untested King, growing in stature as Henry matures. The several stirring speeches are handled with aplomb and a sense that Olivier truly understands what lies behind the words (rather than simply spitting them out). In this the brilliant script, witty, clever, understandable and fluid, aids Olivier. The language has obviously been tailored for maximum clarity, an aim that Henry V achieves with remarkable success. There is never a time when meaning is submerged beneath archaic phrases; a great relief."

These are noble words, but I find my students are usually totally lost in when watching this film. I have to wonder if Cannon's view is too scholarly.

Cannon concludes his review with: "Ultimately Henry V is an amazing achievement given the circumstances, succeeding as a call-to-arms beyond all expectation. When Olivier launches into stirring rhetoric, the blood boils and the sinews harden; no wonder his dispirited troops respond! Given this it's possible to overlook the fact that this adaptation tends to purify and emasculate Henry; no longer is he the complex and aggressive figure of Shakespeare's imagination. This was the tone required at the time and Olivier hit it dead centre. Other elements of note are the vibrant colour photography (another against the odds triumph) and the fitting score of William Walton. If you can take the intentionally artificial framing device, then Henry V can be considered to lie amongst the very best of Shakespeare's filmed plays."

The framing device, is of course, the opening, with the rather cleaned up version of an Elizabethan theatre crowd. Then we see the fuss with the beginning of the play, the heralds and so forth. And we often see characters backstage, before they are truly "the characters," when they are still actors. In a way it all does look rather fake, but on the other hand, it reinforces the very self-awareness of play as play of Shakespeare's version. Another help we have with the staginess is that the audience "helps" us get the jokes. The audience laughing clues us in that we might be missing a joke or two. On the one hand, I think it might be better for the director to help us get the jokes either through slight rewording or maybe the physical humor, but on the other hand, it helped us see what Shakespeare's audience might have laughed at.

One addition that Olivier made to the play, which a critic mentions as well, is the addition of lines from Henry IV, Pt. 2 to help us understand the relationship between King Henry and Falstaff. I think this is a good thing in that it helps people who don't know the Henry IV plays understand who this Falstaff character is. Most people who go to Shakespeare in the theater know the plays quite well, but often a movie-going crowd doesn't have the same background. This Henry V might be the first bit of Shakespeare some of these folks may have seen.

Cannon, Damian. " Henry V review," Movie Reviews UK 2000
http://www.film.u-net.com/Movies/Reviews/HenryV_1944.html

Cunningham, John, The "Tech" Behind Technicolor: The Advent of Classic Color Films," Reel Classics , 1997, http://www.reelclassics.com/Techtalk/technicolor-article.htm

Folger Library, "A Heroic Warrior-King Laurence Olivier in Henry V , 1945," http://www.folger.edu/shakespeareinamericancommunities/Olivier's%20Henry%20V.asp

Hart, David M., "Laurence Olivier, Henry V (1944) 2hrs 19 (Dvd)" David M. Hart's Webpage http://homepage.mac.com/dmhart/WarFilms/OldGuides/HenryVOlivier.html

orgens, Jack J. Shakespeare on Film (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977). Chapter 8: "Laurence Olivier's Henry V," pp. 122-35.