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The Hollow Crown: Henry VI Part 2
In terms of actual plays part 3, of course. In which young Will Shakespeare gets to bloody business, and creates both a female and a male supervillain.
You can see much more of later Shakespeare in this one than in the earlier Henry VIs, despite the fact it’s all still raw. But Henry rising in sympathy as he grows ever more powerless, running naked across the heath, wisdom through madness etc, that’s all something that will come back later. Though unlike Lear, Henry never was a terrible old man before losing power. As everyone around him grows more ruthless and cruel, Henry’s steadfast refusal to hate anyone, desperate attempts at compromise which get him scorned by all sides and compassion with the horrors on the battlefield that he sees make him the play’s sole good and sympathetic character. Though of course the refusal to exert power does its own damage. Tom Sturridge keeps looking far too young throughout the film (even with a beard in his later scenes, the three York brothers all look older than he does), but he really comes into his own, with the outstanding scenes being Henry disgusting all his followers by offering York the compromise of making him his heir, Henry witnessing the horror of the battlefield with two pairs of fathers and sons having slain each other, and the big naked madness cene.
Meanwhile, Sophie Okenodo has a great time rising Margaret to fierce and cruel warrior queen. It’s no wonder Shakespeare couldn’t bear to part with her and will keep her ahistorically around in England for Richard III. There’s also a pointed spiral of violence and cycle of monstrous acts creating monstrous acts going on; Margaret’s pain at finding her lover Somerset dead and his head used as sport by the Yorkists combined with her rage at her husband’s willingness to make Richard of York his heir and thus disinherit their son (that glare she gives Henry can’t be beaten in scornfulness) transform her into the woman who sadistically taunts the beaten York by dipping a hankerchief into his dead son Edmund’s blood and smearing it over his face before stuffing it in his mouth. This in turn contributes to making the younger Richard into the the full fledged psychopath he becomes. (Richard III usually being staged on its lonesome, the layers of the Margaret curses everyone but especially Richard scenes can get lost somewhat.)
This particular production goes for the obvious doubles – Somerset’s head and York’s head both on pikes, young Edmund killed by Clifford while a panicked hidden young Richard watches (I don’t think that’s in the play, but like I said elsewhere, I only read it once many years ago) mirrored by young Edward of Wales killed by Richard while Margaret watches, both Richard and Henry not killing Clifford when he asks in directly following scenes, only Richard refusing out of cruelty and revenge whereas Henry is unable to kill even as a requested mercy, etc.. And there are the obvious contrasts in the last but one scene: Henry as the only Royal who never wanted the crown but ended up with it at nine months of age versus Richard as the Royal willing to go further than anyone else to get the crown.
Other than Sophie Okenodo, the one getting the chance to do a star turn is of course Benedick Cumberbatch as Richard: portrait of the supervillain as a young man. He’s mostly silent in the early part of the play, and evidently directed to convey that while this Richard is eager for enemy bloodshed from the get go and probably a budding sociopath, he’s also hero-worshipping his father and attached to brother Edmund, so the deaths of both are a genuine shock. As the script gives Richard more and more lines, he also becomes more calculated and nihilistic, till we’ve arrived at the “I have no brother, I am like no brother, I am myself alone” of the first big Richard monologue near the end of the play where he breaks the fourth wall for the first time to talk to the audience. He’s still not in complete control of himself, though: not killing the lethally wounded Clifford precisely because the later asks for mercy is deliberate and decided cruelty, whereas in his big confrontation with Henry at the end he starts by entering Henry’s cell in the Tower in controlled gleeful villain mode to kill Henry for power and because he can, and then proceeds to lose it when Henry describes in great detail on how even Richard’s mother was horrified at giving birth to a deformed monster (can’t wait for the Richard and the Duchess of York scene in the next play!), proceeding to stab Henry to shut him up as much as for any other reason, and continuing to attack the corpse in a frenzy of hatred.
The other two York brothers, Edward IV. and George of Clarence, suffer from our young playwright being clearly not very interested in them. Though the actor playing George actually managed to sell me on Clarence having non-selfish turncoat motives for both of his side changing. (These must have been a problem to write and explain back in the day, btw, especially given that future übervillain Richard doesn’t change sides even once but sticks with Edward throughout.) He comes across as first changing sides in disgust at Edward’s foreign policy disaster/Warwick backstabbing via the Woodville marriage and then the second time around overcome by fraternal feeling, unable to fight against his brothers in the battlefield. (This production, btw, has Richard reaching out his hand to him.) Which is the most charitable view on why George kept switching sides you can come up with. Meanwhile, the actor playing Edward not only doesn’t look anything like the 18 years old male sexpot Edward IV supposedly was when winning his crown the first time around but also has the problem that young Shakespeare doesn’t offer much characterization for Edward beyond “first a tool of Warwick’s, then one of his lust”. (You wouldn’t know that one of Edward’s claims to fame is that he’s the sole English monarch actively fighting battles who never lost a single one he participated in, or that he charmed most of his subjects, including the London merchants whom he ended up hugely indebted to.) He’s easily bested in charisma and wit by Keeley Hawes in her scene with him as Elizabeth Woodville, Lady Grey, and the best that can be said about giving him a bit more dimensions is that he, too, comes across as horrified at the prospect of fighting his brother before Clarence returns to the fold.
This time around, two key scenes involving commoners weren’t cut as they were from the previous tv part, and sure enough, the earlier mentioned father-son pairs (a son and father each set on plundering their defeated foes after the battle of Towton, only to realize that they’ve killed their father and son respectively) are gut wrenching, while the shephards unimpressed by the wandering Henry have that jaundiced cynical view of royalty you dearly miss when it’s not there. But the winner for most disturbing death sequence still is the Clifford-Edmund-York-Margaret one, not because of the crown of thorns but because of the whole smearing York’s face with the blood of his son and then stuffing his mouth with it bit. That’s clearly Shakespeare freshly coming from Titus Andronicus and thinking, hm, how to I improve on Tamara taunting Titus and vice versa? I know!
And then there’s the obvious sucking up to the ruling dynasty scene when old (played by young actor) Henry meets kid Henry Tudor and immediately prophecies greatness. I don’t think we’ll see kid Henry Tudor again, given he’s a man in the next play, but that child looked as uncomfortable as you can get. Ah well, you can’t cut the scene if you want to introduce the next claimant before the end scenes of Richard III…
You can see much more of later Shakespeare in this one than in the earlier Henry VIs, despite the fact it’s all still raw. But Henry rising in sympathy as he grows ever more powerless, running naked across the heath, wisdom through madness etc, that’s all something that will come back later. Though unlike Lear, Henry never was a terrible old man before losing power. As everyone around him grows more ruthless and cruel, Henry’s steadfast refusal to hate anyone, desperate attempts at compromise which get him scorned by all sides and compassion with the horrors on the battlefield that he sees make him the play’s sole good and sympathetic character. Though of course the refusal to exert power does its own damage. Tom Sturridge keeps looking far too young throughout the film (even with a beard in his later scenes, the three York brothers all look older than he does), but he really comes into his own, with the outstanding scenes being Henry disgusting all his followers by offering York the compromise of making him his heir, Henry witnessing the horror of the battlefield with two pairs of fathers and sons having slain each other, and the big naked madness cene.
Meanwhile, Sophie Okenodo has a great time rising Margaret to fierce and cruel warrior queen. It’s no wonder Shakespeare couldn’t bear to part with her and will keep her ahistorically around in England for Richard III. There’s also a pointed spiral of violence and cycle of monstrous acts creating monstrous acts going on; Margaret’s pain at finding her lover Somerset dead and his head used as sport by the Yorkists combined with her rage at her husband’s willingness to make Richard of York his heir and thus disinherit their son (that glare she gives Henry can’t be beaten in scornfulness) transform her into the woman who sadistically taunts the beaten York by dipping a hankerchief into his dead son Edmund’s blood and smearing it over his face before stuffing it in his mouth. This in turn contributes to making the younger Richard into the the full fledged psychopath he becomes. (Richard III usually being staged on its lonesome, the layers of the Margaret curses everyone but especially Richard scenes can get lost somewhat.)
This particular production goes for the obvious doubles – Somerset’s head and York’s head both on pikes, young Edmund killed by Clifford while a panicked hidden young Richard watches (I don’t think that’s in the play, but like I said elsewhere, I only read it once many years ago) mirrored by young Edward of Wales killed by Richard while Margaret watches, both Richard and Henry not killing Clifford when he asks in directly following scenes, only Richard refusing out of cruelty and revenge whereas Henry is unable to kill even as a requested mercy, etc.. And there are the obvious contrasts in the last but one scene: Henry as the only Royal who never wanted the crown but ended up with it at nine months of age versus Richard as the Royal willing to go further than anyone else to get the crown.
Other than Sophie Okenodo, the one getting the chance to do a star turn is of course Benedick Cumberbatch as Richard: portrait of the supervillain as a young man. He’s mostly silent in the early part of the play, and evidently directed to convey that while this Richard is eager for enemy bloodshed from the get go and probably a budding sociopath, he’s also hero-worshipping his father and attached to brother Edmund, so the deaths of both are a genuine shock. As the script gives Richard more and more lines, he also becomes more calculated and nihilistic, till we’ve arrived at the “I have no brother, I am like no brother, I am myself alone” of the first big Richard monologue near the end of the play where he breaks the fourth wall for the first time to talk to the audience. He’s still not in complete control of himself, though: not killing the lethally wounded Clifford precisely because the later asks for mercy is deliberate and decided cruelty, whereas in his big confrontation with Henry at the end he starts by entering Henry’s cell in the Tower in controlled gleeful villain mode to kill Henry for power and because he can, and then proceeds to lose it when Henry describes in great detail on how even Richard’s mother was horrified at giving birth to a deformed monster (can’t wait for the Richard and the Duchess of York scene in the next play!), proceeding to stab Henry to shut him up as much as for any other reason, and continuing to attack the corpse in a frenzy of hatred.
The other two York brothers, Edward IV. and George of Clarence, suffer from our young playwright being clearly not very interested in them. Though the actor playing George actually managed to sell me on Clarence having non-selfish turncoat motives for both of his side changing. (These must have been a problem to write and explain back in the day, btw, especially given that future übervillain Richard doesn’t change sides even once but sticks with Edward throughout.) He comes across as first changing sides in disgust at Edward’s foreign policy disaster/Warwick backstabbing via the Woodville marriage and then the second time around overcome by fraternal feeling, unable to fight against his brothers in the battlefield. (This production, btw, has Richard reaching out his hand to him.) Which is the most charitable view on why George kept switching sides you can come up with. Meanwhile, the actor playing Edward not only doesn’t look anything like the 18 years old male sexpot Edward IV supposedly was when winning his crown the first time around but also has the problem that young Shakespeare doesn’t offer much characterization for Edward beyond “first a tool of Warwick’s, then one of his lust”. (You wouldn’t know that one of Edward’s claims to fame is that he’s the sole English monarch actively fighting battles who never lost a single one he participated in, or that he charmed most of his subjects, including the London merchants whom he ended up hugely indebted to.) He’s easily bested in charisma and wit by Keeley Hawes in her scene with him as Elizabeth Woodville, Lady Grey, and the best that can be said about giving him a bit more dimensions is that he, too, comes across as horrified at the prospect of fighting his brother before Clarence returns to the fold.
This time around, two key scenes involving commoners weren’t cut as they were from the previous tv part, and sure enough, the earlier mentioned father-son pairs (a son and father each set on plundering their defeated foes after the battle of Towton, only to realize that they’ve killed their father and son respectively) are gut wrenching, while the shephards unimpressed by the wandering Henry have that jaundiced cynical view of royalty you dearly miss when it’s not there. But the winner for most disturbing death sequence still is the Clifford-Edmund-York-Margaret one, not because of the crown of thorns but because of the whole smearing York’s face with the blood of his son and then stuffing his mouth with it bit. That’s clearly Shakespeare freshly coming from Titus Andronicus and thinking, hm, how to I improve on Tamara taunting Titus and vice versa? I know!
And then there’s the obvious sucking up to the ruling dynasty scene when old (played by young actor) Henry meets kid Henry Tudor and immediately prophecies greatness. I don’t think we’ll see kid Henry Tudor again, given he’s a man in the next play, but that child looked as uncomfortable as you can get. Ah well, you can’t cut the scene if you want to introduce the next claimant before the end scenes of Richard III…
no subject
The scene I found oddest was Henry striking his deal whereby he'll declare Richard of York his heir on condition that he can remain king for the rest of his life. Given that Henry doesn't seem to like being king very much, I was left wondering why he was so keen to hang on to the role (I'd have been less surprised if he'd offered York the throne on condition his own son could succeed later, though of course the Yorkists would never have kept that promise). If he thinks he's king by God's will so it would be sacrilege to abdicate, why doesn't that apply to his son? Does he secretly suspect the boy isn't his, which is never indicated?
In the text, Henry comes over as more of a politician improvising in a tricky situation than the good man out of his depth he usually seems to be. He marches in asserting that York is a traitor and he's the rightful king who will never give up his throne. When Warwick and York challenge him to prove this, he mutters in an aside "I know not what to say; my title's weak." When Exeter* comes up with the bombshell "My conscience tells me he [York] is lawful king", Henry has another aside: "All will revolt from me, and turn to him." He cheers up a bit when Northumberland and Clifford back him, but then Warwick calls in his soldiers, at which point Henry makes his compromise offer to York. But I'm not sure I believe it on the page, either.
* Although, in this BBC version, the Duke of Exeter has been played by Anton Lesser throughout, this is a different man. The Duke of Exeter in Henry V and Henry VI Part I is Thomas Beaufort (1377-1426), half-brother of Henry IV. The one in Henry VI Part III (or, in this version, Part II) is his half-great-nephew Henry Holland (1430-1475). I think it's the BBC rather than Shakespeare who's decided to conflate them, giving one man an active role in English politics for well over half a century...
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Not by the way the actor performs, and not by Shakespeare, I agree. How about this: Henry doesn't want to die? Because the obvious precedent for a King abdicating is Richard II., who didn't survive it for long.
Conflating of the Exeters: the Warwicks got conflated, too, didn't they? Or rather, since Richard Neville got that title via his wife: the Earl of Warwick present during Joan of Arc's execution was his father-in-law, Richard de Beauchamp. The guy who started the feud with Percies was Cecily's brother and York's brother-in-law, Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury. (Who died at the Battle of Wakefield, and whose head was next to York's.) And his son, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, got basically the function of all three historical characters, and I'm not sure whether Shakespeare or the BBC is to blame...
no subject