The Hollow Crown: Henry V.
Jul. 22nd, 2012 11:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAnd "It's Hard Out There For A Lancaster" comes to its conclusion as director Thea Sharrock is in the inenviable position of having to compete with Olivier and Branagh direction wise (though hey, at least it's not Orson Welles she's up against, which was director Richard Eyre's lot in the last installment). Her leading man has no problems in that department, but the cinematography is not quite all that. Never mind, it's excellent Shakespeare tv.
Olivier's Henry V. was war time propaganda in both senses, being filmed in the middle of WWII, jettisoning any ambiguities in the process (i.e. French = ridiculous and evil, Henry glorious, war justified) but what makes it still worth taking a gander at is a) Olivier's idea of starting and anding it as an Elizabethan production of the play in the Globe (so basically he plays Richard Burbage playing Henry V.) which is great fun to watch, and using early colour film for some glorious pictures taking their cue from medieval illustrations. Branagh's film, which starts and ends in a film studio (with Derek Jacobi as the chorus), puts the ambiguities back in (and is influenced by Welles in its staging of the battle scenes), ultimately also ends on a triumphant note and goes for the sweeping canvas that makes it worth watching on the big screen if you can.
This latest version makes the interesting decision to open and end with Henry V.'s funeral, which isn't Shakespeare (though it is Welles in films other than Chimes at Midnight, several times), taking its cue, as it were, from the final chorus in the play, which immediately puts a melancholy note over the whole story. It also casts John Hurt's voice as the chorus, which until the final scene gave me a kick because, Merlin watcher that I am, made me think "Kilgarrah narrates this - this explains EVERYTHING!" Kilgarrah being a wily old dragon very much into manipulation, you now. As however we eventually see John Hurt in human form in the last frame I had to say goodbye to my Kilgarrah as the narrator idea. I would regret this, were it not for something else. John Hurt is the old version of Falstaff's page boy who in this production survives. When played by a teenage Christian Bale in Branagh's film, he didn't. But here he's Thomas Brodie Sangster, aka the kid from Love Actually, aka teenage Paul McCartney in Nowhere Boy, and is distinctly on the realistic and not so heroic side (he takes a cue from Pistol and Falstaff several times and hides mid-battle once he realised how horrible war is) . Now, his name is never given in the play. I therefore decided he's Owain Tudor, the enterprising Welshman who did start as a page boy to Henry V. and then made the moves on Henry's widow Katherine, getting two illegitimate sons from her with the result that his grandkid made to to the throne and founded a new dynasty. Because if the boy is Owain T., this gives me the opportunity to say: "So, Hal. Your French victory didn't survive you for long, what with your army getting your backside kicked by a girl not much later - all hail Jeanne d'Arc -, your son was a sweet, well-meaning kid who inherited his maternal grandfather's madness and thus was utterly useless as a king, losing the crown several times until getting murdered, and the net result of all this was that the product of Falstaff's page getting it on with your wife inherited your realm. What was the point of your life again?"
Okay, sometimes I'm mean. Actually Hiddleston's Hal, now Henry V., was a likeable fellow, never completely free of self doubt, but free of self pity, since this production cut the extremely self pitying "upon the king" part of Henry's soliloquy after his anonymous encounter with the soldiers and instead had him jump right to "not today, oh God" and the "don't blame me for Dad killing Richard right now, will you, Almighty?" part of the speech. I've seen this remarked elsewhere, but for some reason it never struck me before how many other people Henry blames his invasion of France on in this play - the archbishop of Canterbury, the Dauphin, the citizens of Harfleur, you know, anyone but himself. But Hiddleston sells this as coming because he desperately wants to be sure he's doing the right thing and he's 90% percent sure, but there are those nagging ten percent...
Speaking of cuts and justifications: gone is the Salic law part of the archbishop's speech, which I'm all for, because that part is probably the most incomprehensible thing if you're not well versed in history already. (Though Branagh found a solution by having the archbishop play it ultra Machiavellian, so it didn't matter so much what he said.) Otoh it's very clear Henry is already dead set to invade France already before the tennis balls arrive and making the archbishop's justification speech much shorter emphasises that; though he's not just pretending, he is actually annoyed at the Dauphin's goading about his party animal reputation. Also gone are all of the Fluellen, MacMorris and Jamie scenes and nearly all the Welsh jokes with Fluellen, which is understandablel in that they're not that funny today anymore. (Hence Branagh making nearly the same cuts.) Gone: the Lord Scrope betrayal subplot. Much as it was fun to watch young Kenneth Branagh literally jump his ex friend and insert some slash into the play, I think it was for the better here, because Branagh's film stood on its own and so the "btw, this guy was bff with Hal for ages" info is believable whereas the Hollow Crown audience would understandably ask "who is this supposed to be again?" Cut I feel ambiguous about: Pistol's last scene, in which he mentions having heard his wife died of syphilis and is resolved to go back to England and start life as a bandit. On the one hand, I'm glad because in this version said wife is still alive, and I always liked the character, otoh the cynicism of this would fit in with the general attitude re: war of The Hollow Crown. Cut I really really mind: shorting the scene between anonymous Henry and Michael Williams. The conversation between Henry and the soldiers is the most interesting part of the entire play, and okay, the key lines, "if the cause of the king be not just..." etc. are still there, but in this version it's incomprehensible at what, excactly, Williams takes offense to that it ends with him challenging Anoymous Henry to a duel. Cut that made me go "hm, can't decide whether I'm yay or nay about this": the French attack on the baggage train is out, but Henry ordering the French prisoners executed is still in, and we even get to see said executions. This means Henry's order comes across as mainly the result of the quondam Hal angrily grieving for York's death, not as a retaliation. Which - do I actually want to look Hal better instead of being viewed ambiguosly? Hm. Can't decide, as I said.
Oh, and York. Now I love Paterson Joseph. Really truly. But this is where I mind the discontinuity of casting between Richard II the rest of the Henriad most. Because, see, in this production York, who used to be Aumerle (aka the young fellow we saw hanging out with Richard and eventually turning into one of his assassins in the first part of The Hollow Crown) comes up behind Henry just when Henry gives his speech about having reburied Richard and cried for him and please, God, do not blame me for Dad's ursupation. And Henry ends this speech getting shoulder hugged by York. If it were clear that York and Amerle are the same person, the irony here would just be delicious. As it would be about York's death, because in this Henry V. he dies not mid fight but at the edges of the battle, having just caught the Boy (aka Owain Tudor in my head) hiding behind a tree in true Falstaff fashion. There, he gets stabbed in the back by the French Lord Constable who just saw one of his own die. Again, if it were clear that this is the same person who assassinated Richard, oh, the irony. Instead, we have the casting discontinuity and a lost chance.
Letting Henry recite the big set pieces of the play, the "once more into the breach, dear friends" and the St. Crispin's Speech not as speeches to the entire army but to a very small and limited number of soldiers gives them an intimacy and heightened sense of veracity which is an interesting choice (i.e. you do believe Hal comes up with this stuff on the spot and means what he says), but also loses something of the white hot rethorical grandeuer. Either way, he's so good at this that when he later tells Katherine he's "rough of speech" it comes across as more unbelievable than ever. The wooing scene has the same disquieting charm here as it has in the Branagh version, i.e. the films are aware of our changed attitudes and that Katherine has absolutely no choice in the matter but they also sell you on Henry preferring a willing wife, so he's using all the charm he has to win her over. As in every version of Henry V. I've seen, though, the Princess Katherine scenes seem to belong to a different play than all the other scenes involving French characters, not least because all the other French characters speak fluent English with each other.
The numbers of extras and stunt people appears to have been limited and so you don't have the sense of two big armies clashing, and the crucial English advantage - the use of the longbow - isn't conveyed visually at all, which is why Ms. Sharrock falls behind both Olivier and Branagh in her Agincourt scenes, different as these two gentlemen interpreted the battle from each other. But you do believe her exhausted soldiers on both sides, and because we never get over Henry's eye level, it's also believable he genuinenly doesn't know whether or not he has won when he meets Mountjoy again.
When we end not with the Henry and Kate marriage but with Henry's funeral again as we started, and the boy is revealed to have aged into the John Hurt chorus (thereby ruining my Kilgarrah as narrator theory but adding the cream on the cake of my the Boy Is Owain Tudor theory), telling the story in the time frame of the Henry VI. plays when the War of the Roses is in full swing and France has kicked the English out (except for Calais) , it very much feels like the producers asking the BBC to let them to the York quatrology next. Which I'm all for. Next: It's Hard Out There For A York, please! You can cast Paterson Joseph again, as his own son. Or even better, his own grandson. Patterson Joseph for Richard III.!
ETA: I feel guilty for not mentioning this earlier on: Julie Walters' rendition of Mistress Quickley narrating Falstaff's death is incredibly moving. And made me think once again of how "he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever a man was" is such a brilliant phrase, in its malapropism capturing both the pathos and the wit of Falstaff, and the one line that makes me think the "Falstaff as some kind of embodiment of England" crowd has a point after all.
Olivier's Henry V. was war time propaganda in both senses, being filmed in the middle of WWII, jettisoning any ambiguities in the process (i.e. French = ridiculous and evil, Henry glorious, war justified) but what makes it still worth taking a gander at is a) Olivier's idea of starting and anding it as an Elizabethan production of the play in the Globe (so basically he plays Richard Burbage playing Henry V.) which is great fun to watch, and using early colour film for some glorious pictures taking their cue from medieval illustrations. Branagh's film, which starts and ends in a film studio (with Derek Jacobi as the chorus), puts the ambiguities back in (and is influenced by Welles in its staging of the battle scenes), ultimately also ends on a triumphant note and goes for the sweeping canvas that makes it worth watching on the big screen if you can.
This latest version makes the interesting decision to open and end with Henry V.'s funeral, which isn't Shakespeare (though it is Welles in films other than Chimes at Midnight, several times), taking its cue, as it were, from the final chorus in the play, which immediately puts a melancholy note over the whole story. It also casts John Hurt's voice as the chorus, which until the final scene gave me a kick because, Merlin watcher that I am, made me think "Kilgarrah narrates this - this explains EVERYTHING!" Kilgarrah being a wily old dragon very much into manipulation, you now. As however we eventually see John Hurt in human form in the last frame I had to say goodbye to my Kilgarrah as the narrator idea. I would regret this, were it not for something else. John Hurt is the old version of Falstaff's page boy who in this production survives. When played by a teenage Christian Bale in Branagh's film, he didn't. But here he's Thomas Brodie Sangster, aka the kid from Love Actually, aka teenage Paul McCartney in Nowhere Boy, and is distinctly on the realistic and not so heroic side (he takes a cue from Pistol and Falstaff several times and hides mid-battle once he realised how horrible war is) . Now, his name is never given in the play. I therefore decided he's Owain Tudor, the enterprising Welshman who did start as a page boy to Henry V. and then made the moves on Henry's widow Katherine, getting two illegitimate sons from her with the result that his grandkid made to to the throne and founded a new dynasty. Because if the boy is Owain T., this gives me the opportunity to say: "So, Hal. Your French victory didn't survive you for long, what with your army getting your backside kicked by a girl not much later - all hail Jeanne d'Arc -, your son was a sweet, well-meaning kid who inherited his maternal grandfather's madness and thus was utterly useless as a king, losing the crown several times until getting murdered, and the net result of all this was that the product of Falstaff's page getting it on with your wife inherited your realm. What was the point of your life again?"
Okay, sometimes I'm mean. Actually Hiddleston's Hal, now Henry V., was a likeable fellow, never completely free of self doubt, but free of self pity, since this production cut the extremely self pitying "upon the king" part of Henry's soliloquy after his anonymous encounter with the soldiers and instead had him jump right to "not today, oh God" and the "don't blame me for Dad killing Richard right now, will you, Almighty?" part of the speech. I've seen this remarked elsewhere, but for some reason it never struck me before how many other people Henry blames his invasion of France on in this play - the archbishop of Canterbury, the Dauphin, the citizens of Harfleur, you know, anyone but himself. But Hiddleston sells this as coming because he desperately wants to be sure he's doing the right thing and he's 90% percent sure, but there are those nagging ten percent...
Speaking of cuts and justifications: gone is the Salic law part of the archbishop's speech, which I'm all for, because that part is probably the most incomprehensible thing if you're not well versed in history already. (Though Branagh found a solution by having the archbishop play it ultra Machiavellian, so it didn't matter so much what he said.) Otoh it's very clear Henry is already dead set to invade France already before the tennis balls arrive and making the archbishop's justification speech much shorter emphasises that; though he's not just pretending, he is actually annoyed at the Dauphin's goading about his party animal reputation. Also gone are all of the Fluellen, MacMorris and Jamie scenes and nearly all the Welsh jokes with Fluellen, which is understandablel in that they're not that funny today anymore. (Hence Branagh making nearly the same cuts.) Gone: the Lord Scrope betrayal subplot. Much as it was fun to watch young Kenneth Branagh literally jump his ex friend and insert some slash into the play, I think it was for the better here, because Branagh's film stood on its own and so the "btw, this guy was bff with Hal for ages" info is believable whereas the Hollow Crown audience would understandably ask "who is this supposed to be again?" Cut I feel ambiguous about: Pistol's last scene, in which he mentions having heard his wife died of syphilis and is resolved to go back to England and start life as a bandit. On the one hand, I'm glad because in this version said wife is still alive, and I always liked the character, otoh the cynicism of this would fit in with the general attitude re: war of The Hollow Crown. Cut I really really mind: shorting the scene between anonymous Henry and Michael Williams. The conversation between Henry and the soldiers is the most interesting part of the entire play, and okay, the key lines, "if the cause of the king be not just..." etc. are still there, but in this version it's incomprehensible at what, excactly, Williams takes offense to that it ends with him challenging Anoymous Henry to a duel. Cut that made me go "hm, can't decide whether I'm yay or nay about this": the French attack on the baggage train is out, but Henry ordering the French prisoners executed is still in, and we even get to see said executions. This means Henry's order comes across as mainly the result of the quondam Hal angrily grieving for York's death, not as a retaliation. Which - do I actually want to look Hal better instead of being viewed ambiguosly? Hm. Can't decide, as I said.
Oh, and York. Now I love Paterson Joseph. Really truly. But this is where I mind the discontinuity of casting between Richard II the rest of the Henriad most. Because, see, in this production York, who used to be Aumerle (aka the young fellow we saw hanging out with Richard and eventually turning into one of his assassins in the first part of The Hollow Crown) comes up behind Henry just when Henry gives his speech about having reburied Richard and cried for him and please, God, do not blame me for Dad's ursupation. And Henry ends this speech getting shoulder hugged by York. If it were clear that York and Amerle are the same person, the irony here would just be delicious. As it would be about York's death, because in this Henry V. he dies not mid fight but at the edges of the battle, having just caught the Boy (aka Owain Tudor in my head) hiding behind a tree in true Falstaff fashion. There, he gets stabbed in the back by the French Lord Constable who just saw one of his own die. Again, if it were clear that this is the same person who assassinated Richard, oh, the irony. Instead, we have the casting discontinuity and a lost chance.
Letting Henry recite the big set pieces of the play, the "once more into the breach, dear friends" and the St. Crispin's Speech not as speeches to the entire army but to a very small and limited number of soldiers gives them an intimacy and heightened sense of veracity which is an interesting choice (i.e. you do believe Hal comes up with this stuff on the spot and means what he says), but also loses something of the white hot rethorical grandeuer. Either way, he's so good at this that when he later tells Katherine he's "rough of speech" it comes across as more unbelievable than ever. The wooing scene has the same disquieting charm here as it has in the Branagh version, i.e. the films are aware of our changed attitudes and that Katherine has absolutely no choice in the matter but they also sell you on Henry preferring a willing wife, so he's using all the charm he has to win her over. As in every version of Henry V. I've seen, though, the Princess Katherine scenes seem to belong to a different play than all the other scenes involving French characters, not least because all the other French characters speak fluent English with each other.
The numbers of extras and stunt people appears to have been limited and so you don't have the sense of two big armies clashing, and the crucial English advantage - the use of the longbow - isn't conveyed visually at all, which is why Ms. Sharrock falls behind both Olivier and Branagh in her Agincourt scenes, different as these two gentlemen interpreted the battle from each other. But you do believe her exhausted soldiers on both sides, and because we never get over Henry's eye level, it's also believable he genuinenly doesn't know whether or not he has won when he meets Mountjoy again.
When we end not with the Henry and Kate marriage but with Henry's funeral again as we started, and the boy is revealed to have aged into the John Hurt chorus (thereby ruining my Kilgarrah as narrator theory but adding the cream on the cake of my the Boy Is Owain Tudor theory), telling the story in the time frame of the Henry VI. plays when the War of the Roses is in full swing and France has kicked the English out (except for Calais) , it very much feels like the producers asking the BBC to let them to the York quatrology next. Which I'm all for. Next: It's Hard Out There For A York, please! You can cast Paterson Joseph again, as his own son. Or even better, his own grandson. Patterson Joseph for Richard III.!
ETA: I feel guilty for not mentioning this earlier on: Julie Walters' rendition of Mistress Quickley narrating Falstaff's death is incredibly moving. And made me think once again of how "he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever a man was" is such a brilliant phrase, in its malapropism capturing both the pathos and the wit of Falstaff, and the one line that makes me think the "Falstaff as some kind of embodiment of England" crowd has a point after all.
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Date: 2012-07-22 11:16 am (UTC)Had been slightly wary about it before the rave reviews came flooding in, because for me the Henry V against which all others have to be measured isn't Branagh or Olivier, it's this one where - perhaps being a regional theatre with its own sensitivities about the different bits of the UK and sensitivities among them and war and so forth actually made the regional chunks make sense, and featured an utterly brilliant Fluellen.