Henry V

We are embarking on a study of Henry V.  In these past 2 weeks I have:  1) watched the Lawrence Olivier 1944 version; 2) listened to Arkangel recorded version on audio on my car; 2) watched the Branagh version twice.  Now I am about to start reading it out loud with Becky.

I haven't really studied any other Shakespeare play in this depth before, except maybe Macbeth.  That I studied in high school and college and I've seen on stage once and maybe a movie version too.

I am trying to think of how many Shakespeare plays I've seen either on stage or in movie form over the years:

Much Ado About Nothing (movie)
Twelfth Night (a long time ago - a play and also a BBC version)
Midsummer Night's Dream - play (perhaps a couple of times)
The Tempest - saw this a few years ago - fabulous production - my favorite Shakespeare comedy.
Taming of the Shrew - I've seen this a couple of times too - not my favorite.
MacBeth - love this one
Julius Caesar - this is a favorite too
Othello - saw a wonderful performance of this.  Stunning.
Hamlet - another riveting performance and then I saw a parody of this called Something stinks in Denmark (or something like that - it was a homeschool production - very funny and also the terrible BBC version with Derek Jacobi - he's great but the weird twist is he's in love with his mother, the queen.  Creepy and gross interpretation).
Romeo and Juliet - I've never managed to make it through any of the movie versions - but I have seen the play - not my favorite - even though it seems to be everybody else's.

That's all I can remember right now - and then there's Henry V - which ranks up there with one of my favorites.

Just some observations and thoughts:

1.  Both movie versions are good.  I didn't think I'd like the Olivier version because I find him too stiff and stagey in movies, but this one was really good.  It definitely reflects the era it was filmed in, but I thought it was a good interpretation.  In some ways it does things better than Branagh's.  For instance the whole chorus thing - where the actor is telling us to use our imaginations - that works much better in Olivier's version because he has it set in Elizabethan times at the actual Globe.  You can see the 'cockpit' and how lacking it is and why using one's imagination is so critical in order to envision the great battle at Agincourt.  In Branagh's version, even though Jacobi is great, it really doesn't make sense.  In fact with that movie which has such close up detail and with so much of it (I think of the very long battle scene and then the long pan of everyone walking over the ravaged battlefield) they leave nothing to the imagination - it's all there in brilliant color right in your face.

2.  Both movies are abridged and it is interesting to compare the abridgments and how they change the story.  In the 1944 one, there is a lot of that slapstick humor throughout the play so that when Henry plays his little trick with the glove after this horrendous battle, it makes sense.  In the Branagh one they pretty much leave that out - Henry just hands the glove back to the guy (whatever his name was - and the guy looks kind of puzzled).  Because in the 1989 version Henry is very torn about war and feels everything so deeply, it doesn't make sense that suddenly he does this silly, good humored trick on Fluellen and the other can't-remember-his-name guy.

3.  For the first time I got the joke from the scene where Pistol, Bardolf, Nim, Boy and the Hostess are sitting around mourning the death of Falstaff and the boy says something like 'he said women were the devil incarnate' and the hostess replies 'well, he never liked the color carnation'.

4.  I noticed a lot of irony going on - namely in three ways:  1) betrayal - Falstaff has been abandoned by Prince Hal - because he has become King Henry V, and this has broken his heart and wounded him perhaps mortally in that he soon thereafter he gets sick and dies.  Then Henry turns around and tells Sir Grey, one of his close counsellors who has been involved in a plot to assassinate him, how wounded he (Henry) feels at being betrayed by Grey.  2)  We have Henry threatening the mayor of Harfleur with every kind of rape and pillage if he doesn't surrender his town, yet he hangs Bardolf for stealing from a church and warns his soldiers they are not to abuse the French in anyway - even with disdainful language.  3)  When Henry is walking through the camp at night and gets into that argument about who is responsible if the soldiers don't die well, meaning having repented and been saved, is it the king or is it the soldier themselves, Henry argues well that the son should not be blamed for the father's sin.  Yet very soon thereafter he begs the 'God of battles' to remember all the penance he as done to atone for his father's murder of King Richard.

5.  It was wonderful to see how the kids loved the movie last night.  As I was leaving I could hear them quoting things.  I heard at least two kids saying to their parents:  "We few.  We happy few.  We band of brothers."  Another funny thing, at one point someone in the play mentions 'disputations' and the kids all suddenly buzzed.  They had just learned what disputations were in their lesson about St. Thomas Aquinas.

5.  I would like to get what's going on with the frequent references to the Welsh, the Scot and the Irish.  It sounds like a joke.  The Irish guy, McMorris comes off as stupid.  The Scot comes of pretty well and of course the Welshman, Fluellen is an interesting minor character because he has that connection with Henry V who he often reminds is also a Welshman.  I think I'll focus on that when I read it through this time.  Also, I want to make note of every reference to classical mythology or history.  I know Fluellen has studied the war strategies of Pompey and others, as he is often lecturing on these things (to comic effect).

6.  I really want to see other Shakespeare history plays, especially Henry IV (there are 2 parts!) and Richard III.  It just so happens that the National Shakespeare Theatre will be showing both parts of Henry IV in March and April and the Folger Shakespeare Theatre is now showing Richard III through March 9th.  I have to figure out how to go to three plays in the next couple of months.