100 Movies Every Catholic Should See #31: Henry V (1989)

Directed and adapted by Kenneth Branagh. Starring Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Derek Jacobi

I must make one distinction here before 

Reviewing Branagh’s 1989 

Henry V: This piece will not review 

The play, written by William Shakespeare some 

400 years before, no! This review  

Avers the film—the film alone—as its 

Domain. The play, the plot, the dialogue, 

Or scheme do draw out critics from a score 

Of generations. Any work still breathing, 

However, should be called immortal if 

Four centuries have not erased it from 

The canon of great English literature.  

I may, in passing, sink in rapturous odes 

To Shakespeare, Bolingbrokes, or Agincourt, 

But please ignore delinquencies as these, 

Attributing all outbursts to an excess 

Of education given late in youth. 

What can I say about the movie, then? 

A play is different by medium 

Alone—Actors cannot control where viewers 

Turn eyes (for all is scene and all is seen). 

As one cannot expect a painting to 

Accomplish that which sculpture does with ease,  

So too a film, while similar to drama, 

Is not the same as stagecraft. Cinema 

Owes much to drama, as a son his father. 

But please do not mistake them for each other. 

Directors choose exactly what to show 

And point their audience’s eyes to one 

Location at a time. They hold all sight. 

Ideally, directors “show, not tell.” 

The dramatist can’t splice a needle drop 

Or fade to black, though stages have their own 

Commensurable effects. And herein lurks 

The greatest difficulty of adapting 

Shakespeare to screens of any modern size. 

The text of any Shakespeare play’s designed 

To show through telling. Scenes are draped with clauses 

And lit with purple passages of verse 

That skip along and capture dialogue 

Not as it is but as it hopes to be! 

Many have tried adapting Shakespeare’s work 

To cinematic heights, but Branagh’s is 

The finest movie adaptation of 

Henry V, if not of any Shakespeare. 

Why? Kenneth Branagh’s movie demonstrates 

Integrity, intensity, and harmony 

Both as an adaptation and a movie. 

In short, a Catholic should watch this film 

Because it’s both a faithful staging of 

Immortal drama and a vigorous 

Well-made artistic object by itself. 

Shakespearean production companies 

Needlessly plague themselves with doing something 

Nobody’s done before. When separating 

Beauty from truth, the modern artist sees 

Too late that all that’s left is novelty.  

This fact is why we hear of shows such as 

“All-nude Macbeth” or “Trump as Julius Caesar.” 

And while it’s true that novelty does factor 

Into the artist’s process, novelty 

Cannot inspire dramatic work. In Shakespeare 

Especially, no eager theater-goer  

Wants something other than Othello if 

They paid to see Othello! Amazon 

Would not be making cash if every time 

You ordered coffee filters, they decided 

To send a Dyson cleaner out instead.  

You and all nature would abhor that vacuum.  

Yet this swap happens every year in theaters 

Across the world, and has been happening 

For over fifty years. Suffice to say, 

That Branagh’s faithful adaptation’s an 

Achievement based on faith alone, and should 

Earn your attention by simply being faithful. 

Yet simply lauding Kenneth Branagh’s faith 

Would be distasteful and insulting to 

The film! Like all good drama, the film hits 

As a unique production and enters in 

The eons-lasting conversation of 

The living western literary canon.

  

What do I mean? For instance, in the play, 

Henry V, The Bard is telling stories 

For his own generation’s audience.  

He’s writing jokes got only by his own 

Contemporaries, making references 

To current happenings, and currying  

Favor with Power (Makes sense, neither the dead 

Nor the unborn can pay admission fees.) 

But Shakespeare also writes in context of 

A large tradition. He refers to Plato 

And Psalms in Falstaff’s death scene, the whole play 

Itself refers to history that happened 

Two hundred years before! Not just the past, 

Shakespeare is writing for the future too.  

He reflects openly on war and noble 

Responsibility with Harry just 

Hours before the battle. Giving English- 

Speakers for generations rousing speeches 

In praise of bravery, Shakespeare not only 

Has wrought a work that wrestles with the past and 

Present, but also with the distant future. 

In the same way, the 1989 

Production grapples with the past, the present, 

And future. Reaching ‘cross the centuries,  

This film engages with a thousand years  

Of philosophical and literary 

Tradition to convey a masterpiece 

That even the original play says 

It cannot show well: 

Can this cockpit hold 

The vasty fields of France? or may we cram 

Within this wooden O the very casques 

That did affright the air at Agincourt? 

O, pardon! since a crooked figure may 

Attest in little place a million; 

And let us, ciphers to this great accompt, 

On your imaginary forces work. 

The greatest of the 1989 

Production is that this shows Harry as 

Shakespeare could never dream of showing him! 

We see the vasty fields of France! We see 

The very casques that did affright the air  

At Agincourt! This film has spectacle 

Beyond the wildest dreams of William Shakespeare.  

Lest this become a panegyric to 

A frilly collar, Branagh also touches 

On present things as well. The other famous 

Henry V was made by the great Laurence 

Olivier in World War II. Full-throated 

And patriotic, this Olivier  

Rendition does possess some merit too, 

But forty years of concentration camps, 

Flamethrowers, Tanks, and war shown on TV 

Allow for Branagh to depict a darker 

French war. Here, Kenneth Branagh does not lessen 

The heroism of the play but opens 

Up space for deep dramatic tension here. 

A Catholic should be discriminating 

When choosing films to watch—This truism  

Undergirds everything within this blog.  

Henry V stands out as a fantastic 

Drama regardless of its cinematic 

Adaptions to the screen. It is a play 

That every Catholic should watch. The movie 

That Branagh made in 1989 

Conveys the spirit of this play as well 

As any stage production in the world. 

Account yourself as blessed if you have seen it, 

And if you haven’t, go and watch it soon.

  

If at this point you didn’t like the verse 

Of this review, you’ll probably deem obscene 

The films I recommend—you could be right, 

Perhaps, but I deem you a philistine.