Page 91 - Shakespeare in the Movie From the Silent Era to Shakespeare in Love

80 / Shakespeare in the Movies

torous scheme, is coldly sent to his death. Also, Henry's harsh words
before the gates of the French town Harfleur ("your naked infants
piled upon spikes") as to their coming fate if surrender is not prompt
shows another side to his character. Finally, Henry hangs old
Bardolph, most lovable of the Falstaff gang, with regret but without
hesitation, when the companion of Henry's youth is caught stealing
from a church—a double violation of Henry's dictum against pillag-
ing and the sanctity of any religious place.
Churchill expressed concern about all three scenes, and Olivier
pared them away. These omissions make Olivier's Henry a more
than perfect role model, inspiring total loyalty from his countrymen.
He is what Churchill requested: the fantasy hero figure England
needed during its darkest hour. Olivier had fashioned the right film
and Henry for that moment in time.
Not surprisingly, then, Olivier's portrayal of the battle at Agin-
court is played as a Cecil B. DeMille spectacle. Broad vistas allow for
panoramic views of brightly colored, magnificently armored knights
fighting valiantly under a clear blue sky. Throughout, Olivier keeps
his image in long-shot range, emphasizing the epic element of
Shakespeare's play while eliminating the psychological. This, how-
ever, was the very aspect Branagh would, half a century later, seize
upon. Of the play itself, Branagh insisted: "I feel it has been unjustly
treated as a jingoistic hymn to England."
Moreover, Branagh believed Henry had more in common with
alienated, neurotic Hamlet than Olivier's English Siegfried suggested.
Like Sir Laurence, Branagh made his film-directing debut with his
Henry V. The Belfast-born Reading-raised Anglo-Irish actor was
twenty-seven years old when he set to work on his movie and was
eight years younger than Olivier at the time of his auspicious direct-
ing debut. At that time, Branagh had recently left the Royal Shake-
speare Company to form (with actor David Parfitt) the Renaissance
Theater Company. Their concept was to mount populist, antielitist
productions, rendering the plays easily accessible to the general
public. They wanted Shakespeare for the common man, a contem-
porary equivalent of the original Elizabethan audience.
Branagh and executive producer Stephen Evans raised, from a vari-
ety of financial sources, nearly $10 million for their first film. A
master manipulator, Branagh convinced some of England's most
respected Shakespearean performers (Ian Holm, Judy Dench, and
Paul Scofield) to play supporting parts. Branagh was so cinematically
inexperienced that on the first day of shooting at Shepperton Stu-