Tell The Dauphin

In 1415, the 28 year-old King Henry V of England launched an assault on France in support of his claim to that country's crown.  His campaign was a muddle but on his way to Calais to return to England, the French army (which outnumbered the English by perhaps 5-1) decided to attack.  The result was an unexpected and overwhelming victory by Henry at Agincourt.

In the late 1500s, Shakespeare wrote Henry V (an early biopic) as part of his history series of plays.  With the advent of cinema, Laurence Olivier did a version in the 1940s.  However, the better version and, I believe, the best Shakespeare on film, is the 1989 version with screenplay adaption and direction by Kenneth Branagh, who also plays Henry V and who was also 28 at the time.  


Watching it without any background on the play is worthwhile.  Branagh plays Henry with a complex mix of youthful enthusiasm, cold fury, inspiring leadership, charm, toughness and shrewd calculation while engaged on his murderous quest.  It's an even better experience to watch this film while you have the text of the play with you.  Only then can you understand the brilliance of Branagh's choices in adaptation and direction.  You can see what he has chosen to delete from the screenplay and you can tell why he's done so in many cases.  You can see how he reimagined scenes from the play that have very little in stage directions.  He's also taken parts of scenes from Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 and used them in the film to powerful effect.

Here is a scene from early in the play.  The French Dauphins' messenger has come to the English Court.  Some of those at Court are nervous about whether the new King is up to the challenge.

This scene, Non Nobis and Te Deum, takes place after the battle.  The last four minutes of it is not in the play and is done in one continuous shot.  Just watch it and think about how this shot was conceived and the different elements that had to come together to make it work (and pick out the artistic influences). The boy Branagh is carrying is Christian Bale, who grew up to become The Dark Knight.

 

The best-known scene is the St Crispin's Day speech which has echoed through English rhetoric for four centuries finding home in Churchill's reference to "the Few" in his Battle of Britain speech and the book and HBO series "Band of Brothers".