My Goodreads Review of Henry V by William Shakespeare

This is one of my better early reviews and a Shakespeare one to boot! I was always hit-or-miss with these early reviews, but this one came out well-enough.

Henry V by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

We are often told war is hell, in this play Shakespeare shows us it is cruel too. While you would do good to have some background info on the actual people being portrayed blah, blah, blah, you also would do good with a little guide of Shakespeare's last historical plays Henry IV, Part 1 & Henry IV, Part 2. But even without it you would never the less see how torturous a campaign as Henry V's into France was. This is one of the Bard's better war plays mainly because he is doing it for his patrons the court of Elizabeth I and because it was not as far past as it was now. It would be something akin to the American Civil War in distance and as Henry V of Lancaster was thought to be a direct (dynasty-wise) ancestor of the Tudors this put a real source of patriotic pride in the play.

Henry, who was unruly in his youth, was found to be a very determined, steely, and pragmatic commander-in-chief and he ruthlessly enforced discipline in his small, disorganized, but fanatically determined army.

The French had the advantage of a better organized and armed military, home-field advantage, and well earned degree of confidence. What they did not have was Henry V and they would pay dearly for that.

Like many a Shakespeare play if you do not pay attention closely you miss the subtle contemplations and debates on the ethics of such things as war, will, even if Henry truly has the right and divine grace to challenge for the French crown

"But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy
reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopp'd
off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all,
"We died at such a place"; some swearing, some crying for a
surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the
debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard
there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they
charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument?
Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter
for the King that led them to it; who to disobey were against
all proportion of subjection."
(And this is his own army asking these questions and making these statements. I never cease to admire a Shakespeare play for that.)

The Battle of Agincourt is the centerpiece of the play. After a soul-rousing speech reminding everyone that the day itself is a feast day (a day of commemoration of a particular saint i.e. St. Valentine, St. Patrick and is usually the day that person died) of saints Crispin and Crispinian and bringing home the point that if they die it will be for country, but he would not ask for even one more man to fight with him and if they DO survive generations will read (and watch) of their heroics on the day not to mention bragging rights and showing up those who were not there (truly awesome speech). He has the whole of the English Army ready for battle. The battle is a hellish and nasty one as per the rules of a 15th century battle and every violation of a rule of war and human rights is very meticulously broken,
"Kill the poys [young boys who accompanied armies in those times] and the luggage! 'Tis expressly against the
law of arms. 'Tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now,
as can be offer't; in your conscience, now, is it not?"
They win miraculously, in part because of the over-powering use of long bows (something they can thank William Wallace for) and a peace treaty that gives the French king's daughter to Henry and makes his heir King of France (spoiler alert it doesn't happen that way thanks to his death, his son's folly, the War of The Roses, and a woman named Joan of Arc).

In hindsight this could be viewed as a tragedy because despite all this hard work, despite all the effort, in-the-end England will never conquer all of France, and the Norman conquest will always dwell in the collective unconscious of the English as the one time (okay second if you include the Romans...) a country subjugated Britain and they never avenged (and no, sports and singing contests do not count nor does D-Day). So, I couldn't help but feel a little bit of pity, as I'm sure the contemporary audience did, for the after knowledge that all of these gains will be wasted by the War Of The Roses, which Shakespeare covered in Henry VI, Part 1.

For reference the visual adaption I saw was Kenneth Branagh's 1989 version so yeah...the battle scene was quite brutal. This movie adaption is a pretty close second for most bloodiest and grittiest adaption of a Shakespeare play in my opinion (with Akira Kurosawa's Ran coming at number one).

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My Review of Henry V (1989) directed by Kenneth Branagh

Mars touches France

This play adapts the last of William Shakespeare's plays on the Wars of the Roses and the Henriad. This is also the first feature film directed by one of the greatest Shakespearean actors of all time Kenneth Branagh. After years acting and directing at the Royal Shakespeare Company, he finally got his way to Hollywood on the start of his run of Shakespeare films. He uses this star-studded cast to tell the story of Henry V using scenes from Henry IV, part 1 & Henry IV part 2 (both which had been adapted by the BBC Television Shakespeare and would be adapted again by the BBC for their Hallow Crown series). This was the first major adaptation of the play since Laurence Olivier's WWII era pro-war adaptation.

This movie comes at the end of the Cold War and unlike Olivier's adaptation is of a distinct anti-war character. We begin the play with the decision and scheme to lay claim to more French land as we were still in the middle of the 100 Years War between England and France. This movie covers England's greatest success in the war (Shakespeare's first and second plays covers England losing that war). It is not an easy victory and it seems every step forward the English make is at great cost and the movie is always questioning and interrogating if this was all worth it in a way that Olivier did not dare do in 1944. Even the climactic St Crispin's Day Speech is delivered by Branagh (playing King Henry) with a sorrow and exhaustion that even the triumphal background music could not hide (this was that late80s-90s era of Hollywood movies being afraid of any scene not having incidental music). The speech made the night before the St Crispin's Day Speech by a soldier to King Henry is the one that I think about a lot: "But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopp'd off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all, "We died at such a place"; some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the King that led them to it; who to disobey were against all proportion of subjection." 

One has to be truly amazed at this movie. Shakespeare films marketed towards a wide audience are always risky (as Branagh himself would find out in his latter Shakespeare adaptations), but Branagh nails it here and it would do to great acclaim in the the early to mid 1990s. This play is near the same level as Ran (1985) in the depiction of war in a Shakespeare movie adaptation—Edwin Starr would certainly agree that war is as brutal. The fact is, you can't call yourself a Shakespeare movie fan if you have not yet seen this movie yet.