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Henry V
Henry V established Kenneth Branagh as one of the most gifted and versatile film artists of our time. Branagh wrote the screenplay, starred in, and directed the film to astounding critical and popular acclaim. With a marvelous cast, including himself as Henry V, Emma Thompson as Katherine, Derek Jacobi as the Chorus, Ian Holm as Fluellen, Paul Scofield as the King of France, Judi Dench as Mistress Quickly, and Robbie Coltrane as Falstaff, Branagh brings the play into contemporary times, adding a darker and harsher sensibility. Included here are Branagh's screenplay and introduction, and dramatic stills from the film.
128 pages, Paperback
Published November 17, 1997
23 people want to read
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Kenneth Branagh
77 books95 followersSir Kenneth Charles Branagh is an Emmy Award-winning, Academy Award-nominated Northern Irish actor and film director.
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November 28, 2020
Like many who watched Branagh’s Henry V in 1989, I became totally entranced, even though I hadn’t read Shakespeare’s play. I finally did for a FutureLearn course last year and enjoyed talking about it online with my fellow Bard-nerds. So I’ll crib some of my comments from the course for this review:
This royal portrait is definitely a patriotic one, especially as edited by Branagh in this edition, but I think there’s more to the play than that. It’s a thoughtful exploration of power and responsibility. Characters such as Pistol, the Boy, and Fluellen allow us to critique Harry the man, who seems to transform into Henry the king so easily, to the point that he approves of his old friend Bardolph’s execution without so much as an aside. Shakespeare’s interest was always to humanize his characters: heroes, villains, and everyone in between. So Michael Williams, a low-born soldier at Agincourt, gives the common man a voice in a scene where an absolute ruler has to justify his expectation of unquestioning obedience. Williams ponders and argues, and thinks little of a fellow soldier who seems to be just parroting the party line – not knowing the fellow soldier is the author of the party line, surveying his men incognito. Brilliant dramatic irony there.
The idea I find interesting is this: wearing the crown is as much a duty for the ruler as service to the Crown is for their subjects. Shakespeare explores this idea by highlighting performance and role-playing, two more of his abiding interests. This is why the Chorus constantly reminds us we are watching a play, and we have to imagine the “wooden O” of the Globe Theatre as if it were “the vasty fields of France” and each actor as if he were a thousand men. Today we’re even further removed from Henry’s medieval times, and yet we still struggle for power in the daily skirmishes of our lives. When we lose those power struggles, we have to perform imposed duties, play expected roles, read our scripted lines. Shakespeare’s point is, we all have to do that. Always. Even when we win.
Of course, duty or no duty, no one wants to lose. So how does one win? The play also answers this question: whoever speaks best wins. If I had to choose only one thing to teach about the play, this would probably be it. Henry V is a master of language, whether snubbing a gift of Parisian tennis balls or debating ethics with a disgruntled soldier or rallying his anxious army with his “band of brothers” speech. Having associated with nobles and lowlifes alike, Harry always knows his audience, whether at court or in the battlefield – so he always knows how to speak their language. But is he using this power for good? As always with Shakespeare, it depends how the role is played.
Language is such a force in this play that there is even a scene written completely in French – as if Shakespearean English isn’t difficult enough for students! Being a very English king, Henry is not a master of French; and being a soldier, not a lover, he has no clue how to win over Katherine, the Princess of France, in a scene that I’m sure inspired many a modern romcom. Yet all Henry had to do was use English to persuade, motivate, inspire his men to win all of France for him. That’s the power of language – the power, specifically, of English.
This royal portrait is definitely a patriotic one, especially as edited by Branagh in this edition, but I think there’s more to the play than that. It’s a thoughtful exploration of power and responsibility. Characters such as Pistol, the Boy, and Fluellen allow us to critique Harry the man, who seems to transform into Henry the king so easily, to the point that he approves of his old friend Bardolph’s execution without so much as an aside. Shakespeare’s interest was always to humanize his characters: heroes, villains, and everyone in between. So Michael Williams, a low-born soldier at Agincourt, gives the common man a voice in a scene where an absolute ruler has to justify his expectation of unquestioning obedience. Williams ponders and argues, and thinks little of a fellow soldier who seems to be just parroting the party line – not knowing the fellow soldier is the author of the party line, surveying his men incognito. Brilliant dramatic irony there.
The idea I find interesting is this: wearing the crown is as much a duty for the ruler as service to the Crown is for their subjects. Shakespeare explores this idea by highlighting performance and role-playing, two more of his abiding interests. This is why the Chorus constantly reminds us we are watching a play, and we have to imagine the “wooden O” of the Globe Theatre as if it were “the vasty fields of France” and each actor as if he were a thousand men. Today we’re even further removed from Henry’s medieval times, and yet we still struggle for power in the daily skirmishes of our lives. When we lose those power struggles, we have to perform imposed duties, play expected roles, read our scripted lines. Shakespeare’s point is, we all have to do that. Always. Even when we win.
Of course, duty or no duty, no one wants to lose. So how does one win? The play also answers this question: whoever speaks best wins. If I had to choose only one thing to teach about the play, this would probably be it. Henry V is a master of language, whether snubbing a gift of Parisian tennis balls or debating ethics with a disgruntled soldier or rallying his anxious army with his “band of brothers” speech. Having associated with nobles and lowlifes alike, Harry always knows his audience, whether at court or in the battlefield – so he always knows how to speak their language. But is he using this power for good? As always with Shakespeare, it depends how the role is played.
Language is such a force in this play that there is even a scene written completely in French – as if Shakespearean English isn’t difficult enough for students! Being a very English king, Henry is not a master of French; and being a soldier, not a lover, he has no clue how to win over Katherine, the Princess of France, in a scene that I’m sure inspired many a modern romcom. Yet all Henry had to do was use English to persuade, motivate, inspire his men to win all of France for him. That’s the power of language – the power, specifically, of English.
September 24, 2025
Henry V by William Shakespeare, screenplay by Kenneth Branagh, who directs and stars in the film based on Shakespeare’s play
10 out of 10
Shakespeare has long been worshipped as ‘Number One’, nec plus ultra, the zenith and Milan Kundera says – I think that it was in The Unbearable Lightness of Being http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/11/t... what a title - that we have to stop calling each and every smart ruffian a ‘genius’ and keep to Leonardo da Vinci, William Shakespeare and Albert Einstein, with a few more, because otherwise, the word will lose its meaning
In his marvelous The King’s English http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/07/t... Kingsley Amis makes the same argument with many other words, one of them being infamous, which is originally associated with infamy, but it has come to signify (maybe it was just in his day, but I doubt it) famous, just like ‘we love this’ only equals we like this, since it is so frequently wasted on anything
Kenneth Branagh http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/04/h... made it on the cover of TIME – if I am not mistaken – some decades back, and it might well have been for his making of Henry V, he was nonetheless riding a big wave, celebrated as the new age Laurence Olivier, who has had his own adaptations of Hamlet, Henry V, which we could compare, or just say they were equally brilliant
Somehow, Kenneth Branagh has lived to the promise, especially in 2021 http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/01/o... with his phenomenal, semi –autobiographical Belfast, yet, at the same time, he can give you some productions that simply irritate me, although I realize that I am not your best reference point, on the contrary, his appearance as Hercule Poirot is sure to make many cringe at the exaggerated, over the top, pompous take on the detective
Coming back, William Shakespeare has managed to give the public a fantastic, heroic, admired, copied figure in Henry V, whose shortcomings are mentioned – courtiers refer to his younger days and his erring, but he is now a sage, mature, courageous, wonderful leader – only I wonder how much is artistic license here
After all, ‘The Bard’ has contributed immensely – nay, he may well be in for more than 99% of the responsibility – in making the world sure that Richard III http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/07/t... was an absolute monster, with his deformities, the vicious character…
Yes, ‘now is the winter of our discontent…and all the clouds that loured upon our house/ in the deep bosom of the ocean buried’ these are among the most spectacular, euphoric, sublime lines that I know of, and Richard III is celebrated as one of the most overwhelming creations of humankind for good reason
Only the truth is the opposite, and demonstrated in The Daughter of Time http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/10/t... by Josephine Fey, a crime novel that sits at Number One (we are there again, it must be recorded somewhere, that we have reached literary Nirvana twice, talk of joie de vivre, savoir faire, it is all here) on the Crime Writers Association list
Josephine Fey shows you that Richard III was in fact the victim of ‘fake news’ avant la lettre, it is an awful myth that makes the colossal majority of humans count the king among the most reviled, when he has not killed his nephews, and he was in fact a good monarch, and the proper look at documents testifies to this.
Now the opposite may happen with Henry V, and if we apply the Woke, Cancel Culture norms, we are clearly going to find fault with the sovereign –Harvard Professor Tal Ben-Shahar http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/07/p... has the most popular lectures in the history of Harvard (you should in fact stop reading this [as if you are] and search for wise course) and he has quite a few mottos, and one of them is Be a Merit Finder, Not a Fault Finder…he also says learn to fail, or fail to learn
The main action revolves around the war with France, because Henry V says he is the king of England, but then he also has rights over France and thus the royal there and the Dauphin need to surrender, give up their privileges and just take off, leaving him in charge, which looks like a quite preposterous, vile attitude to take, though the French dauphin was quite offensive when he sent those insulting tennis balls…nonetheless, after Henry’s immediate successor is dead, the next in line ‘loses’ French territories
Evidently, we need to put things in perspective and it has been repeatedly indicated that it is nonsense and stupid to look at the Romans, ancient, medieval nations, leaders and pretend that they must have respected ‘human rights’, played by the rules we now have…what about the future generations then, how will they see the massacre of billions of tortured animals, killed so that we stuff our bellies…
One of the best qualified to look into the future is Yuval Harari http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/h... and you could do no better that read his supreme works, Homo Deus, Sapiens – A Brief History of Tomorrow and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century…
Now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
From To The Heritage:
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life…As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality…Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
10 out of 10
Shakespeare has long been worshipped as ‘Number One’, nec plus ultra, the zenith and Milan Kundera says – I think that it was in The Unbearable Lightness of Being http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/11/t... what a title - that we have to stop calling each and every smart ruffian a ‘genius’ and keep to Leonardo da Vinci, William Shakespeare and Albert Einstein, with a few more, because otherwise, the word will lose its meaning
In his marvelous The King’s English http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/07/t... Kingsley Amis makes the same argument with many other words, one of them being infamous, which is originally associated with infamy, but it has come to signify (maybe it was just in his day, but I doubt it) famous, just like ‘we love this’ only equals we like this, since it is so frequently wasted on anything
Kenneth Branagh http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/04/h... made it on the cover of TIME – if I am not mistaken – some decades back, and it might well have been for his making of Henry V, he was nonetheless riding a big wave, celebrated as the new age Laurence Olivier, who has had his own adaptations of Hamlet, Henry V, which we could compare, or just say they were equally brilliant
Somehow, Kenneth Branagh has lived to the promise, especially in 2021 http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/01/o... with his phenomenal, semi –autobiographical Belfast, yet, at the same time, he can give you some productions that simply irritate me, although I realize that I am not your best reference point, on the contrary, his appearance as Hercule Poirot is sure to make many cringe at the exaggerated, over the top, pompous take on the detective
Coming back, William Shakespeare has managed to give the public a fantastic, heroic, admired, copied figure in Henry V, whose shortcomings are mentioned – courtiers refer to his younger days and his erring, but he is now a sage, mature, courageous, wonderful leader – only I wonder how much is artistic license here
After all, ‘The Bard’ has contributed immensely – nay, he may well be in for more than 99% of the responsibility – in making the world sure that Richard III http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/07/t... was an absolute monster, with his deformities, the vicious character…
Yes, ‘now is the winter of our discontent…and all the clouds that loured upon our house/ in the deep bosom of the ocean buried’ these are among the most spectacular, euphoric, sublime lines that I know of, and Richard III is celebrated as one of the most overwhelming creations of humankind for good reason
Only the truth is the opposite, and demonstrated in The Daughter of Time http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/10/t... by Josephine Fey, a crime novel that sits at Number One (we are there again, it must be recorded somewhere, that we have reached literary Nirvana twice, talk of joie de vivre, savoir faire, it is all here) on the Crime Writers Association list
Josephine Fey shows you that Richard III was in fact the victim of ‘fake news’ avant la lettre, it is an awful myth that makes the colossal majority of humans count the king among the most reviled, when he has not killed his nephews, and he was in fact a good monarch, and the proper look at documents testifies to this.
Now the opposite may happen with Henry V, and if we apply the Woke, Cancel Culture norms, we are clearly going to find fault with the sovereign –Harvard Professor Tal Ben-Shahar http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/07/p... has the most popular lectures in the history of Harvard (you should in fact stop reading this [as if you are] and search for wise course) and he has quite a few mottos, and one of them is Be a Merit Finder, Not a Fault Finder…he also says learn to fail, or fail to learn
The main action revolves around the war with France, because Henry V says he is the king of England, but then he also has rights over France and thus the royal there and the Dauphin need to surrender, give up their privileges and just take off, leaving him in charge, which looks like a quite preposterous, vile attitude to take, though the French dauphin was quite offensive when he sent those insulting tennis balls…nonetheless, after Henry’s immediate successor is dead, the next in line ‘loses’ French territories
Evidently, we need to put things in perspective and it has been repeatedly indicated that it is nonsense and stupid to look at the Romans, ancient, medieval nations, leaders and pretend that they must have respected ‘human rights’, played by the rules we now have…what about the future generations then, how will they see the massacre of billions of tortured animals, killed so that we stuff our bellies…
One of the best qualified to look into the future is Yuval Harari http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/h... and you could do no better that read his supreme works, Homo Deus, Sapiens – A Brief History of Tomorrow and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century…
Now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
From To The Heritage:
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life…As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality…Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
Read
August 29, 2012Must read multiple times to understand. The tennis balls. Oh for a muse of fire[return]
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