The British actor and director released his first film, Henry V in 1989, when I was a tender thirteen years old. It passed without notice for me during its theatrical run, but the video rental store, that monument to entertainment, where most families made at least a weekly pilgrimage before the rise of streaming, was a different story.
A lot of people probably haven’t even heard of Kenneth Branagh, technically Sir Kenneth now. As my wife has noted, he’s famous in some circles, unheard of in others despite an almost forty year career on stage and screen, credited mainly with bringing Shakespeare into the modern era. Either way, it’s no exaggeration to say that I wouldn’t be who I am today without him. The late 1980s and early 1990s weren’t exactly an age of wine and roses for fantasy geeks like myself. Dungeons & Dragons was more mocked and reviled – in some families outright banned for being a tool of Satan – than cool and hip. Fantasy movies, despite a few efforts in the late 1970s and early 1980s such as John Boorman’s groundbreaking Excalibur and the highly uneven though entertaining Dragonslayer, hadn’t really gone mainstream, and even historical epics were out of style before the runaway success of Mel Gibson’s Braveheart. Fantasy television didn’t really exist yet and would not exist on a grand scale for almost twenty years. In the interim, we had to make due with low budget New Zealand fare, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess, both of which didn’t debut until 1995. Even fantasy books hadn’t yet made the transition to their modern form, combining the classic elements established by the master, J. R. R. Tolkien, with more immersive characters and perspectives. Though Tad Williams (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn) and Robert Jordan (The Wheel of Time) had begun publishing their epic masterpieces by 1990, George R. R. Martin wouldn’t release the first installment of Game of Thrones, which of course would go on to revolutionize TV, until 1996. Before then, life long geeks such as myself were stuck with the giants of the past, while increasingly desperate for any sword and sorcery in the present.
In this context, Kenneth Branagh released his first film, Henry V in 1989, when I was a tender thirteen years old. Perhaps needless to say, this kind of art-house fare, playing almost entirely in independent movie theaters and without any kind of mass marketing passed without notice for me during its theatrical run, but the video rental store, that monument to entertainment, where most families made at least a weekly pilgrimage before the rise of streaming, was a different story, one where underappreciated films can earn a second life based on the artwork alone. A year later, tucked away in the new release section of the local Video Is (Blockbuster hadn’t yet come to town), the Henry V box sat, with Mr. Branagh himself emblazoned on the cover, staring regally in medieval garb. Superimposed in front of him were knights mounted on horseback charging into battle, the tagline promising a “bold new film.” The box alone was intriguing, but knowing it was a Shakespeare adaptation when I wasn’t yet in high school and had barely read a word was also a little daunting. Besides, Kenneth Branagh wasn’t an action hero or someone I’d ever heard of. How good could it be?
At the same time, there wasn’t much else that promised epic battles, courts and kings, knights and horses. It might’ve taken a little while checking out the box every time we made the pilgrimage, but I was bound to take a chance at some point out of desperation alone. Even in retrospect, I’m not sure what I expected once I hit play. My knowledge of Shakespeare in particular was almost non-existent beyond knowing he was considered a great author, the names of a few characters that have seeped into popular culture, and that he was frequently performed by men in tights. I believe I was aware this wasn’t the first film adaptation of Henry V and that the most famous was by Lawrence Olivier, but it’s possible I found that out later and I hadn’t seen it in any event. Olivier, I knew essentially from Clash of the Titans and not much else. My knowledge of poetry in general wasn’t much deeper, limited to perhaps the haikus we all learn in school and “Casey at the Bat” destroying all the joy in Mudville. Of English history, I knew next to nothing, not even that Henry V was a real person. Oddly, I could be mistaken, but I don’t recall having been worried about understanding the language as most people probably would’ve been, fearing that they’d require a Shakespearean translator to separate the wherefores from the perchances. While I certainly didn’t know my iambic pentameter from a pentagram at that point, the naivete of youth likely led me to believe it wouldn’t matter one way or another. In an event, rarely does one start a movie with so little in the way of preconceived notions, but we might say that is the beauty of adolescence, the reason our formative years are formative in the first place, and so I settled in front of the old school tube television, I believe it was a 27 inch complete with rounded corners like a frying pan, loaded up the tape, hoping it wasn’t damaged and the tracking was right, and started watching, completely unaware that this would be only the first step in a lifelong addiction.
More than thirty years later, it’s impossible to remember what I actually thought watching the film for the first time. The resolution in those days was so low, the details of the sets, cinematography, and even facial expressions were difficult to make out, as though we were stuck trying to make sense of the Rosetta Stone rather than watching anything filmed in the classic beauty of the old 35 millimeter format. The sound wasn’t exactly stellar either, playing through the built in speakers on the TV itself rather than anything resembling a surround or even a simple bar. Regardless, something very powerful came through from the very beginning, when Henry V confronted the emissary from France in the first act immediately after the chorus introduced the production (admittedly an odd touch for me at that age). The details that preceded this and why Henry was interested in France in the first place might well have eluded me. An understanding of the more Machiavellian side of Shakespeare’s portrayal would have to wait several years as I explored the play further, but there was no mistaking that opening up a treasure chest filled with tennis balls and insisting that was all the British King would ever see of France was an insult. There was also no mistaking Henry’s reaction, Shakespeare’s genius with language, or Mr. Branagh’s mastery of it:
We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us.
His present and your pains we thank you for.
When we have matched our rackets to these balls,
We will in France, by God’s grace, play a set
Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard…
…And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his
Hath turned his balls to gun-stones, and his soul
Shall stand sore chargèd for the wasteful vengeance
That shall fly with them; for many a thousand widows
Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands,
Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;
And some are yet ungotten and unborn
That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin’s scorn.
Not only does he wear regal robes instead of tights, but Mr. Branagh’s Henry is a towering, imposing figure, decisive, righteous, and impossible to deny, at least on the surface. He turns the mocking gift into both a threat and a play on words, substituting “mock” for “knock,” and does so with a rhythm that drives the speech forward, reaching a crescendo that is itself a threat, the equivalent of repeated punches to the face. Even to the unfamiliar, the language, in Mr. Branagh’s rendering, leaps of the screen, far more ornate than we would speak in the modern world, but immersive, engaging, and powerfully visual. The rage Henry feels at being slighted by the “pleasant prince” is apparent, but so is the deadly nature of what will happen as a result, the “thousand widows” losing their husband and sons, death and destruction so vast castles will fall and those not yet born will suffer. Rather than esoteric and removed, the impact is real and visceral. Here is a king who will not be trifled with even if the world must quake. Shakespeare and Mr. Branagh refuse to represent him as a tyrant, however, and in the very next scene, we learn about treachery in Henry’s ranks that causes him to execute a lifelong friend for treason. “What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop, thou cruel, Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature? Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels, That knew’st the very bottom of my soul, That almost mightst have coined me into gold.” Later, Henry warns the citizens of the town of Harfleur what will happen if they refuse to relent, claiming that he has his army under control now, but cannot promise he can keep them that way forever, “If not, why, in a moment look to see The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand Desire the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters, Your fathers taken by the silver beards And their most reverend heads dashed to the walls, Your naked infants spitted upon pikes Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused Do break the clouds.”
Henry’s journey isn’t all triumph, however. Even in Mr. Branagh’s dramatic reimagining of the titular king, everything comes with a cost. In addition to ordering the execution of his friend, Henry must order the death of another companion, this time for simple robbery rather than treason. Bardolph is a wayward, disfigured soul, a face “all bubukles and whelks and knobs and flames o’ fire; and his lips blows at his nose, and it is like a coal of fire, sometimes plue and sometimes red, but his nose is executed, and his fire’s out” that Henry knew before he was king when he cavorted with the errant knight Falstaff. While the events are covered in detail in Shakespeare’s Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, Mr. Branagh only alludes to them briefly in his version, setting the stage for Henry to order Bardolph’s hanging to make a statement about the greater good of France though it obviously pains him. “We would have all such offenders so cut off; and we give express charge that in our marches through the country there be nothing compelled from the villages, nothing taken but paid for, none of the French upbraided or abused in disdainful language; for when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.” Throughout, Henry exhibits a keen understanding of human nature and leadership, variously rousing his men to new heights and taking great care to understand their needs, wants, and fears. In perhaps the most famous speech of the play, he speaks his bond with them plainly on the eve of the final battle:
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day and comes safe home
Will stand o’ tiptoe when this day is named
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall see this day, and live old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors
And say “Tomorrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day…
…We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother.
The battle itself isn’t grand by modern standards, but effective considering it was shot on a backlot in England with only a handful of extras and influential enough that Mel Gibson consulted with Mr. Branagh before the much bigger scenes in Braveheart. It also ends with what would come to define Mr. Branagh’s epic approach to filmmaking, when Henry marches across the entire field in one long take. We can see the dead bodies lying everywhere, men and horses, trodden in the mud. The air is smoking, defiled by the wanton death and destruction, but neither can we escape the triumph as Henry has prevailed. The camera follows Mr. Branagh on the screen like it was beside a car accident and simply can’t look away. I know I certainly couldn’t, either then or now. I’m not going to claim that at fourteen years old I understood more than half of what was happening. Much of the subtlety, relationships and backstories were lost on me at the time, but overall it made such an impression, that I wanted to know more, what marked the beginning of my life long passion for Shakespeare specifically and poetry broadly to the point where my brother once noted that, other than my Porsche, the only thing he’s jealous of is my knowledge of Shakespeare. Perhaps I would have come to this at some point in any event, but I didn’t. I came to it because Kenneth Branagh had the courage to defy the conventions of the greats like Olivier and the skill to bring that vision to life both as an actor and a filmmaker. He would do it again in Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet, but for me at least, nothing could surpass the experience of seeing Henry V for the first time.
At the same time, Mr. Branagh also serves as a cautionary tale. After a string of well-received independent hits, he was given the chance to break through into the mainstream with a big budget adaptation of Frankenstein alongside Robert Deniro. He would bring the same sort of bold and near dizzying vision combined with a subtly and care to the effort, but he would also make a crucial mistake: Rather than taking the lead of most prior film versions and giving the monster an abnormal brain, he followed the book and depicted the monster’s evil as part and parcel of human nature. For this and other reasons, critics howled and audiences rebelled. While the film has been more broadly praised in retrospect, at the time it practically ended his career. A few years later he was doing low budget television, until he was plucked from obscurity to direct the first Thor. Since then, he’s alternated between Hollywood style fare including remaking Disney movies in live action with smaller, more personal films like All Is True and Belfast. With an estimated net worth of $60 million, he’s certainly had a fine career, but beyond a relatively small circle of devoted fans such as myself, he likely hasn’t fully achieved the promise of his stunning debut. He also remains somewhat misunderstood by critics, if the reaction to his theatrical production of King Lear is any indication. All of this was brought to bear last Friday night, when my wife and I were fortunate enough to see Kenneth Branagh perform live on stage in New York City. It was a moment more than thirty years in the making for me, prompting me to reflect on how I arrived there in the first place. Contrary to the critics, it didn’t disappoint and I left the theater perhaps more impressed than I was the first time I saw Henry V, but that’s a topic for another post.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 