Henry V Henry V Comparison

Henry V has always been one of William Shakespeare’s more popular plays, in part because of the different ways that the main character can be presented. The play is essentially a treatise on what it means to be a great leader, yet the definition of just what that entails changes over time. The way the play is presented and how Henry is characterized and portrayed has also changed over time. Nowhere are these changes more visibly present than in the three best known adaptations of the play, Laurence Olivier’s 1944 film Henry V, Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 film Henry V, and the 2012 version of Henry V that was featured as the final part of the BBC miniseries known as The Hollow Crown, with the Henry V episode being directed by theatre director Thea Sharrock. While each version tells the same story and does not detract too much from the original text, there are nevertheless enough differences in the way the play is presented and how Henry is portrayed that it is easy enough to see that each adaptation is a product of its time.

In 1943, the great Shakespearean actor Laurence Olivier was commissioned to direct a film version of Henry V by the British government. The Prime Minister Winston Churchill himself told Olivier that the film should be created in such a way so as to be a piece of war propaganda and to boost morale amongst the British troops fighting abroad and the British at home. The timing for such a patriotic film could not have been more perfect. The Allies were beginning to gain momentum in their fight against Nazi Germany and the invasion of Normandy was being planned as the film was being produced. In fact, the invasion of Normandy actually occurred five months before the film was released, which of course helped the ...

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...eches served the purpose of rousing his men, and the British to war. Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 version was more melancholy and definitely had a more antiwar feeling to it. It was not released much longer after the Falklands Island Conflict and was released at a time when the world was tired of war. Branagh’s version also introduced the textual ambifuities that were missing from Olivier’s version but present in the original text. Finally, the version created for the Cultural Olympiad in 2012 was definitely made for a modern audience. The costuming was different and even some important scenes were produced differently, especially the famous speeches. These speeches were staged in such a way that spoke to a modern audience that was tired of rousing speeches and instead wanted a more subdued approach, an approach much more sensible for a world reveling in past glory.