Olivier's "Henry V" and the Tres Riches Heures

Tomorrow, August 31, will be the 598th anniversary of King Henry V's death at the Château de Vincennes east of Paris. His death came suddenly during his 1421-1422 campaign in France, having captured Drieux and Meaux.

Last week Turner Classic Movies broadcast Laurence Olivier's 1944 film of Shakespeare's Henry V, which I had never seen before. From the openly panorama of London with the transition to inside the Globe Theatre to the battle scenes filmed in Ireland, the conceit of Olivier's design of the movie was a great adaptation of the the Chorus' appeal to the audience:

. . . Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million,
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confin’d two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder;
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts.
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance.
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i’ th’ receiving earth.
For ’tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there, jumping o’er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;
Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

We're seeing on the scene what the Chorus wants the audience in the Globe to see in their imaginations, creating images in their minds. The gorgeous technicolor with all the reds, blues, greens, and golds (the Criterion website posts a trailer) was thrilling and added to the cinematic verisimilitude of the imaginary play: we don't have to use our imaginations because it's been put before us on the screen. Even though I've enjoyed the soundtrack to Kenneth Branagh's 1989 version for years, I know that Sir William Walton's work is considered classic. There are two suites from the film's score, one arranged by Sir Malcolm Sargent and the other by Muir Mathieson. I recognized the French folk song tune adapted by Canteloube, "Baïlèro".

But what I enjoyed most about the film was Olivier's use of Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry for the scenes in France. For example, in Act V, Scene I, Gower, Pistol, and Lewellen are in the English camp and Pistol is in a lean-to warming himself by the fire just as in the wintry scene for the month of February. The use of the colors, the interior settings, clothing, and landscape from the beautifully decorated Breviary created for John, the Duke of Berry, himself a minor character in the play, added to the storytelling magic of the film.

Although the battle scenes are not as naturalistic as those in Kenneth Branagh's film, they contrast greatly with the those Tres Riches Heures scenes. One way that Branagh's film and Doyle's score, in my opinion, surpasses Olivier and Walton is Doyle's Non Nobis Domine at the end of the battle of Agincourt. Walton's setting of Psalm 151:1 is a quick transition to the next scene but Doyle's builds to a beautiful choral and orchestral and cinematic climax.

But Olivier's Henry V, made during World War II, is a beautiful film and was a great achievement at its time--when you consider that the animation at the beginning of the film was not created digitally as it would be now! Perhaps a computer would create some more faked realistic movement of the flags, birds, and trees, but I believed that I was seeing London in 1600 with Shakespeare sitting on a stool in the Globe, ready with his manuscript to prompt a line and give some stage direction.

I hope to see it again soon.