Editing Henry V (1944 film) (section)

==Production==
[[Winston Churchill]] instructed Olivier to fashion the film as morale-boosting propaganda for British troops fighting World War II.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/churchill-shakespeare-and-agincourt/|title=Churchill, Shakespeare, and Agincourt|last=Lyons|first=Justin D.|date=2015-10-24|website=The Churchill Project – Hillsdale College|access-date=2019-12-10}}</ref> The making and release of the film coincided with the [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] [[invasion of Normandy]] and push into France. An early preview trailer of the film showed contemporary London just before cutting to the film's aerial footage of London in 1600.{{citation needed|date=September 2019}} The film was meant to cost £350,000 but ended up costing nearly £500,000.<ref name="budget">[https://books.google.com/books?id=xtGIAgAAQBAJ&q=%22ted+black%22+producer&pg=PA34 ''Realism and Tinsel: Cinema and Society in Britain 1939–48''] by Robert Murphy p 55</ref>

===Setting===
Much of the film's impact comes from the vivid [[Technicolor]] cinematography (using the only Technicolor camera in England at the time),<ref name=":03">{{Cite web|url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/77778/henry-v#articles-reviews|title=Henry V (1944)|website=Turner Classic Movies|access-date=2019-10-12}}</ref> spectacular period costumes and a unique blend of stylized settings, miniatures and location shooting. The film begins with a handbill floating out of the sky setting the date—the first of May 1600–and the occasion. This dissolves into a tremendously detailed miniature model of London, with boats moving on the Thames. The camera pulls away from the Tower, gleaming white in the sun, and moves past London Bridge (crowded with buildings) to aim across the river at the densely packed city studded with churches, stretching into the distance, until [[Old St Paul's Cathedral|St. Paul's]] (as it was then) can be seen. The camera pauses for a beat and then moves back to zoom in on one of the two round theatres, where a man is raising a flag inscribed The [[Globe Theatre|Globe Playhouse]], showing that a performance is imminent. Then we go into the theatre for a vivid recreation of a production of the play as performed at that time, complete with hecklers and an annoying rain shower. The Chorus (a single actor) invokes the audience's imaginations, and when the action in the play moves to Southampton, we enter the world of the [[Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry|Trés Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry]], a late medieval [[Book of Hours]]. Costumes and hair styles are authentic, and female parts are now played by women, as when Mistress Quickly delivers the news of Falstaff's death and joins other women in farewelling the soldiers.

The Chorus now invokes our imagination to fly past the fleet, barely visible far below in a Channel filled with fog, to the court of France, where Charles VI is attended by various nobles, including the "Duke of Berri", who is examining an illuminated volume with a magnifying glass in one hand and a clove-studded orange pomander in the other.

The setting becomes more natural in the dark night before Agincourt, when Henry walks through the sleeping camp to see how it goes with his men. The [[Battle of Agincourt]] takes place in a realistic setting (filmed in Ireland),<ref name=":03" /> in natural fields and forests, and dialogue is delivered from the backs of restive chargers. The troops singing [[Non nobis|Non Nobis]] and [[Te Deum]] at Henry's bidding march toward a painted rendition of the château, which fades out and fades in to the same image, blanketed in deep snow. The next set is a near-perfect rendition of the often-reproduced [[Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry|February page from the Trés Riches Heures]], with Pistol taking the place of the man warming himself in the cottage (but with greater modesty).

We next see the negotiations for the [[Treaty of Troyes]], and the setting is used to great effect to clarify and increase the impact of the Duke of Burgundy's speech about the sorry state of France. Although it is spring, the camera moves out through a window to pan over a painting of the neglected countryside, specifically illustrating each line of the speech and pausing on the neglected children before panning back up to the château. Henry's courtship of Princess Katherine weaves through a lacework of Gothic arches and is followed by their marriage. To the sound of a choir, backs to the camera, garbed in magnificent cloaks, they walk to their thrones. Cut abruptly to the Globe and a closeup on the actor playing Henry, the sound of applause and a pan to the boy playing Katherine (quite effectively) as they stand in gold painted capes with the rest of the cast kneeling in a tableau on either side of them.

The Chorus draws the curtain and speaks his epilogue, the camera pans up to the boychoir singing on the balcony and then cuts to the musicians in the gallery above them and moves further up to the narrow porch where a man brings down the flag and takes it inside. Cut to the model. The camera pulls all the way back and a handbill flies into view. The credits roll by, but before the picture ends we return to the model one last time as "The End" appears over a shot of the Tower of London gleaming white on the banks of the Thames.

===Screenplay===
Olivier intentionally left out some of Henry's harsher actions as Shakespeare portrayed them – such as his remorseless beheading of the three [[Southampton Plot]] traitors:  [[Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge]]; [[Henry Scrope, 3rd Baron Scrope of Masham]]; and Sir [[Thomas Grey (1384–1415)|Thomas Grey]]; his threat to unleash his troops to rape and pillage Harfleur if the city refused to surrender; the cutting of the throats of French prisoners during the battle at Agincourt; as well as his refusal to stop the hanging of his old friend Bardolph for looting. The Chorus' last speech contains a melancholy reference to what came after and is not in the film:

:Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd King
:Of France and England, did this king succeed;
:Whose state so many had the managing,
:That they lost France and made his England bleed:
A further scene was added to the play, in which Falstaff, on his death bed, imagines again his rejection by King Henry, which occurs in ''Henry IV Part 2.'' A recording of Olivier speaking lines from that play is heard.

===Casting===
Hundreds of locals were hired as extras for the Agincourt battle scenes filmed in [[Irish neutrality during World War II|neutral Ireland]] in 1943. The production company paid an additional pound to anyone who brought his own horse.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Thomas L. Erskine |author2=James Michael Welsh |author3=John C. Tibbetts |title=Video versions: film adaptations of plays on video|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WsJNknw8tx8C&pg=PA151 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|year=2000|page=151|isbn=978-0-313-30185-8}}</ref>

Olivier agreed not to appear in another film for 18 months to reduce any detraction from the promotion of ''Henry V''. In return, he was paid [[£]]15,000, tax-free (about £460,000 in today's money).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1720695,00.html|title=How Olivier staged a tax coup|author=Richard Norton-Taylor|work=The Guardian|location=London|date=March 2006 |access-date=19 April 2016}}</ref>

[[Esmond Knight]], who plays the patriotic [[Wales|Welsh]] soldier [[Fluellen]] was a wounded veteran of the war. He had been badly injured in 1941 while on active service on board {{HMS|Prince of Wales|53|6}} when she was attacked by the {{warship|German battleship|Bismarck||2}}, and remained totally blind for two years. He had only just regained some sight in his right eye.<ref>{{cite web |title=1943–1944 A Miracle Courtesy of Dr Anonymous |url=https://www.esmondknight.org.uk/page-2/page-23/ |website=Esmond Knight |access-date=30 January 2024}}</ref>

===Filming===
[[File:Foreign Correspondents Visit British Film Studios, Denham, Buckinghamshire, England, UK, 1943 D16277.jpg|thumb|1942: Overseas newspaper correspondents inspect a beer barrel and tent 'at Agincourt', part of the set built for the production of 'Henry V' at Denham Studios.]]
The film was shot on location at the [[Powerscourt Estate]] in [[Enniskerry]], [[County Wicklow]], Ireland.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Rothwell |first1=Kenneth |title=Shakespeare in Performance: Film |url=https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Theater/production/recorded/172/index.html |website=Internet Shakespeare Editions |access-date=30 January 2024}}</ref> The interior sets were constructed at the [[Denham Studios]] in Buckinghamshire, England. They were based on illustrations from the [[Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry]] the illustrator of which is also a character in the play.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Richmond |first1=Hugh |title=Henry V at the Globe Theater |url=https://shakespeare.berkeley.edu/videos/henry-v-at-the-globe-theater |website=Shakespeare’s Staging |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |access-date=30 January 2024}}</ref>

The film, which was photographed in three-strip [[Technicolor]], was hailed by critics for its ebulliently colourful sets and costumes, as well as for Olivier's masterful direction and acting. Pauline Kael called the movie "a triumph of color, music, spectacle and soaring heroic poetry".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0NlZpWZn4JsC&pg=PA328|title=5001 Nights at the Movies|date=15 May 1991|isbn=9780805013672|access-date=19 April 2016|last1=Kael|first1=Pauline|publisher=Macmillan }}</ref> [[James Agee]] reported, in [[Time magazine|''Time'' magazine]]'s 8 April 1946 issue, that a remarkable 75 percent of the color footage shot was used in the final release.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Agee |first1=James |title=Masterpiece |url=https://time.com/vault/issue/1946-04-08/spread/60/ |access-date=30 January 2024 |magazine=Time |volume=XLVII|issue=14 |date=8 April 1946}}</ref>

In 2007, the film was digitally restored to [[High-definition television|High Definition]] format and re-released.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.parkcircus.com/films/3952-henry-v|title=Henry V|work=parkcircus.com|access-date=25 July 2017}}</ref> As part of the BBC Summer of British Film series in 2007, it was shown at selected cinemas across the UK.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Summer of British Film |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/07_july/10/film.shtml |publisher=BBC |access-date=30 January 2024}}</ref>

===Film music===
{{see also|Suite from Henry V}}
The score by [[William Walton]] is considered one of the greatest British film scores, and excerpts from it, such as the orchestral ''[[Suite from Henry V]]'', have been performed in concert.<ref name="Gramophone">{{cite web |last1=White |first1=Michael |title=Recording William Walton's Henry V |url=https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/article/recording-william-walton-s-henry-v |website=Gramophone |publisher=Mark Allen Group |access-date=30 January 2024}}</ref>

A recording of the score arranged by [[Christopher Palmer]], with actor [[Christopher Plummer]] reading the speeches given by the Chorus, Henry V, and the Duke of Burgundy, was released in 1990 under the title ''Henry V: A Shakespeare Scenario''. The score incorporates elements from a well-known vocal adaptation of French folk-songs called ''[[Chants d'Auvergne]]'' by [[Joseph Canteloube]]. Ralph Vaughan Williams had also suggested tunes to Walton that he had used in his brass band overture 'Henry V' of 1933 including 'Agincourt Song', 'Reveillez-vous, Picards' (Old French Marching Song) and William Byrd's 'The Earl of Oxford's March' all of which Walton used. The 2007 re-release of Sir [[Neville Marriner]]'s recording of the score also includes original versions of earlier music by composers whose works were incorporated into the score, including selections from Canteloube's ''Chants d'Auvergne''.<ref name="Gramophone" /><ref>{{cite web |last1=Lysy |first1=Craig |title=HENRY V – William Walton |url=https://moviemusicuk.us/2016/08/22/henry-v-william-walton/ |website=Movie Music UK |date=22 August 2016 |access-date=30 January 2024}}</ref>