Henry V

Kenneth Branagh makes his feature film directorial debut with this adaptation of William Shakespeare's +Henry V. After the Chorus (Derek Jacobi) introduces the play, young king of England Henry V (Kenneth Branagh) begins an angry dialogue with King Charles of France (Paul Scofield). The king's son, ...more

A triumphant, audacious film, Henry V marked an auspicious beginning for the career of director and star Kenneth Branagh. Somber, gray, and bearing none of the jingoistic glory of Laurence Olivier's 1944 version, Branagh's Henry is a muddy, bloody affair more interested in the complexities of the king himself than in his historic defeat of the French. As such, the film is largely composed of close-ups of its characters, rather than wide angle shots emphasizing the grandly political scale of the ...more