Line #46 Film/HenryV1989


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1989_henry_v_poster21.jpg]]
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3	''Henry V'' is a 1989 film directed by and starring Creator/KennethBranagh.
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5	It is an adaptation of Creator/WilliamShakespeare's ''Theatre/HenryV''. Henry V, king of England (played by Branagh), feels like he should be king of France too. Charles VI of France (Creator/PaulScofield) disagrees, and his rude FrenchJerk of a son, the Dauphin, antagonizes Henry by sending him a gift of tennis balls.
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7	So Henry mounts an invasion of France in 1415. He captures the town of Harfleur, but with his army decimated by illness, he marches towards Calais with the intentions of going home. The French however have different ideas. They raise an army five times the size of Henry's little "BandOfBrothers", and they meet him in a muddy field near a castle called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt Agincourt]].
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9	This is one of two big-screen adaptations of Shakespeare's play; see also ''Film/{{Henry V\|1944}}'', a 1944 film in which Creator/LaurenceOlivier also did double duty by directing and starring as Henry V.
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11	Film debut and StarMakingRole for Branagh; also the film debut and star-making role for Creator/EmmaThompson, who appears as Katherine of Valois, daughter of Charles VI. Also in the AllStarCast are Creator/DerekJacobi (the Chorus, aka the narrator), Creator/IanHolm as Welsh officer Fluellen, Creator/JudiDench as Mistress Quickly, Creator/RichardBriers as Bardolph, Creator/BrianBlessed as Henry's uncle the Duke of Exeter, Creator/RobbieColtrane as Sir John Falstaff, and 14-year-old Creator/ChristianBale in his third film as Falstaff's page.
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13	----
14	!!Tropes:
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16	* AdaptationalWimp: The First Citizen of Harfleur is presented as a bit of a wuss. The real life Commander of Harfleur was all round Badass Raoul de Gaucourt, a highly intelligent, chivalrous commander who held up Henry's way superior army with 200 professional soldiers and 1,000 citizens with crossbows. Only when the DirtyCoward Dauphin refused to aid him did he finally surrender.
17	* {{Angrish}}: The Dauphin is reduced to talking like this after hearing that the English army has advanced into France.
18	--> '''Dauphin:''' ''(sputtering)'' The bastard Normans!!...the... Norman bastards!!
19	* AllForNothing: The final lines remind us that Henry VI would undo all his father's accomplishments in gaining rule over France, however impressive they were.
20	* ArmourIsUseless. The French all wear full plate armour and are easily killed by the English arrows, as well as by swords and daggers. Partly TruthInTelevision, as 15th century armour was often strong enough to resist even the English longbow but would knock the wearer down. Considering that the field was a mudbath, this would prove deadly as the English men-at-arms would thrust daggers through chinks in the armour of a downed knight.
21	* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Confining it to the battle alone, there are several cases where sticking to historical accuracy would not have looked nearly as dramatic. (Which is not to say it isn't a glorious-looking battle sequence.)
22	** The English nobles did not charge out to meet the French in a cavalry vs. cavalry fight to start the battle; they quite sensibly allowed the succeeding waves of French knights and dismounted men-at-arms to be decimated by hails of arrows, rather than ride out into the arrow zone themselves. Then the mostly-dismounted English nobles and men-at-arms fought the survivors who had crossed hundreds of yards of muddy field and, already exhausted by the effort, found it almost impossible to defend themselves against the English.
23	** The English fought from behind their improvised barricades; counter-charging the French (before the final stage of the battle when they had lost their morale, cohesion, and many of their troops) makes the barricades pointless.
24	** As the battle progresses, several main characters, including Henry and the Dauphin, are seen with only token bits of armor on. This is pure RuleOfCool; anyone taking their armor off at this time in history was just asking for a quick death.
25	** Along with the above, almost nobody wears full helmets; the only prominent character to wear full armor and helm conspicuously dies in them.
26	** The French and English both make individual mounted charges around the field. This may have happened in the closing stages of the battle, when the French were just trying to escape with their lives, but during the height of the battle the cavalry charged in formation and did not seek out individual duels.
27	** Henry and the Dauphin meet in single combat, which almost certainly didn't happen. Although Henry did fight hand to hand in the front rank for a short time, according to contemporary accounts, he was accompanied by his household guard and only fought while his younger brother was being conveyed to safety after having been wounded. Furthermore, the Dauphin wasn't even at Agincourt. He spent the battle at Rouen, alongside his father.
28	** A minor point; the archers would not have been ordered to "fire". That belongs to the later age of gunpowder warfare. "Loose" your arrows is the appropriate command.
29	** The numbers were inflated - in reality, the French numbered around 25,000 (although this was still at least thrice as many as the English).
30	** The English didn't kill their French [=POWs=] as revenge for the French doing it first; but because they didn't want to risk them being freed by their army and getting back into the fight.
31	* AudibleSharpness: Henry's "Once more unto the breach" speech, the first of two [[RousingSpeech Rousing Speeches]], has him address a particular common soldier as "And you, good yeoman!". The yeoman then yanks his sword out of his scabbard with a satisfying zing.
32	* BandOfBrothers: In his RousingSpeech before the Battle of Agincourt, Henry declares that he will forever consider any Englishmen who stand and fight with him to be his brothers and equal in nobility regardless of their actual station.
33	* BitchSlap: Exeter performs one on Lord Scroop while arresting him. Whereas the other traitors flinched when he arrested them and tore off their badges of office, Scroop remained stoic, so Exeter angrily slapped him to rob him of his dignity. (The fact that he had been Henry's "bedfellow", i.e. best friend, and then betrayed him to the French along with promising to murder him, might have entered into it as well.)
34	* BittersweetEnding: Henry has a glorious victory at Agincourt and it appears his marriage to Princess Katherine will be a happy one; yet two of the comic relief characters are dead and the remaining one has lost his wife, forcing him to become a pimp and thief. And then the chorus reminds us that in only a few short years after the play's conclusion, Henry would be dead and all his accomplishments would be undone: the Hundred Years' War would continue with his son losing the claim to France, and the civil war that marred Henry IV's reign would return as the Wars of the Roses.
35	* BookEnds: The story begins with an OpenDoorOpening where the Chorus opening a door from the empty soundstage, letting the audience into the story. It ends with a DoorClosesEnding where the Chorus closes the door on Henry, Katherine, and the royal party after delivering the epilogue where he tells us that "they lost France" under the reign of Henry's son Henry VI.
36	* CallBack: Henry gets into an argument with Williams while out and about as a KingIncognito, and Williams slaps Henry with his glove as a challenge to fight after the battle. Instead, after the battle Henry simply hands the glove back, as Williams has an OhCrap moment when he realizes whom he almost fought with.
37	* CallThatAFormation: Invoked by one of the French leaders during the battle of Agincourt, who points out that while their ranks are in disarray, they still have enough men to outnumber and defeat the English if any order were to be established. He's ignored and instead the French nobles charge back into the fray, seeking death before dishonour.
38	* CarryABigStick: Exeter fights with a huge mace at Agincourt.
39	* ClimacticMusic: The "Non Nobis" starts with a male soloist voice, then builds into a chorus and ends in a triumphant instrumental. This takes the audience from the battlefield (after Henry received the casualty figures and the dead are gathered up) to the peace talks (when the French king eventually accepts Henry's conditions and offers his daughter's hand in marriage).
40	* ComicallySmallBribe: The Dauphin's envoy sends Henry a coffer, offering to exchange its contents for England dropping its claim to all their holdings in France (which at some points in history up to that point were larger than that of the King of France's) and the French throne. Exeter opens the coffer to find it is full of tennis balls, which only makes Henry's resolve to wage war to enforce his claims on France greater.
41	* CompositeCharacter: Some of the roles in the Branagh production, such as the French ambassador or an English herald, were given to the French herald Montjoy.
42	* CreatorCameo: Patrick Doyle, who composed the score, is the soldier who starts singing "Non nobis" after the battle.
43	* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Shortly after the "Once more unto the breach" speech outside Harfleur, Henry threatens the governor with what he and his soldiers will do if the town doesn't surrender, including raping young women and murdering old men and babies. Horrific as this sounds to modern sensibilities, it was actually fair by the standards of the day. Once a "Practicable Breach" had been made in a city's walls, its fall was just a matter of time, and very little at that. Therefore, the laws of war were that once a breach was made, the city was obliged to surrender, since if the soldiers had to fight their way in, there was no way their commander could maintain discipline and prevent them becoming a mere armed mob once inside. If a city refused to surrender after a breach, the attackers had the right to put every living soul in the city to the sword, having done whatever they wanted to them first. Thus, Henry isn't making bloodthirsty threats, he's reminding them of the inevitable consequences.
44	* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: The Dauphin is so angry at the news of the English invasion that he can't come up with better insults than:
45	--> '''Dauphin:''' ''(sputtering)'' The bastard Normans!!...the... Norman bastards!!
46	* DisorganizedOutlineSpeech: The archbishop's incomprehensible speech at court justifying how Henry is supposedly entitled to the throne of France.
47	* DoorClosesEnding: The film ends with Chorus, as in the play, delivering the epilogue where he says that Henry VI's ministers, "lost France and made his England bleed." Then Chorus closes the door on the conference room, and the credits roll.
48	* EmergingFromTheShadows: King Henry's first appearance has him dramatically walking into the rather dimly lit throne room from a more brightly lit outside room, causing him to show up in dramatic silhouette in the doorway as he enters.
49	* {{Flashback}}:
50	** Shakespeare was in such a hurry to ShooOutTheClowns that Falstaff does not appear in the play; Mistress Quickly has a monologue in which she relates his death offscreen. In order for the audience to know who Falstaff is and why Quickly is talking about him, there are a couple of flashbacks to ''Theatre/HenryIV'' showing Hal and Falstaff's drunken carousing, Falstaff's plea to not banish him, and, via InnerMonologue ("I know thee not, old man"), Henry's awareness that one day he will in fact banish Falstaff.
51	** In France, there's a flashback to Hal's youthful carousing with Falstaff and the gang. Ne'er-do-well Bardolph jests, [[AmbiguousSyntax "Do not, when thou art king, hang a thief!"]], to which Hal prophetically replies, "No... thou shalt."- immediately returning to the present and Bardolph being hanged for robbing a church.
52	* FrenchJerk: The Dauphin, possibly the TropeMaker. He is in fact an obnoxious prick; Henry regards him with utter contempt and even the French nobles can't stand him.
53	* GloveSlap: While Henry is wandering about his camp in disguise he gets into an argument with a soldier named Williams, who slaps Henry with his glove as a challenge to fight. Henry of course blows him off as kings don't get into fights with commoners; instead this sets up a CallBack gag in which he hands back the glove to an astonished Williams after the battle.
54	* HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: In Branagh's film, almost none of the named characters on either side wears a helmet, even the French nobles with their full plate armour which is ''designed'' for a matching helmet. The sole exception is the Constable of France, who very visibly slams his visor shut before the charge, making him easy to spot later when he becomes the only named character on the French side to die.
55	* IKissYourHand: Henry says this word-for-word to Katherine, who recoils in embarrassment. They kiss on the lips a little later.
56	* InsigniaRipoffRitual: The traitors Cambridge, Grey, and Scroop wear badges of high office, which Exeter rips off each of them in turn as he arrests them.
57	* InTheHood: Henry wears a hooded cloak to disguise his identity when he goes among his soldiers the night before the Battle of Agincourt.
58	* InvulnerableHorses: Averted. During the Battle of Agincourt, several horses (and their riders) are brought down in graphic fashion.
59	* ItIsPronouncedTropay: Exeter, visiting the French court, trolls the prince by asking if the "Daw-finn" is present. The Dauphin corrects him by pronouncing it properly.
60	* KingIncognito: Henry puts on a cloak and wanders about his camp to hear what the men are talking about.
61	* LockAndLoadMontage: A montage right before the French charge at Agincourt has the English pikemen setting their pikes, the archers nocking their arrows, and the knights tightening up their armour.
62	* MediumAwareness: The play of course has the Chorus well aware that he is in a play and addressing the audience directly, admitting that the stage is inadequate for dramatizing Agincourt, asking the audience "Can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France?" In the movie this is delivered by having the Chorus walk across an empty movie soundstage.
63	* MomentKiller: The kiss between Henry and Katherine is suddenly ended when King Charles enters. ("Here comes your father!")
64	* MoodWhiplash: The English-lesson scene whiplashes as Katherine, in high spirits and gleeful giggles at saying a naughty word, throws open her door, and ses the French king and the dauphin on their way to a war council. If she truly is to marry the English king, it will be because he has defeated her father and brother. Emma Thompson's face says it all.
65	* NeckSnap: Nym is in the middle of looting corpses at Agincourt when a French soldier kills him by snapping his neck.
66	* OhCrap: Seeing Henry's TranquilFury at the mocking gift of tennis balls from the Dauphin, Montjoy (the French herald) all but says this out loud.
67	* OminousLatinChanting: Subverted. The "Non Nobis" is in Latin, but instead of ominous, it's meant to sound hopeful and triumphant after the big battle sequence.
68	* TheOner
69	** The scene in the Eastcheap inn where Mistress Quickly relates the death of Falstaff ("as cold as any stone") is done in a single four-minute take.
70	** There is another four-minute take in the aftermath of Agincourt where King Henry carries the body of Falstaff's page to a cart, as the camera pans over the debris and "Non Nobis" plays on the soundtrack.
71	* OpenDoorOpening: The story begins with the Chorus, after delivering his prologue, opening a door on the soundstage that reveals Henry's court.
72	* PostVictoryCollapse: Used in this case to undercut Henry's bloodthirsty speech to the governor of Harfleur, threatening some pretty awful things ("...look to see/The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand/Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;/Your fathers taken by the silver beards,/And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls,/Your naked infants spitted upon pikes...") if the governor doesn't surrender. After the governor does surrender, Henry dismounts and is walking back to his men when he reels and nearly falls over. Exeter catches him.
73	* PragmaticAdaptation:
74	** The prologue, which is about making theatre magic through suspension of disbelief, is said at a movie soundstage.
75	** The film undercuts Henry's horrifying threats to the governor of Harfleur (raping virgins and murdering babies and such) by making it clear via intercut shots of his baffled and exhausted soldiers (especially a young Creator/ChristianBale) that Henry is bluffing in an effort to scare the governor into surrendering. It further makes clear that Henry is bluffing by showing him so near to collapse from fatigue after the French surrender that Exeter has to catch him to stop him from falling over.
76	** It also omits the bit of Henry and Burgundy exchanging double-entendres about Katherine in English (which she doesn't understand), right there in front of her, and right after Henry's told her he loves her.
77	** The bit with Williams challenging a KingIncognito Henry to a fight is followed up, in the play, by Henry playing a prank where he gives Fluellen the glove so that Williams will challenge Fluellen, who has no idea what Williams is talking about. This would have been really anticlimactic onscreen after Agincourt, so instead the movie simply has Henry give Williams the glove back, as Williams gapes in astonishment.
78	** Henry's "I was not angry since I came to France!" line is given a different context from the play. In Shakespeare's original, Captain Fluellen and Gower return to find the baggage train raided and all the boys in the camp slaughtered, they talk about how horrible this is for about half a minute, then launch into a debate about whether Henry is like Alexander the Great and how he turned Falstaff away. Then Henry comes in with his line. Here he shouts it immediately after discovering the murdered boys. He drags the French herald off his horse when he arrives a moment later just to prove he's angry.
79	** The scene of Harry telling his men to kill the French prisoners is cut, likely because it would seem... less than heroic for the King to order a war crime. (For context, in the actual battle this order was given because Henry saw the French massing for a new attack, and feared the prisoners overcoming their guards and starting another fight in the rear of the still-outnumbered English army. There's good reason to believe the order was mainly an intimidation tactic and very few prisoners were actually murdered.)
80	* RousingSpeech:
81	** The "Once more unto the breach" speech, in which Henry exhorts his exhausted soldiers to make one last assault on the break in the French wall at Harfleur.
82	** "Once more unto the breach" is one of the greatest Rousing Speeches in theater but is only the second-best rousing speech in the play (and this movie) as it is overshadowed by the ''other'' RousingSpeech in the play, the St. Crispin's Day speech right before battle at Agincourt. After the Earl of Westmoreland wishes that they had more men, Henry disagrees. He says that anyone who doesn't want to fight can go home, that having a smaller army means each of them will have greater glory, that every man who fights with him will be his brother, that in years to come everyone who fought on that day will show their scars and brag, while those men home in England will be jealous of them. In the film, Branagh goes for the gusto, giving an extremely passionate delivery of the famous speech, which named a trope. From the film (a shortened version of Act IV, scene iii, lines 18-67):
83	-->'''Henry V''': What's he that wishes so? My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin. If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss. And if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honour. God's will, I pray thee, wish not one man more. Rather, proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, that he which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart. His passport shall be made, and crowns for convoy put into his purse. 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 at 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 neighbours and say, "tomorrow is Saint Crispin's." Then will he strip his sleeve [[EveryScarHasAStory and show his scars]] and say, "these wounds I had on Crispin's day." Old men forget, yet all shall be forgot but he'll remember, with advantages, what feats he did that day. Then shall our names, familiar in their mouths as household words--Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester--be in their flowing cups freshly remembered. This story shall a good man teach his son. Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remembered. We few, we happy few, we BandOfBrothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother. Be he ne'er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition. And gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods '''cheap''', whiles any speaks that fought with us, upon Saint Crispin's day!
84	* RuleOfCool: Creator/BrianBlessed marching into the French court dressed in full plate armour, and later battering a French guy with a mace.
85	* RuleOfFunny: King Henry spoke English as his first language but in RealLife absolutely knew how to speak French as well. Instead we get the hilarious comic relief scene where he struggles to communicate with Katherine.
86	* SadBattleMusic: Used during the Battle of Agincourt in the Branagh version.
87	* SlidingScaleOfShinyVersusGritty: Very gritty, especially the mud and blood and death at Agincourt. This is in contrast to Olivier's ''Henry V'' film, which was World War II propaganda and looked very shiny indeed, with Agincourt on a bright day full of sunshine.
88	* {{Suedonym}}: Henry identifies himself to Pistol as "Harry [=LeRoy=]".
89	* TableSpace: The awkwardness of the beginning of Henry's wooing scene with Katherine is demonstrated by having them at opposite ends of a long table. They connect after they get up from their chairs and meet in the middle.
90	* ThatMakesMeFeelAngry: "I was not angry since I came to France until this instant!" Note that in the play Henry says this when he sees some of the English hanging back from the battle, while in this movie that line comes after he finds out about the French slaughtering the boys in the baggage train.
91	* TimePassesMontage: Scenes of Henry's tired, dirty men slogging through the mud and rain are interposed with a line on a medieval map, as the movie shows the march to Calais which is interrupted when the French show up at Agincourt.
92	* TranquilFury: Kenneth Branagh delivers the "tennis balls" speech in a quiet tone but with a fury that is positively scorching.

Context Film / HenryV1989