Henry V - the best one. The Olivier one. (*********9/10)
Laurence Olivier is renowned as maybe the greatest actor who ever lived, and a large part of that reputation is due to his work in Shakespearean productions. But he is also perhaps the greatest director of Shakespeare on the big screen. And Henry the fifth is one of his greatest achievements as both a director and an actor.The movie is a stage production filmed and put up on the screen. It does not attempt to disguise this as the first three acts are clearly on the stage. As the movie progresses, however, the stage becomes bigger and the scenes take place in bigger and bigger areas, culminating with the battle scenes with hundreds of horses and people on the open plains.
Henry the fifth is, first and foremost, a military play. It was not done in the tradition of Shakespearean tragedy or comedy, but it retains elements of both. This is the play with many of the famous Shakespeare military quotes – Once more unto the breach, dear friends and so forth. And it’s Olivier’s performance that brings these lines to life with his excellent portrayal of the king. The battle scenes are reasonably well done for the time, but when compared to some of today’s similar scenes, like those of Braveheart, it pales in comparison. But Shakespeare was great not for the stories or for the scenery, but for the language his actors spoke. And no one understands this better than Laurence Olivier. Is this his best work? No. But it certainly ranks with his best.
If Shakespeare was like the Beethoven of the written word, Olivier is like a great conductor bringing his works to life. He is Herbert Von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. Not his best, but his most rousing and exciting.