Film · 1989 · Shakespeare
Henry V (1989)
Directed by Kenneth Branagh
1989
United Kingdom
★ 5.8 editorial score
Branagh was twenty-eight and directing himself in Shakespeare, which should have been a disaster: the long single take across the mud after Agincourt is the finest shot in eighties British cinema.
“Mr. Branagh has made a fine, rousing new English film adaptation of Shakespeare's "Henry V," a movie that need not apologize to Laurence Olivier's 1944 classic. The Branagh version, opening today at the Paris Theater, is comparatively small. It's almost pocket-size, but it is big enough to encompass the emotional impact of the extraordinary text as acted by the mostly superlative actors.”
