The Hendersonville Film Society will show Henry V Sunday, April 10, at 2 p.m. in the Smoky Mountain Theater at Lake Pointe Landing Retirement Community (behind Epic Cinemas), 333 Thompson St., Hendersonville.
Henry V
Movie Information
In Brief: Laurence Olivier's Henry V (1944) — or to give it its full title, The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France — marked Olivier's directorial debut, the first Technicolor production of a Shakespeare play and the only time a Shakespeare play has been used as a propaganda tool. Yes, the impetus behind the film was to rally the war-weary British people with a story that showed Great Britain being ... well, great by winning a war. Shorn of a few of the less-savory details (ostensibly at the request of Winston Churchill, who was noted for sticking his oar in in such matters at that time), it certainly did just that. It was big, colorful and sprinkled with rustic humor and patriotism. It's also pretty impressive as filmmaking. Olivier's genius (and yes, it is) lies in playing the first half-hour as a production taking place at the Globe Theater in 1600, complete with backstage antics and the blunders that live theater is prone to. What makes this work is that it guides the viewer into that state of being where the flaws of the production fall away because of the greatness that lies beneath those flaws, the shortcomings are brushed aside and the viewer is swept up in the story and the poetry.
| Score: | |
| Genre: | Shakespeare History |
| Director: | Laurence Olivier |
| Starring: | Laurence Olivier, Renee Asherson, Leslie Banks, Robert Newton, Freda Jackson, Max Adrian, Leo Genn, Ernest Thesiger |
| Rated: | NR |
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