"Piece Out Our Imperfections with Your Thoughts": The Chorus in Branagh's Henry V

A director faced with the task of producing a film adaptation of the play Henry V might reasonably consider omitting the Chorus. After all, a central task of the chorus in Shakespeare's play is to apologize for limitations of Elizabethan theater, such as scarce props and lack of scenery, which need not exist in a high-budget, modern film. Why instruct a film audience to "think, when we talk of horses, that you see them printing their proud hoofs 'i the receiving earth" (Prologue 26-27), when that audience will be shown the horses? In addition, modern film audiences are not used to being presented with a Chorus and will likely find it distracting or confusing.

A film director might choose to preserve the Chorus despite these drawbacks because s/he wants to be as faithful as possible to Shakespeare's original script. Kenneth Branagh, however, is not such a purist; in his version of Henry V, he omits large portions of text from scenes throughout the play - as W. Shaw points out, he reduces the first scene of act one from 99 to 22 lines (128). Yet, he chooses to leave each Chorus almost perfectly intact.

Bernice Kliman, in her essay "Branagh's Henry V: Allusion and Illusion," suggests that we overestimate the extent to which film can give us a ready-made reality and underestimate the extent to which our imagination must play a part in our experience of a film. By keeping the chorus, she says, Branagh "reminds us that much of movie illusion depends on the audience's complicity" (1). Kliman asserts further that Branagh purposefully imposes artificial limitations on his film which work with the chorus to emphasize this complicity (9). These are both valid points. However, film is even more inherently limited in its ability to present "reality" than Kliman says it is. The Chorus itself is limited in its ability to apologize for that lack of reality and to make the audience aware of their participation in the film. The techniques which Kliman sees as Branagh's exaggeration of film's inherent limitations do not exist merely to justify the Chorus or to make the audience more aware of their own active participation in the film - they serve other, sometimes more primary, purposes. In addition, there are several other functions of the chorus which Kliman does not touch upon.

Kliman points out that the actual visual world of film is limited by the scope of the camera; we only imagine what is beyond that frame (1). She also states that we must disconnect the visual cues of film from their usual meaning in life. For example, she says, when a character gazes into the camera, he is not looking at us, but rather staring off into the distance, or looking at another character who is not visible to us (1). This may seem obvious on an intellectual level, but it contradicts our initial emotional reaction when faced with someone's direct gaze. A viewer must also internally adjust the size and dimensions of the images she is given - to see characters that occupy twenty feet of two- dimensional screen space in a movie theater (or twenty inches of television screen space) as three-dimensional, life-size human beings. So film audiences are actually presented with a flat, oversized, rectangular world in which the direction and focus of our gaze is decided for us, and in which we see but cannot be seen. Not very much like life.

Kliman does not mention any inherent limitations in film's aural presentation of reality. But there is one subtle way in which the audience participates in constructing reality here as well. We must take the aural information which emanates from loud-speakers and project it on screen. In a movie theater, there are often several different speakers located many feet away from the screen and from each other. Some may even be in back of us. Several voices may emanate at once from the same point(s), and we must decipher which voice belongs to which actor. In real life, it would be quite unusual if someone opened their mouth to speak, and the sound of their voice actually came from several different places far away from where they were standing.

Another limitation of film which Kliman doesn't mention is that only two out of the five senses can be represented. We see campfires burning and hear them crackling, but we do not smell the smoke. We see banners blowing back and forth in the wind and hear their cloth snapping, but we do not feel the breeze.

Kliman says that Branagh exaggerates the inherent visual limits of film by relying heavily on compact camera shots, by failing to include scene-establishing shots, and by tracking movements in an intrusive way (9). The relentless close-ups do make us aware that we are missing the visual information of what is outside the narrow confines of the frame. But they also serve to emphasize the personal, rather than historic, aspects of the story. Branagh defines characters instead of historical figures, and depicts decisions leading to consequences instead of inevitable historical facts. The lack of wide shots is especially jarring in the first scene of act three, when we are plunged into the battle scene at Harfleur. The Chorus does not prepare us for this scene, but rather fills in information from the front lines like a field reporter. This is a good example of the Chorus and Branagh's camera techniques working together. We are acutely aware that we are actively participating in the film, because we have to run to catch up with it.

Kliman says that Branagh creates artificialities in the soundtrack as well, to underscore the fact that the movie is an illusion. She claims that the special effects are much less realistic than they could be, and that the music is purposely "overblown" (9). Kliman fails to point out that the inclusion of soundtrack music which could not be believed to be performed by the actual characters is artificial in itself. The music in the soundtrack is often performed by large modern orchestras. The mood of the story is usually served by these compositions, although often in an overstated way. We are not struck by inappropriateness of the music's mood but rather by its exaggeration of that mood. Kliman supports her argument about the artificiality of the music by referring to the "swelling, hymning chorus" at the end of act four (9). Ironically, this is the scene in which the viewer is least likely to notice this artificiality, because the music begins with a single soldier's voice and builds slowly, and because the acting is so engrossing at this point. And even if the music has the effect of making the viewer realize she is watching a film, Pat Doyle (the composer of the score) would probably not appreciate the extent to which Kliman attributes control of the music to Branagh.

In some ways, the film is even more limited in the amount of reality it presents than is the play. Shakespeare's Chorus is designed to apologize for the limitations of theater and not of film, and Branagh does not change the language at all to reflect this difference. But preserving the technique of having the Chorus directly address the audience is engaging. We are not used to being "seen" by a character on film. Branagh's technique of making the Chorus a part of the action instead of simply preparing us for that action extends our sense of engagement. If the Chorus can crouch down amidst the chaos at Harfleur, or glance at Bardolph's swinging corpse, then maybe we can actively participate as well.

There are at least two other reasons for including a Chorus which Kliman does not explore. The chorus helps explain gaps in time between scenes (several years pass between the fourth and fifth acts), and gives the audience background information. This is especially vital for modern audiences who are not necessarily knowledgeable about the history of England.

The Chorus, in combination with the inherent and exaggerated limits of film, can serve to make viewers more aware of their own active role in creating and sustaining belief in an imaginary world.

                         Works Cited


Henry V. Dir. Kenneth Branagh. The Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1989.

Kliman, Bernice W. "Branagh's Henry V: Allusion and Illusion." 

	Shakespeare on Film Newsletter. 14.1 (Dec. 1989): 1+.

Shaw, William P. "Textual Ambiguities and Cinematic Certainties in 

	Henry V." Literature Film Quarterly. 22.2 (1994): 117-28.

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