The BBC's Henriad
1993; Salisbury University; Volume: 21; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0090-4260
Autores Tópico(s)Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
ResumoDavid Giles did not know when he directed the BBC Richard Il that he would also be the director for all of the second Tetralogy and what might readily be styled the Henri ad. ' However, by the time Giles started into Henry IV, Cedric Messina, producer for the first two years of the series, had committed himself, and Giles was looking forward to a sequence of three plays. With Messina's support, he determined to shoot the plays as a unity. For example, / Henry IV begins with a flashback to Richard's death, and in 2 Henry IV Before the play opens we see, in flashback, King Richard II handing the Crown to then Bolingbroke (now King Henry IV) at his prayers, and finally, Hal in mortal combat with hotspur on Shrewsbury field (BBC 2H4 29). As a result, we are able to watch the development of Bolingbroke, Falstaff, and Hal from play to play. Our Henry V has also been our Hal and has had to come to terms with the shift on film. As John Wilders, literary advisor to the BBC series, told me in a 1987 interview, I think that certainly to see the two parts of Henry IV and Henry V as a sequence makes an enormous difference. . In fact, Hal becomes tremendously important since he is the only major character to appear in all three films, and his development, his shift from prince to king, becomes the unifying pattern in the tapestry of the BBC second Tetralogy. A very clear example of this was the overall subordination of Falstaff to Hal. Anthony Quayle, one of this century's best-known Falstaffs, director as well as star of the 1951 Stratford productions, offered a powerful interpretation of the fat knight. But it is a measure of the success of Giles's skill as coordinator as well as director that Quayle's Falstaff exactly suits this Prince Hal, that the Henriad advances smoothly in spite of the Falstaffian hill of flesh which might have impeded its progress. As Anthony Quayle himself says, Shakespeare seems somewhere to have decided to go on to write the heroic, nationalistic play of Henry V and he's going to turn Hal into the national hero. ... He cannot have Falstaff hanging round his neck (Fenwick, 2H4 24). The removal and rejection of Falstaff has, however, troubled audiences from the time of Maurice Morgann to the present. As a means of minimizing Falstaff's importance and highlighting Hal, David Giles and Anthony Quayle have reduced the duration and therefore the warmth and impact of Falstaffs last performance. The scene becomes the occasion for Hal, in the course of the Henriad, to move on to Henry V, not the tragic end to the play's most beloved character. Anthony Quayle says, I think the audience must love Falstaff to the end but they must also say: 'Hal had to do that, he really had to!' (Fenwick, 2H4 24). Pushed in among a crowd that is held back with a rope, Falstaff shouts to his new King, but the shouts are difficult to hear, and one might wonder why Hal bothered to stop in the first place. Once he does stop, the camera is almost constantly on the young King. The camera turns to Falstaff for king! My Jove! speak to thee my heart! (V.v.47). There is then a cut to Hal, and next a cut to Falstaff seen over Hal's shoulder. This shot indicates (if any proof were needed) that the scene could have been filmed much differently because, though Hal is looking upscreen at Falstaff, three quarters of his face is visible. With a slight modification of the camera angle, the reactions of old knight and new king would have been simultaneously available. Instead, there is a cut back to Hal, full face and staring straight ahead, the posture he maintains for most of his next speech, which begins now with I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers (V.v.48).2 There is a brief cut to Falstaff at V.v.49, How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!, and there is also the obligatory cut following Know the grave doth gape/For thee thrice wider than for other men (V. …
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