Re-reading Shakespeare's Henry ? On Screen

William Shakespeare's history play Henry ? has sparked very divided interpretations among scholars,its text readers and performance viewers.Some posit that the play presents the story of an ideal monarch and glorifies his achievements,others put the play and its eponymous hero into a more critical light.Two major screen adaptations of the play-Laurence Olivier's 1944 presentation near the end of World War II,as well as Kenneth Brangh's 1989 rendition during the second wave of Shakespearean film adaptations,are the two directors' respective reinterpretation of the original play in different eras,oftentimes being juxtaposed and commented by critics.Close-analysing the cinematic narration of these two important adaptations from mise en scene,cinematography and sound-three fundamental cinematic techniques that constitute the visual and aural channel of the film medium and with a brief comparison to the original play text,this thesis elaborates how the two directors' interpretation of Shakespeare's Henry ? differ.Laurence Olivier's version celebrates Henry ? as the ideal Christian king and his war with France as glorious and heroic,adopting an extremely positive reading of the protagonist and the theme;whereas Kenneth Branagh's rendition presents Henry ? more as a complicated figure,being both compassionate and fierce,pious and ambitious,noble and calculating,exploring the inner world and psychological depth of the young king,and capturing the reality and brutality of the war at the same time.