The Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare: Henry VI (1983), Cinema e Medioevo

Sei in: Cinema e Medioevo ® Indice alfabetico dei film

			a
Shakespeare al cinema: drammi e tragedie

The First Part of Henry the Sixt

1983, regia di Jane Howell

Scheda: Nazione: GB-USA - Produzione: BBC Television, Time-Life Television - Distribuzione: BBC Television - Soggetto: dalla tragedia di William Shakespeare - Script Editor: David Snodin - Montaggio: Ron Bowman - Costumi: John Peacock - Musiche: Dudley Simpson - Effetti speciali: Peter Pegrum - Formato: Color, film tv - Durata: 187'.

Cast: Peter Benson, Julia Foster, Brenda Blethyn, Bernard Hill, Frank Middlemass, Trevor Peacock, Ian Saynor, Mark Wing-Davey, John Benfield, Anthony Brown, David Burke, Arthur Cox, Michael Byrne, Paul Chapman, David Daker, Derek Fuke, Joanna McCallum, Joseph O'Conor, Nick Reding, Peter Wyatt.

Plot Summary, Synopsis, Review: IMDb - allmovie.com - movies.piczo.com - screenonline.org.uk: «The early years of the reign of Henry VI, in which the French, galvanised by a mystic warrior-woman, recapture many of England's former conquests. Meanwhile, plots are hatching within the ranks of Henry's court, especially after his arranged marriage to the French noblewoman Margaret of Anjou... Broadcast on successive Sundays from 2 to 23 January 1983, Jane Howell's adaptations of the Henry VI/Richard III history cycle collectively formed one of the BBC Television Shakespeare's high points. Effectively a thirteen-hour mini-series spanning fifty years of English history, all four productions had the same cast, set and conceptual approach throughout. Inspired by the notion that the political intrigues behind the Wars of the Roses often seemed like playground squabbles, Howell and designer Oliver Bayldon staged the plays in a single set resembling a children's adventure playground, at first freshly painted in bright colours but gradually decaying through wear and misuse, a constant visual metaphor for the damage the various warring factions are doing to England. The treatment was similarly stylised. Instead of resorting to conventional television grammar, Howell favoured extremely long takes, her mobile camera singling out individual players for conspiratorial asides to the audience. There was little attempt at realism, with the Duke of Gloucester (David Burke) and the Bishop of Winchester (Frank Middlemass) confronting each other on patently fake horses, and individual actors frequently playing multiple roles, both to hint at their more substantial parts (Ron Cook's hunchbacked porter foreshadowing his Richard III) or to emphasise contrast (Trevor Peacock as patriotic Lord Talbot and, in Part II, revolutionary Jack Cade). Part I begins playfully, with much running about and clambering over walkways and platforms, the English and French armies decked out in garish colours and egged on by Joan la Pucelle (i.e. Joan of Arc) in a broadly comedic characterisation by Brenda Blethyn that is sharply removed from Eileen Atkins' gaunt interpretation in An Age of Kings (BBC, 1960). Only Talbot grasps the stark implications of losing France, and he is undone when a disagreement between York (Bernard Hill) and Somerset (Brian Deacon) leads to a fatal strategic miscalculation, darkening both the overall tone and relations between the English factions, whose verbal sparring here will shortly turn all too physical. Despite the title, the monkish King Henry (Peter Benson) is a minor character, not appearing at all until the halfway mark, and usually framed in the background thereafter, dwarfed by the various nobles whose arguments he is powerless to resolve. He asserts himself only in the final scene, when he chooses Margaret of Anjou (Julia Foster) as his bride against Gloucester's advice - a decision that both he and his country will live to regret» (Michael Brooke).

Conosciuto anche con i titoli: The Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare: Henry VI, Part One; The First Part of King Henry VI.

Brenda Blethyn è Giovanna d'Arco.

The second Part of Henry the Sixt

1983, regia di Jane Howell

Cast: Peter Benson, David Burke, Julia Foster, Anne Carroll, Ron Cook, Bernard Hill, Frank Middlemass, Trevor Peacock, Mark Wing-Davey, Gerald Broadley, Antony Brown, Michael Byrne, Paul Chapman, Ron Cook, Arthur Cox, David Daker, Brian Deacon, Derek Farr, Derek Fuke, Paul Jesson, Pat Keen, Brian Protheroe, Peter Wyatt.

Plot Summary, Synopsis, Review: IMDb - allmovie.com - screenonline.org.uk: «Following French military successes, Henry's hold over his kingdom begins to slip, and his court splits into the warring factions of York and Lancaster. Meanwhile, a revolutionary insurrection by a disaffected Kentish mob threatens to bring anarchy to London. The second part of Jane Howell's acclaimed BBC Television Shakespeare presentation of the Henry VI/Richard III history cycle continues where Part I (broadcast a week earlier) left off, in terms of both narrative and presentation. But the tone is darker, the paint on Oliver Bayldon's adventure-playground set is beginning to flake and peel, and John Peacock's costumes, previously colour-coded to identify particular factions, have become markedly more uniform - by the end it will become nearly impossible to tell each side apart. Part I is also echoed by Howell's inspired use of doubling, seen to its best advantage in the recycling of Trevor Peacock and David Burke. Previously Lord Talbot and the Duke of Gloucester, King Henry's most loyal right-hand men, after their deaths the actors reappear as revolutionary anarchists Jack Cade and Dick the Butcher, twisted parodies of their previous incarnations, and a graphic personification of what has befallen England since the death of Henry V. Although King Henry (Peter Benson) has a more central role than before, so too does Queen Margaret (Julia Foster), whose ambitions vault anything her ineffectual husband is capable of delivering. While Henry remains on the sidelines, reluctantly drawn into affairs of state, she is in the thick of it, plotting behind the scenes with her lover Suffolk (Paul Chapman) and playing an active role on the battlefield like a latterday Boudicca. The only character appearing in all four plays (including Richard III), Margaret is one of Shakespeare's strongest female roles, and Howell's treatment emphasises her importance still further. One of the conceptual challenges posed by the Henry VI trilogy lies in its large number of very similar, potentially confusing battle scenes. The earlier BBC adaptation, An Age of Kings (1960) simplified matters by cutting many of them outright (eliminating Talbot in the process), but Howell's treatment is fuller and subtler. In Part I, the fighting verged on slapstick comedy with only a hint of a darker tone at the death of Talbot towards the end. In Part II, as the action moves from France to England, its treatment becomes correspondingly slower and weightier, with a much greater emphasis on physical pain (towards the end, blows are emphasised by electronic thuds on the soundtrack). The result is a compelling visualisation of one of Shakespeare's key themes, the destruction of a nation through internal strife, an approach that Howell would develop further in Part III» (Michael Brooke).

Conosciuto anche con i titoli: The Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare: Henry VI, Part Two; The Second Part of King Henry VI.

The third Part of Henry the Sixt

1983, regia di Jane Howell

Cast: Peter Benson, Julia Foster, Ron Cook, Bernard Hill, Mark Wing-Davey, Brian Protheroe, Rowena Cooper, John Benfield, Antony Brown, Michael Byrne, Paul Chapman, Arthur Cox, David Daker, Mathew David, Derek Farr, Bernard Hill, Paul Jesson, Merelina Kendall, Nick Reding, Peter Wyatt.

Plot Summary, Synopsis, Review: IMDb - allmovie.com - screenonline.org.uk: «With the Wars of the Roses well under way, loyalties are challenged and the crown passed back and forth from Henry to Edward, his would-be successor. But Edward's younger brother Richard has ambitions of his own... As much a prequel to Richard III as a successor to the first two Henry VI plays, Jane Howell's production of Henry VI Part III for the BBC Television Shakespeare cycle continues the design, staging and casting principles of its predecessors - and, like them, comprises the most complete television adaptation of the play to date. Oliver Bayldon's adventure-playground set has been reduced to charred and weatherbeaten wood, and the colour scheme throughout is muddy brown, steely grey and bloody red, entirely appropriate for a play largely made up of battles, coups and treachery. The military clashes are depicted in fog-shrouded murk (at one point using mirrors to suggest endless lines of cannon and archers), though when snow falls during the climactic Battle of Tewkesbury, staged in oddly calm and dreamlike slow motion, it suggests that a chapter of history is finally coming to an end. Never close, King Henry (Peter Benson) and Queen Margaret (Julia Foster) are now barely speaking, as her disgust at what she sees as his shameful capitulation to the Duke of York (Bernard Hill) in declaring him successor over their own son fires her determination to fight the latter's corner, but she ends up howling like an animal as Prince Edward (Nick Reding) is murdered by York's sons before her eyes. But this is merely the latest instalment in a chain of casual killing and wanton destruction that epitomises Howell's view that after the death of Humphrey, the original Duke of Gloucester, in Part II: "anarchy is loosed and you're left with a very different set of values - every man for himself. You're into a time of change in which there is no code except survival of the fittest - who happens to be Richard." Richard (Ron Cook), quietly introduced during the second half of Part II, is very much centre stage here, with frequent asides to the audience and a major soliloquy that could have been drawn from the later play that bears his name (the line "I can smile, and murder while I smile" became the poster tagline for Richard Loncraine's 1995 film of Richard III), and Part III ends seconds before he utters the fateful words "Now is the winter of our discontent". These would be broadcast a week later, when the BBC screened Howell's production of Richard III, both a continuation and a nightmarish parody of what had come before» (Michael Brooke).

Conosciuto anche con i titoli: The Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare: Henry VI, Part Three; The Third Part of King Henry VI.

Home Storiamedievale

Cinema e Medioevo-Indice

Indice film