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When I was getting ready to watch Richard III, I wondered if I shouldn’t try to start back at the beginning of the Henry VI trilogy to get the full effect of Shakespeare’s take on the Wars of the Roses. The BBC did, in fact, include all four plays in Season 5 of their 1980 series, a TV production which brought many of Shakespeare’s plays to the screen. The Henry VI/Richard III combination was also adapted into the series The Hollow Crown in 2012. Alas, none of these adaptations (nor those from the 1960s) are readily available to me.

Wondering what else to watch (either before or after Richard III, I wasn’t sure) I tripped over the Netflix original series The King in my streaming queue. Figuring a version of Henry V’s story was more-or-less in theme with my Henry VI focus, I decided to watch it next.

Netflix had been pushing this one upon me from the moment it was available for streaming. Netflix describes The King (and I am really, really paraphrasing here) as a film about the transition of “Prince Hal” from drunken party boy to celebrated monarch. That right there sounded suspicious. It didn’t help their case that on their DVD site, the film is rated at only 3.5 stars and then goes on to suggest I’ll be even less pleased – 3.2 stars for me. Not very compelling but I figured I still might watch it when I ran out of better options.

By last week, I was thinking I might just be at that point and so I brought it back up. A bit of random reading informed me that this film is not based, so much, on the life of Henry V but rather on The Life of Henry the Fifth. Not to say it is a presentation of Shakespeare’s play, in the way of Richard III, but rather it is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s version of the story using elements from his Henry V as well as the two-part Henry IV.

Suddenly the crappy reviews make some sense. Many of the “low ratings” were criticizing the misrepresentation of history. “Falstaff was an invention of Shakespeare,” says one on-line reviewer. Well… yes! The King was obviously intended to be historical fiction and not historical fact.

And yet the criticism isn’t entirely misplaced. This isn’t Shakespeare brought to the screen. The story deviates considerably from Shakespeare’s plays and not necessarily to bring them in line with reality. That lovably jolly Falstaff? He is recast as a dour veteran who drowns himself in liquor until King Henry calls upon him to be his military advisor. In The King, Falstaff is the architect of the victorious tactics at Agincourt – quite an achievement for a funny fat guy that, well, didn’t even exist.

I can see how this would grate on some but it really is par-for-the-course when it comes to historical fiction.

I, myself, was bothered by the details portrayed for the Battle of Agincourt. Again, distortions that are par-for-the-course. The tactics were off and, therefore, a bit nonsensical. More offensive to me was watching King Henry roll around in the mud punching French knights in the face. Yes, I know, it is written that Henry personally engaged in the fighting at Agincourt. Not like that, though. Surely, not like that.

The battle ended with the dauphin riding out to fight Henry mano a mano (corps à corps?) Louis, taken in by Falstaff’s strategem, is wearing his heavy plate. Facing off against Henry, he slips in the mud. Ultimately Henry turns his back, allowing his footmen to beat the heir to the French throne to death. Is this allegory or historical* ignorance? Accepted history tells us Louis died of dysentery months later and far from the field at Agincourt (where he wasn’t even present). Merde!

In the big picture, The King reworks the familiar story of England’s “battle king” to tell of a peace-loving youth who is bilked into invading France by warmongers in his own court. Just as Shakespeare was historical fiction for his day and age, maybe The King is best seen as a story for our time. Henry V as a Kennedyesque leader, pulled into a war that he never wanted by the deep state.

Or just maybe, this is another telling of Dune? Certainly Timothée Chalamet (middle name Hal, nudge-nudge) plays the two characters the same – with a superficial weakness that hides a greater strength. I think he was well-cast in both cases but, by this analysis, I have to say that Dune did the story better.

The King might also be held up as more proof that not everything Brad Pitt does is golden**.

*Or maybe historical abstraction. The scene combines a number of elements from the campaign into a few minutes of screen time. Months earlier, Henry really had challenged the dauphin to one-on-one combat in lieu of battle. The dauphin declined (and this was shown in The King) and, as I said above, was not even present at Agincourt. Nonetheless, the moment where Henry walks away to leave his commoners to beat the dauphin to death is a muddled reflection of what happened at Agincourt. The nobility were rather offended that their fellows were slaughtered, not in glorious combat against the knights of England, but by lightly armed peasants.

**Eh, what? Pitt was a producer for the film. Even if I wasn’t super-thrilled with the film itself, I do have to say I appreciate Pitt’s instincts to aid in the creation of historical fiction of this sort.