How did Kenneth Branagh discover Shakespeare?
Kenneth Branagh is undoubtedly the first name that springs to mind when considering the most significant adaptations of William Shakespeare for the contemporary audience. His two most successful adaptations, which he both directed and starred in, are arguably 1989’s Henry V and 1996’s Hamlet, for both of which he received several Academy Award nominations.
Discussing his first introduction to the English Bard, Branagh said during an episode of This Cultural Life: “When I was 14 or 15, I was at comprehensive school in Reading, and in the English stock room, I saw two long-play records. One was The Ages of Man by John Gielgud, and the other was Laurence Olivier’s Extracts from Shakespeare Films with Music by Sir William Walton. I asked our head of English if I could borrow them. I took them home, and I was bowled over.”
Both records would have a significant impact on Branagh’s life. The Laurence Oliver LP were excerpts from his Shakespeare films, including Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” soliloquy. Branagh explained the scene in particular, “him atop a rocky outcrop looking down onto the wild sea crashing against the rocks, while he contemplates suicide. William Walton’s music is soaring and shouting and trilling and supporting, and the sound effects of the water, wind, and waves. It’s Shakespeare plus a lot of bells and whistles, in addition to Olivier’s beautiful voice.”
As to the John Gielgud record, Branagh said: “John Gielgud, by contrast, The Ages of Man is his recital of great speeches from Shakespeare. They looked at the different transitions that a human being might have across their life. It was the human voice, single and alone, and I guess I understood that both [records] worked. The tonal range in Gielgud’s voice in itself was a self-contained mini orchestra.”
The effect of the records was that a spark arose in Branagh, and he began to understand more about poetry and how it could be used to dramatic effect. “I was also thrilled by what you could do with the boring bits with the sound effects and the orchestra,” he added. “So they were wake-up calls to me for what the human voice could do, but more profoundly what great writing could do.”
Perhaps the essential thing that Gielgud and Walton taught Branagh through those two records, though, was that it is not entirely necessary to understand every word of every line of Shakespeare; there is evidently something within the words that speak to a deeper part of us. “It made you understand it,” Branagh said. “They made me understand that I didn’t have to understand all of it. [Gielgud] gave me permission to have an intuited experience of the language.”
He concluded, “I began to understand that I don’t have to understand everything precisely, but rather [acknowledge] the emotional shape I’m feeling. That in itself is a wonder because, for the first time, I understood poetry, and Shakespeare, in particular, was operating on my senses as if it were music. It did something beyond words.“
