In the several years since its release, Kenneth Branagh's Henry V has proven to be a popular subject for continued critical inquiry among Shakespearean critics as well as cinema writers, and each year new essays appear about it in print, looking at the film through a variety of lenses. But one common strain throughout many of these essays is that sooner or later, critics use the film's score in order to convince us of their views. The one cue and scene which seems to have captured their critical imaginations is the hymn "Non Nobis, Domine," which is heard on the film's soundtrack during Henry V's now-famous climactic scene where King Henry, in the aftermath of the Battle of Agincourt, makes his way across the dead-strewn battlefield in a stunning, four-minute tracking shot. This is one instance where film critics seem to have taken Claudia Gorbman's welcome suggestion to heart, that film music can and should be utilized as rich source material for critical argument. But film music functions on many levels, and a look at possible multiple readings of even as seemingly simple a cue as "Non Nobis, Domine" hints at just how resistant music can be to a neatly encapsulated, definitive final analysis -- making it a powerful but never easily direct route into the heart of any film.
Pauline Kael, in her review of Henry V, praises the tracking shot's powerful panorama of carnage but disdains the musical soundtrack -- in her view, it "trivializes" and "cheapens" the impact of the scene. Kael does not elaborate on why she feels this way, but we can assume that she at least was judging the music in its traditional role as an obligatory generator of affect, in which case a critic doesn't necessarily have to explain their assessment of music's effect. The most immediate effect of film music is on emotions -- music "tells us what to feel," with arguably better film music heightening the emotional effect of what we see on screen or hear in dialogue, with more transparent film music telling us we should be feeling something we don't. Then again, there is another level on which critics can approach film music -- a consideration of what film music "tells us to think." If a critic feels sufficiently open to the soundtrack's emotion-generating suggestions, and not resistant to them or "turned off," the stage can be set for a consideration of film music on this other (some might say "higher") level. The film score's affective quality is not merely its primary function, it also seems to be the primary door, in my opinion, into its possible deeper role(s) in intelligent film criticism.
Michael Manheim's comments about "Non Nobis" in the recent book Shakespeare and the Moving Image are typical examples of the kind of "emotionally informed" critical consideration that the cue has enjoyed. He notes both "Non Nobis, Domine"'s strong appeal to the emotions ("swelling" is a frequently used descriptive term!) and to its impact on how a late 20th-century, post-Vietnam audience confronts Henry and the supposedly "outdated" values he seems to stand for. These are values which much postwar cinema has directly called onto the carpet, but in Henry V, one feels "once-repressed passions turned loose in what the protagonists (and part of us) believe to be a noble cause." "Non Nobis, Domine," Manheim feels, is key in bringing out these passions (which William Walton's music for Olivier's Henry did so unapologetically for wartime Britain). The music "builds from a single raw voice singing in the midst of carnage to the massive chorus so reminiscent of Promenade Concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, where a thousand voices join as one in singing Rule Britannia."
Whether one is a native of the British Empire or not, the hymn speaks to the audience on this nationalistic plane. It either strengthens one's internal resistance to such sentiments (thus making it easier to label the music as "ironic"), or mutes it. "Non Nobis" (or more accurately, the combination of "Non Nobis" and Branagh's tracking shot) tends to force the viewer to come to some sort of personal decision about Henry and, judging from the frequent references to the scene and music in many critical studies and film reviews, the entire film as well. As a result, its plain appeal to the emotions tends to lead the audience -- probably unconsciously -- into a consideration of "what to think."
However, as Manheim says, "it is not that we cannot make a decision about [Henry]; we tend to make opposing decisions about him." The rest of the Henry V score may contribute to this sense of serious ambiguity that accompanies "Non Nobis." Up until this point, the score seems (probably by the filmmaker's intention to make the foreign language of Shakespeare more emotionally clear to his intended audience) to faithfully and sincerely support what we see happening and what we hear the characters say -- various musical representations of conspiracy, danger, poignant goodbyes, desperate siege, Henry's lonely reflections, stirring oratory and muddy battle. Suddenly, with this tracking shot two hours into the film and score, what the score says and what we see seem to diverge sharply, on at least some level, and it apparently has left many viewers groping to make sense of what they are seeing and to somehow maintain the previous emotional continuity between music and scenes. There is the sense that the score is no longer being reassuringly "honest" about what we are to make of what we see on screen. What we see indicates the horror of war; what we hear is something quite different.
If we are inclined to continue to trust the score as being "sincere," then "Non Nobis" can be interpreted as a sincere (and out-of-fashion) paean to glorious victory. (Indeed, some critics did seem inclined to do so; they could not understand why the film, in their eyes, took this seemingly pro-war tone, and some went so far as to call Kenneth Branagh a Thatcherite.) But if we are more swayed by what we see on screen, we can call the hymn deeply ironic (again, another popular reading). "Non Nobis, Domine" and this scene suggest many things, but which is the correct decision? As Peter Donaldson writes in Shakespeare Quarterly, "it may be understood as the film's most conservative moment, a glorification of war, or, with equal validity, as the film's crowning irony, a bitter reversal of Olivier's piety." Or, taking a cue from Manheim, perhaps it may be understood -- or rather felt -- as both.
However, basic "gut-level" responses like Pauline Kael's (or, in a more positive vein, Stanley Kauffmann's), and those of critics such as Manheim and Donaldson which touch on our "opposing decisions" about Henry as a cultural symbol, seem to me to leave the ambiguous effect of "Non Nobis" still not completely explored. If Branagh, as Donaldson says, uses the language of cinema to "represent intensely private moments even in the midst of public events," might we not then interpret "Non Nobis, Domine" (which, as film music, is part of that language) through such a lens which reveals the private, as well as the public and political? Can one piece of film music encompass this very different sort of reading as well?
If so, I would like to offer a further alternate reading of "Non Nobis" (or, as seems possible, a concurrent one) that takes into account the extraordinary flexibility of film music's ability to carry meaning simultaneously on different levels. These levels can be both within the narrative and outside of it. When thinking about film music on these multiple planes, two terms, "diegetic" and "nondiegetic," are useful. "Diegetic," when applied as a term to film music, simply denotes music that appears to the viewer to be emanating from an onscreen source (or within the narrative). "Nondiegetic" music, then, is that which is heard on the soundtrack coming from no apparent origin onscreen or from the narrative. Up to this point, most critical assessments of "Non Nobis" have revolved around its function as nondiegetic music. But what if we begin to consider "Non Nobis" from its diegetic starting point within the scene?
It's perhaps easy for the audience to forget this onscreen, source-music origin of "Non Nobis" as this key scene in Henry V progresses and takes shape. To reconsider this segment of the film's soundtrack, one needs to avert one's eyes from the onscreen spectacle of the staggering aftermath of Agincourt. One must focus on individual characters in order to gain an understanding of "Non Nobis" as something other than a "statement," but as an event occurring within the narrative, implied to happen in "real" story-time. The hymn begins humbly and diegetically enough as one of the common soldiers in Henry's army spontaneously starts to sing a capella as Henry and the rest of the men fall to the task of picking up the battle's pieces. When heard as a soldier's song, "Non Nobis" can be taken on a human scale as an expression of quite understandable relief, neither nationalistic nor ironic. But there are other resonances to be noted in this humble and human diegetic beginning. Who is this soldier, and why is he the featured singer (as opposed to one of the noblemen, or even one of the captains)? Where does he fit in to what we have seen, and what we will see? Why should his hymn follow King Henry across a battlefield?
The soldier is Court, who (like most of the regulars in Branagh's "cast of dozen" playing the ragtag English army) appears in various scenes throughout the film's representation of the French campaign. Along with Bates and Williams, Court stands for the "common man" whose trust and loyalty Henry must command if he is to achieve his political ends at all. However, as the film progresses and Henry abandons his old friends from the Boar's Head, the common soldiers seem to become something vaguely resembling a replacement. Their relationship with Henry is one of many possible new ones that assert themselves in the aftermath of his rejection of his old company. On his campaign toward full kingship, Henry is at a crossroads in the middle of the film -- nowhere is this more tellingly portrayed than in the forest scene where, surrounded by the characters who represent these new potential relationships (Fluellen as military tutor, Exeter as imperialistic avatar, Court/Bates/Williams as soldiers, subjects and perhaps on some level, something more), Henry resolves to take a further step to cut off his offending past by hanging Bardolph.
On the eve of Agincourt, furthermore, Henry passes Pistol by. Yet he attempts to insinuate himself into the company of Court, Bates and Williams; he seems as genuinely drawn to their tightly knit circle as he seems genuinely pragmatic about winning the war through cultivating a common touch. Try as he may, however, the night before Agincourt he cannot make even the smallest step toward recreating the Boar's Head days he has already begun to reject; the attempt does not work, and he is left to ponder his isolation. The next morning, however, Henry meets with more success (much as he did in eking out a personal victory at Harfleur). For a glorious moment, with Court, Bates and Williams close at his side, on the ox cart from which he delivers the St. Crispin's speech that resonates with faint images of the Boar's Head days, the past lives again. Henry is, both pragmatically outwardly and sincerely inwardly, once more a "gentleman of a company" amongst a band of brothers.
Looking at, and listening to, the battlefield tracking shot through the hymn's narrative relevance then offers us another "take" on the significance of "Non Nobis" to the film: it is the music, the company song, from which Henry is henceforth forever personally cut off. Court's lone voice singing the hymn (following Henry this time, as he must; Henry can never again be among a band of brothers as in the past) is gradually joined by others, still without obvious nondiegetic accompaniment. The audience is invited to imagine that other soldiers, beginning to follow Court behind Henry, are joining in the hymn. Eventually, we do hear a nondiegetic orchestral accompaniment, introduced smoothly enough to slowly turn our gaze to the broader ironies -- and ambiguities -- of the film/music scene. Rather than exchanging one for the other, it is possible to come away from the scene with multiple impressions, ambiguous in more than one sense. Is it personal or political? Sincere or ironic? Condoning or condemnatory?
Michael Manheim implies this conundrum of conflicting impressions unwittingly in his statement about the thousand voices at the Proms, encompassing both the broad patriotism of nations and the humanity of the Company ("coming together as one"). On the human level, at least, the more powerfully the company chorus is heard on the soundtrack, the more ironically it becomes juxtaposed against the utterly isolated Henry who will never again be able to join with any company. The scene ends with Henry alone, back turned to his men in a curiously dual posture of leadership and rejection. The last image of the entire sequence is that of Henry's head bowed, seemingly accepting his personal responsibility for the war while simultaneously shutting out the past so powerfully represented on the soundtrack (and perhaps heard in Henry's conscience as well. Do we hear what he hears -- is the soundtrack truly outside the diegesis here?)
For a final look and listen to "Non Nobis, Domine," we are at this point encouraged, through a striking scene transition to the French court with the dying cadence of the hymn still resonating over the picture, to reflect on these personal implications further, as the theme is to be heard one last time within the narrative as Henry negotiates his costly victory. As the Duke of Burgundy asks for peace, a final summation of the theme is heard instrumentally, both as plainly affective backing for the speech and for the King of France's regretful remembrance (in montage) of his country's suffering. During the course of this montage, however, Henry's flashbacks move back in time and, one perceives, in personal meaning, from the mere war dead, to those whose company Henry has forced himself to abandon or betray. One may recall at this point (or notice in subsequent viewings) where the "Non Nobis" theme first appears in the narrative: at the English court in one of the film's first scenes, where Henry warns Montjoy of the terrible consequences of the coming war ("For many a widow shall this his mock/Mock out of their dear husbands, mock mothers from their sons...") For Henry, this musical foreshadowing has come true in a painfully personal way which he apparently did not foresee, accompanied throughout -- within the diegesis and outside it -- by "Non Nobis, Domine," whose grateful Latin text offers a further irony when considered in the context of such all-pervasive loss.
"Non Nobis, Domine" is heard to disappear from the narrative at precisely this point. The English nobles shift uncomfortably as Burgundy continues (sans musical backing), and Henry demonstrates his final acceptance of his new, isolated state by coolly responding to such sentimental appeals with his insistence on terms. A new musical theme is subsequently introduced for his new (and in this film at least, perhaps only semi-political) relationship with Katherine, as well as a brief return to the more hopeful St. Crispin's Day theme which in itself bears political and personal overtones for Henry the king and man. There can be no going back to "Non Nobis" in this story, for this character. (Yet we do hear it again, outside the narrative this time, as end-credit music, designed to summon up enough blood to get the audience out of their seats and out of the theater; but without any accompanying images, the hymn remains as ambiguous as ever.)
The primary work of any film score is to provide an emotional backdrop for the film. When critics are aroused from their being "stubbornly unconscious dreamers when it comes to the soundtrack," as Claudia Gorbman has put it, long enough to feel the need to examine it more closely, it's likely that film music will lead them further toward ambiguities and away from simple or single readings. For all its basic simplicity, "Non Nobis, Domine" has had a powerful effect on critics but has resisted any one specific "take" on its "meaning." It's a compelling example of film music as a very useful but still perhaps challenging and complex resource for the film critic.