What if we add Richard Burton to the mix? Less than ten years out from Olivier, and already feels much more modern, more like Brannagh.
Brannagh is unquestionably the superior director, although he does have the advantage of forty five years in advances in film technology and technique. Olivier does the speech in one take, which is nice, but the framing is unimaginative. Olivier puts himself at the dead center, and the camera just has to keep pulling back until he gets to the cart. The final shot over the helmeted heads of the soldiers, with the tents in the back, was quite good - it looked like a Bruegel painting.
What struck me most about the performances was how aloof Olivier comes across. In Brannagh’s version, you really feel that he’s down in the mud with his soldiers. When he calls them brothers, it’s not just something he means, it’s something he’s earned. He’s got no horses. He’s got no fancy plate armor. It’s himself, a chain shirt, and a sword against the French horde - just like the lowborn farmer standing next to him.
Olivier, in his very shiny pants, is very much the King. Olivier is lecturing where Brannagh was commiserating. A big part of this is the way the army is completely silent throughout almost the whole scene. There’s no murmurs of agreement, or shouts of support. No fist pumps or upheld cigarette lighters. They’re watching him… like he’s an actor on a stage. It feels very much like, “Everyone, shut up! Olivier’s going to do the St. Crispin’s Day speech!” In particular, there’s the bit where he says he’ll let anyone leave if they want, then pauses for a couple of seconds, before saying to some guy, “This day is called the Feast of Crispian.” He tells this “ragged” band that he’ll give them money and let them walk away from the seemingly hopeless battle in front of them, then stops talking for several seconds, and not one guy goes, “Yay!”? Well, of course not: they’d read the play, they knew there was more speech coming.
All that being said, I’m not sure it’s necessarily a flaw in Olivier’s Henry, so much as a different (and, likely more accurate) interpretation. Olivier’s Henry is very much a monarch, even at his chummiest. Band of brothers, sure, but let’s be real, here: at the end of the day, I’m King of England, and you’re covered with pig shit professionally. There were strong class barriers in Olivier’s day, much stronger in both Shakespeare’s and Henry’s respective days. Olivier’s Henry is showing virtue by condescending to speak to his soldiers at all, while still maintaining the class distinctions between him and his soldiers. This appeal to class sensibilities was still a going thing as late as 1944. But by '89, this had been replaced by a more populist appeal, where the King is as muddy and haggard and desperate as the lowest baggage boy, and where the battlefield forges - however temporarily - a genuine bond of equality between king and peasant.