H4 (film)

H4
Film poster
Directed byPaul Quinn
Written byWilliam Shakespeare (play)
Ayanna Thompson (adaptation for screen)
Produced byHarry Lennix
Giovanni Zelko
Vanoy Burnough
StarringHarry Lennix
Angus Macfadyen
Nick Gillie
Victoria Tilford
Geno Monteiro
Keith David
Jeryl Sayles
Terrell Tilford
Keir Thirus
Heavy D
CinematographyJohn Pedone
Tony Rudenko
Edited byBob Allen
Art Olmos (additional editing)
Music byMark Nichols
Production
company
Triumvirate Pictures
Release date
  • April 6, 2012 (2012-04-06) (Conference of the Shakespeare Association of America)
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$200,000 (estim.)[1]

H4 is a 2012 independent American film adaptation of Shakespeare's two Henry IV plays, produced by actor Harry Lennix who also stars in the title role, and directed by Paul Quinn and Dwain Perry.[2] The film premiered at the 2012 Conference of the Shakespeare Association of America,[3] and showed in competition at the 49th Chicago International Film Festival in 2013.[4][5] The Shakespeare Association of America called it, "English history reborn into the African American now."[3]

Plot

The film is an adaptation that combines and condenses William Shakespeare's plays Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2 and sets them in contemporary Los Angeles.[6]

Cast

[8][9][10][1]

Development Background and Production

The screenplay was adapted by Dr. Ayanna Thompson, Professor of English at Arizona State University, who holds a PhD in English from Harvard and her master's degree from Sussex University.[9] Lennix has said, "I was very lucky in finding Ayanna Thompson."[11] The script retains most of Shakespeare's original language[5][12] while condensing the duration and changing place names and factional nationalities to fit the new setting.[13] The original Welsh, Scottish, and English, groups were changed to Haitians, Jamaicans, and African-Americans.[9] Contemporized script tweaks include the "Prince of Watts" instead of the Prince of Wales, Falstaff calls for a cup of "malt liquor" and a capon, and lines like, "This is Inglewood, not Guantanamo Bay: there are no hooded men."[14]

Production Design is by Lytel Young, and Costumes by Heather Capps.[1]

Lennix had participated in Shakespeare symposiums previously[15], written articles on Shakespeare and race and contemporary relevance[16][17], and with Laurence Fishburne for years before the film had had numerous conversations and debates about Shakespeare, race, and performance.[18] Lennix has said in interview:

"There are a lot of people who would think that Othello is a black Shakespeare film, but it's not. Othello is about one black guy in the midst of a bunch of people in Venice. So it's not really a black Shakespeare film. What I mean by black Shakespeare film is that for the first time, to my knowledge, on film, we have taken a Shakespearian play and placed in a recognizably black world experience. It's from the perspective of black people, acted primarily by black people, and it's from the black point of view." -Harry Lennix in 2013[8]

Lennix said, "This film stands up to scholastic critique because we had scholars working on it from start to finish."[19]

Funding

The budget is estimated to be $200,000.[1] Post-production of the film was partly funded by a $25,000 Kickstarter campaign.[20] Lennix said that funding services like IndieGoGo and Kickstarter created a general public vested interest and "we needed the support of the people who we hope will see the movie."[11]

Casting

Lennix's career to this point in theater, film, and television encompassed multiple Shakespeare roles including Aaron the Moor in Julie Taymor's adaptation of Titus Andronicus.[21]

Michael Dorn was reported in 2011 to be playing the lead role as Henry[9][22] and had shot the entire movie.[23] Lennix had not planned to do the role, until re-shoots became necessary and Dorn was unavailable.[11] The eye-patch used in Lennix's performance was a costuming choice inspired by the fact that Dorn had required a real eye-patch during his shoots due to recent eye surgery.[11]

Heavy D's involvement came about when Lennix's friend Avery O. Williams casually brought Heavy D to a rehearsal. Lennix had always been a fan and suddenly persuaded him to be in the movie.[24]

Angus Macfadyen and Lennix had already been friends, and Lennix said they had done heavy drinking together in Rome years before.[25]

Release

In August 2012, a rough cut of the film was previewed at the International Shakespeare Conference in Stratford-upon-Avon to international Shakespeare scholars.[9][19] Lennix said that it was received warmly there.[19] It was shown at the 40th annual meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America in 2012 and later streamed on Amazon.[7] In 2014, the film was shown at the Indie Memphis Film Festival and sponsored by various organizations at Rhodes College.[12][26][27]

The film was scheduled for release in US cinemas in 2015.[2]

The film was Heavy D's final screen role before his death in 2011, and the movie was released posthumously.

Themes

Scholar Jennie Votava has said that H4 reveals that time and space in Shakespeare’s histories are mutable and ripe for, in the words of scholar Elisabeth Bronfen, "an infinite variety of appropriations."[7][28][29] Academic analysis has said that H4 and Shakespeare adaptations set in contemporary America have a "productive instability."[7][30] Votava has also pointed out that to 2023 seemingly no UK performances had cast a Falstaff of color, while Black actors in the US and Brazil were playing the role in the 1990's and 1970's, and that Falstaff as a character relates to constructions of white British nationhood. The almost all-Black cast in H4 takes advantage of that relationship by casting white, British actor Angus Macfadyen as Falstaff.[29][7]

Iya Bakare wrote, "H4 parallels events in Shakespeare’s original play and what takes place in today’s society with leaders and their fathers, such as Jesse Jackson, Sr. and Jesse, Jr., Martin Luther King, Sr. and Martin, Jr., Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. and Adam, Jr. and others."[6] Lennix has similarly said, "It just so happens that there is a lot of resonance between [Shakespeare's historical re-tellings] and black history, with regard to fathers giving their sons the keys to the kingdom, so to speak."[11]

Thompson describes the script as being "about the politics and political manoeuvring within the African-American community", and said, "Because there are real tensions between recent Black immigrants from the islands and Africa and African-Americans who have been in the U.S. for a long time, it brought out different aspects of the play than if you were thinking of an Elizabethan setting."[9] She has described Shakespeare's themes, and the film's, as "universal".[8]

According to Lennix, "When you have a white character played by a black person, the way that they arrive at a destination may be different, but the ultimate end is the same. If Shakespeare must be studied by every student in the English speaking world, and beyond, because of its universal relevant themes and characters, then if it is truly universal, why do I so rarely see anyone black doing it? So with H4 I'm saying that it is universal." [5][8][11]

Reception

Chris Davis of the Memphis Flyer wrote, "Director Paul Quinn's brave embrace of theatrical device and nonrealism should be an inspiration, and possibly even a model, for filmmakers looking to tell huge stories with miniscule budgets." He also compared the use of words to the narration in Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville.[14]

Tim Brayton at Alternate Ending wrote that the post-production did not appear finished, and said that the compression of two plays causes an unhappy reduction of Falstaff scenes, but, "Seeing it rejuvenated like this is terrifically appealing. Lennix gives the [...] best performance of the cast, moody and tormented and regal in all the right ways. Best thought of as a visually uncertain recording of several engaging performances - a staged reading. H4 is a damn unique thing."[13]

Critic Carla Renata said, "A lot of people when they hear Shakespeare they mentally tap out because 'I gotta think too hard to watch this.' So I'm appreciative of the fact that [Lennix's movie has] reconfigured these classics [to] make them relevant for a whole new audience that wouldn't normally pay attention to it or be interested in it."[24] Jay Jacobs of Pop Entertainment wrote that the combination of modern scenes on LA streets plus the repeated use of the interior of a theatre gave it a timelessness as if it could have been done at The Globe Theater at any point in history between Shakespeare and the present.[11]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "H4". Learning on Screen UK. Archived from the original on January 25, 2025.
  2. 1 2 Dave McNary (August 4, 2014). "'Blacklist' Actor Harry Lennix Launches Movie Production Company". Variety. Retrieved September 6, 2014.
  3. 1 2 "Shakespeare association of America" (PDF). January 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 5, 2015.
  4. ↑ Sergio (September 20, 2013). "Shakespeare Film 'H4' Starring Harry Lennix To Screen At Chicago Int'l Film Fest Next Month". Indiewire. Retrieved September 6, 2014.
  5. 1 2 3 Michael Roberts (October 14, 2013). "Harry Lennix' H4 world Premiers at the 2013 Chicago International Film Festival". Showbiz Chicago. Archived from the original on October 18, 2015. Retrieved September 6, 2014.
  6. 1 2 Bakare, Iya (February 19, 2013). "Harry Lennix: The Measure of a Man". iRockJazz. Archived from the original on November 27, 2020.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Votava, Jennie (August 29, 2023). "Interview and excerpt: Jennie M. Votava, Shakespeare's Histories On Screen: Adaptation, Race and Intersectionality" (Interview). Folger Shakespeare Library.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Xaque Gruber (July 30, 2013). "The Many Faces of Harry Lennix". Huffington Post.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Luci Scott (September 7, 2011). "ASU dean's screenplay sets 'Henry IV' in LA in Black community". The Arizona Republic. Archived from the original on September 23, 2015. Retrieved September 6, 2014.
  10. ↑ Shadow and Act Staff (September 20, 2013). "Shakespeare Film 'H4' Starring Harry Lennix To Screen At Chicago Int'l Film Fest Next Month". Blavity.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Jacobs, Jay S. (October 18, 2013). "Harry Lennix - Exploring The Blacklist and the Bard". Pop Entertainment. Archived from the original on July 17, 2019.
  12. 1 2 Scott L. Newstok (November 2, 2013). "H4 Screening". Rhodes College. Archived from the original on September 6, 2014. Retrieved September 6, 2014.
  13. 1 2 Brayton, Tim (October 20, 2013). "H4". Alternate Ending (Review). Archived from the original on August 25, 2019.
  14. 1 2 Chris Davis (October 31, 2013). "H4: Head that Wears a Crown". Memphis Flyer. Contemporary Media. Archived from the original on September 7, 2014.
  15. ↑ Newstok, Scott (March 7, 2010). "Greening Shakespeare in Memphis". Smart City Memphis. Archived from the original on July 3, 2022.
  16. ↑ Lennix, Harry J. (2010). "A Black Actor's Guide to The Scottish Play, Or, Why Macbeth Matters". Weyward Macbeth - Intersections of Race and Performance, Edited by Scott L. Newstok and Ayanna Thompson. Palgrave MacMillan.
  17. ↑ Newstok, Scott L. (2010). Weyward Macbeth. Palgrave MacMillan.
  18. ↑ Lennix, Harry; Fishburne, Laurence. "Two Actors on Shakespeare, Race, and Performance: A Conversation between Harry J. Lennix and Laurence Fishburne". Shakespeare Bulletin. 27 (3 (Fall 2009)). The Johns Hopkins University. I was aware that Lennix and Fushburne have had previous conversations and debates about Shakespeare, race, and performance, I asked Lennix if he wouldn't mind having another conversation "on the record." He graciously agreed.
  19. 1 2 3 Sergio Mims (November 29, 2012). "Harry Lennix Channels Black-Comic Rage in Indie Hit, 'Mr. Sophistication'". Ebony. Archived from the original on June 19, 2015. Retrieved September 6, 2014.
  20. ↑ Sergio (June 27, 2012). "Harry Lennix Starts Kickstater Campaign For his 'H4' Film Project". Indiewire. Retrieved September 6, 2014.
  21. ↑ Erickson, Peter (2010). "From Lear's Button to Harmond's Paintbrush". Transition. Let There Be Light (102). Indiana University Press. Archived from the original on January 1, 2010.
  22. ↑ Peat, Calvin (May 5, 2012). "Harry Lennix to play Henry IV". ShadowLocked.
  23. ↑ Bernstein, Abbie (September 6, 2013). "Exclusive Interview: Harry Lennix on MR. SOPHISTICATION and MAN OF STEEL – Part 1". Assignment X. Midnight Productions.
  24. 1 2 Carla Renata. NBC Blacklist Star Harry Lennix Talks Shakespeare, H4 and Deon Cole (Interview).
  25. ↑ Jones, Alison (November 26, 2001). "American blend in the Bard's back yard; Pioneering US actor Harry Lennix talks to Alison Jones about his passion for Shakespeare". The Birmingham Post (England).
  26. ↑ "Past Events". Rhodes College - Shakespeare at Rhodes. Archived from the original on September 29, 2023.
  27. ↑ Beifuss, John (October 31, 2013). "Indie Memphis Film Festival 2013, Day One: Preview for Thursday, Oct. 31". Scripps Interactive Newspaper Group. Archived from the original on November 5, 2013.
  28. ↑ Bronfen, Elisabeth (2020). Serial Shakespeare: An Infinite Variety of Appropriations in American TV Drama. Manchester University Press.
  29. 1 2 Votava, Jennie (2023). Shakespeare’s Histories On Screen: Adaptation, Race and Intersectionality. Bloomsbury.
  30. ↑ Thompson, Ayanna (2011). Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America. Oxford University Press.
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