Stratified fidelity: Rethinking Adaptation through Henry V

“Fidelity” remains one of the most persistent yet problematic concepts in adaptation studies. Adaptations are typically framed as “faithful” or “betrayals” of their source texts; by contrast, this paper proposes “stratified fidelity” as a model operating across multiple, coexisting layers within the same source. Rather than asking whether an adaptation is “faithful,” the focus would be on which layer of the original is being activated. To illustrate it, three major screen versions of William Shakespeare’s Henry V will be considered—Laurence Olivier’s (1944), Kenneth Branagh’s (1989), and David Michôd’s (2019)—each of which foregrounds different narrative and ideological strata already embedded in the source. Olivier’s approach privileges the heroic layer, aligned with World War II nationalism; Branagh’s film emphasizes the ethical ambiguity and human cost of conflict; finally, The King reconfigures the material (including Henry IV) into a post-heroic, skeptical meditation of power. Thus, they all transcend the reflection of their own historical contexts by determining and amplifying different strata present in the original text. Ultimately, this paper argues that adaptations do not “lose” fidelity, but rather redistribute it across different textual strata, challenging the binary logic long governed in adaptation studies.