Themes: Crowned Heads, Rise To Power, Faltering Friendships
Main Cast: Orson Welles, John Gielgud, Jeanne Moreau, Norman Rodway, Keith Baxter
Release Year: 1967
Country: ES/CH
Run Time: 115 minutes
Plot
The legendary Shakespearean character Sir John Falstaff, the notoriously drunken, obese, and yet charming companion of the young Henry V, steps up from supporting character in several plays to the central focus of Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight, considered by many critics the best of the director's acclaimed Shakespeare films. The script borrows scenes from several plays, but draws most heavily on the two parts of Henry IV, focusing on the shifting relationship between Falstaff and Prince Hal. Beginning as the prince's companion in debauchery and idleness, the corpulent jokester finds himself falling out of favor as the prince comes to terms with the importance of his destiny as England's future leader. While Falstaff's ample wit is still much in evidence, the film places greater emphasis on the tragic character beneath all the joviality, with Welles perfectly embodying this mixture of spiritually youthful prankster and sad adult. While his towering performance naturally takes center stage, the other cast members are also superb. The film's visual elements are also strong, with Welles' attention to composition matching his sensitivity to character. There are technical imperfections due to the film's extremely limited budget, including an inconsistent soundtrack, but they are unable to overshadow the film's many achievements. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
Review
William Shakespeare's history plays, often overlooked by filmmakers, provide the basis of Orson Welles' adaptation of several of the Bard's works, including Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, Henry V, Richard III, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. That's right: Welles condenses five of Shakespeare's great plays into less than two hours. The one character uniting all these works is the loquacious, rambunctious, drunken Falstaff, played by Welles himself. Images of quiet melancholy and decay give way to a fiery film, full of the fury of betrayal as Falstaff's influence on young Prince Hal threatens the integrity of the monarchy. Welles fearlessly inverts the Shakespearean emphasis on Henry's rise to power, instead encouraging us to look at the world from the perspective of those he left behind in his climb to the top. The world of Falstaff is wooden, symbolized by his preference for inns, while the world of Hal is stone, focused on images of the castle. The brutal human cost of Henry's drive for power makes him an image of 20th century tyrants; and Welles may also be examining his own treatment at the hands of Hollywood studio executives, whom he felt had just as ruthlessly tossed him aside. As Welles spent almost all of his career operating outside the studio system, he was forced to produce films for a fraction of the cost of the typical studio film. Amazingly, he makes the castle sets and battle scenes look like they belong in a much more expensive epic, and, particularly in the Battle of Shrewsbury, he creates action sequences as good as any ever put on film. Welles does not abandon his long-standing interest in deep-focus cinematography, and the images are stunning. Sadly, the lack of money results in a muddled soundtrack, in which characters' words are often indecipherable. As words are Shakespeare's magical ingredient, that flaw tempers the film's impact. ~ Dan Jardine, All Movie Guide
Jose Antonio de la Guerra - Art Director, Cornejo Madrid - Costume Designer, Orson Welles - Director, Fritz Muller - Editor, Angelo Francesco Lavagnino - Composer (Music Score), Carlo Franci - Musical Direction/Supervision, Gustavo Quintana - Production Designer, Edmond Richard - Cinematographer, Emiliano Piedra - Producer, Orson Welles - Screenwriter, Raphael Holinshed - Book Author, William Shakespeare - Play Author
Near the end of the film, Welles slightly alters a scene from Henry V, Act 2, Scene 2 in which Henry V pardons an imprisoned street rabble-rouser just before his expedition to invade France. In Welles' version it is stated that this man is Falstaff, and the incident he is pardoning is Falstaff's disturbance of Henry's coronation. Although both the pardoned prisoner and Falstaff are said to drink wine, Shakespeare's original has no implication the pardoned prisoner is Falstaff. In both Welles' film and in Henry V, this scene is followed by the death of Falstaff.
The film was nominated (in 1968) for a BAFTA film award for Welles as Best Foreign Actor. At the 1966 Cannes Film Festival Welles was nominated for the Golden Palm Award and won the 20th Anniversary Prize and the Technical Grand Prize.[1] In Spain it won (in 1966) the Citizens Writers Circle Award for Best Film.
Welles held this film in high regard and considered it along with The Trial his best work. As he remarked in 1982, "If I wanted to get into heaven on the basis of one movie, that's the one I'd offer up."[2] Many critics, including Peter Bogdanovich and Jonathan Rosenbaum, also consider it Welles's finest work. The scene depicting the Battle of Shrewsbury has been particularly admired, serving as an inspiration for movies like Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan.
The film is officially available on region 2 DVD from Spain. Due to complications concerning the film's ownership, Chimes at Midnight remains unavailable in the United States. It is most readily available as an unauthorizedBitTorrent download.
