Chimes at Midnight
The crowning achievement of Orson Welles’s extraordinary film career, Chimes at Midnight was the culmination of the filmmaker’s lifelong obsession with Shakespeare’s ultimate rapscallion, Sir John Falstaff. Usually a comic supporting figure, Falstaff—the loyal, often soused friend of King Henry IV’s wayward son Prince Hal—here becomes the focus: a robustly funny and ultimately tragic screen antihero played by Welles with looming, lumbering grace. Integrating elements from both Henry IV plays as well as Richard II, Henry V, and The Merry Wives of Windsor, Welles created a gritty and unorthodox Shakespeare film, one that he intended, he said, as “a lament . . . for the death of Merrie England.” Poetic, philosophical, and visceral—with a kinetic centerpiece battle sequence that rivals anything else in the director’s body of work—Chimes at Midnight is as monumental as the figure at its heart.
Greatest Shakespeare Move Ever @Xavier Sharp
It's really hard to say that this is the best Welles movie ever; I know some people hold that opinion; I'm not sure I do. There is a lot of competition, to be fair. However, I think the critics that dislike Welles' interpretation of Falstaff are stupid, and, in my opinion, Welles has the most nuanced version of the character ever recorded. Of course, those film critics don't seem to understand that many literary critics consider Falstaff be be one of Shakespeare's greatest achievements (if not his single greatest one, depending on who you ask). Welles approaches the role with the proper amount of reverence, but owns the role and makes it his own. Like most Welles movies later in life, Welles didn't have the money to make the movie he really wanted to. But, also like Welles, he worked around the budgetary issues and created the greatest Shakespeare film of all time. Things to note: this is not an adaptation of a single Shakespeare play, but it follows the Character of Falstaff throughout his four or five appearances in Shakespeare. You can't exactly read along in your Shakespeare is what I'm saying. Secondly, the climactic battle scene features the earliest usage of shaky-cam cinematography that I've ever seen. I won't say it's the first, but it's the first that I know of. Welles was always an innovator.
Great, but pretty inaccessible @nicklee191
I love Orson Welles. He was one of the greatest film directors of all time, and his films were universal in so many ways, but this one takes a few watches before you can really enjoy the film. Virtually all of the dialogue is spoken in old English, which is true to Shakespeare, but it doesn’t make it as accessible and universal as Citizen Kane or Touch of Evil
1949? @johnny.flynn
This movie was made in the 60’s... why does it say 1949?
Best Shakespeare film ever... @Shashibiya
...always said so, in spite of its crappy sound and low-budget look. The restoration here is breathtaking. Welles thought it his best work and he was right. Which makes it one of the greatest movies ever made. The extraordinary depiction of the Battle of Shrewsbury is rightly celebrated as the best of its kind, and has shaped every subsequent medieval battle scene since. The 1949 release date is incorrect. “Chimes at Midnight” premiered at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival.