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Chimes At Midnight (Falstaff)

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What a shame it is that Orson Welles' "Chimes at Midnight" isn't currently available on DVD. I was extremely fortunate to receive a VHS version as a gift before the usual legal wrangling over Welles' later works forced it out of print. According to wellesnet.com, a Spanish DVD is available, and there are plans to re-release it in the US, hopefully sometime after October 2004. Enter your email address in the "E-mail me when available" field on this site; you'll also be "voting" for the DVD's release!

(Since the film is currently unavailable in the United States, the following review is based on film screenings and the VHS copy I have. I'll update my review if and when the DVD is released in the US).

"Chimes at Midnight" is one of the great Shakespearean adaptations and a true 'lost classic'. It's also the last masterpiece that Orson Welles directed in his lifetime, and with 'Citizen Kane,' 'Magnificent Ambersons' and 'Touch of Evil' comprises a quartet of major cinematic works by Welles. Though rarely seen, "Chimes at Midnight" has influenced modern filmmakers. Mel Gibson, for example, admitted the famous "Battle of Shrewesbury" scene influenced his own "Braveheart."

The film is an inventive re-editing and condensation of Shakespeare's plays, spanning from the end of Richard II to the beginning of Henry V. The film shifts the focus from the titular English kings to the character of Jack Falstaff, played by Welles himself in a virtuoso performance. Falstaff's relationship with young Prince Hal (later Henry V) is explored, and uncannily parallels Welles' own experiences with the young talents of Hollywood.

There are several great performances, by John Gielgud as Henry IV, Keith Baxter as Hal, Kenneth Branagh look-alike Norman Rodway as Hotspur, Welles regular Jeanne Moreau as Doll Tearsheet, and the great Dame Margaret Rutherford (of "Miss Marple" fame) as Mistress Quickly.

"Chimes at Midnight" can be a jarring experience due to inconsistent film quality, low budget sets and Welles' flair for shock cuts. Once you adapt to the style and limitations, it's a truly rewarding experience. Welles has found a deeply moving story between the lines of Shakespeare's histories.

"Chimes at Midnight" was Welles' final attempt to popularize Shakespeare for the masses. With any luck, this film will eventually reach the wider audiences that Welles failed to achieve in his lifetime.

What a shame it is that Orson Welles' "Chimes at Midnight" isn't currently available in any form. I was extremely fortunate to receive a similar VHS version (English language, no subtitles) as a gift before the usual legal wrangling over Welles' later works forced it out of print. If you can get this one used, by all means go for it!

"Chimes at Midnight" is one of the great Shakespearean adaptations and a true 'lost classic'. It's also the last masterpiece that Orson Welles directed in his lifetime, and with 'Citizen Kane,' 'Magnificent Ambersons' and 'Touch of Evil' comprises a quartet of major cinematic works by Welles. Though rarely seen, "Chimes at Midnight" has influenced modern filmmakers. Mel Gibson, for example, admitted the famous "Battle of Shrewesbury" scene influenced his own "Braveheart."

The film is an inventive re-editing and condensation of Shakespeare's plays, spanning from the end of Richard II to the beginning of Henry V. The film shifts the focus from the titular English kings to the character of Jack Falstaff, played by Welles himself in a virtuoso performance. Falstaff's relationship with young Prince Hal (later Henry V) is explored, and uncannily parallels Welles' own experience with the young talents of Hollywood.

There are several great performances, by John Gielgud as Henry IV, Keith Baxter as Hal, Kenneth Branagh look-alike Norman Rodway as Hotspur, Welles regular Jeanne Moreau as Doll Tearsheet, and the great Dame Margaret Rutherford (of "Miss Marple" fame) as Mistress Quickly.

"Chimes at Midnight" can be a jarring experience due to inconsistent film quality, low budget sets and Welles' flair for shock cuts. Once you adapt to the style and limitations, it's a truly rewarding experience. Welles has found a deeply moving story between the lines of Shakespeare's histories.

"Chimes at Midnight" was Welles' final attempt to popularize Shakespeare for the masses. With any luck, this film will eventually reach the wider audiences that Welles failed to achieve in his lifetime.

This is Welles' most personal film; deftly editing Shakespeare's Henry IV plays, bits of Henry V and Merry Wives of Windsor, Welles tells the tragedy of Falstaff, the purest good man in all of English drama. The fat knight, who forsakes chivalrous blood-letting for merry cowardice, wine, women and song, represents all the virtues of a pre-modern England to be swept away by his protege, the politic, cunning, war-mongering Prince Hal. When Hal turns his back on Falstaff, who responds "Banish plump Jack and you banish all the world," this is Orson Welles speaking directly to an audience that had banished him since "Citizen Kane." This is his most personal, autobiographical film -- as if Welles stripped off the disguises he'd been wearing for years, let his fat and premature age and alternating gaiety and sadness be exposed to the camera, and truly found himself in Shakespeare.

Shot in Spain in the mid-60's on a meagre budget, but with a splendid cast of UK thespians, Welles here abandoned the pyrotechnic, baroque style of his famous films for a simple, almost John Ford-like elegance. His own performance as Falstaff is the most nuanced, subtle acting he ever did, without mannerism, a subdued and melancholy Falstaff who knows his era is passing. Years ago, I saw a lousy dupe print of this, and it has been out of circulation for years. I have heard its reappearence has been held up in some sort of legal limbo; too bad -- Chimes At Midnight cries out for the restoration that lesser Welles films like Mr Arkadin and Othello have already received.

A final note -- while this movie is notable for its relative simplicity of style, there is one amazing sequence -- Welles' wordless rendering of the battle of Shrewsbury, which begins with chivalric pageantry and ends in slow-motion as knights hack one another to death in the mud; a battle scene that rivals Kurosawa and Eisenstein, and shows that the trickster had a few moves up his sleeve in the twilight of his broken career.

I first read about CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT in a contemporary review in TIME magazine, which gave it a glowing notice; odd for TIME which had previously massacred each one of Welles' films, picking them apart for their perceived shortcomings and failing to register their beauties. Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees, but by 1966 the air had cleared a bit and the anonymous reviewer gave it four stars, finally acknowledging Welles' enduring contribution to world cinema. When I went to see the movie the theater was packed, not only with film fans, but with Shakespeare fans as well, all of us wondering how Welles managed to jam in three of Shakespeare's plays into one scenario.

The movie was filmed over time, so there are some gaps in continuity, though the time was not as long as that spent filming the unfinished DON QUIXOTE project. Welles must have had John Gielgud for ninety minutes, you can tell all his scenes were filmed on the same day. Nevertheless Gielgud gives a great performance, the equal to any of his Shakespearean film roles (too bad he never committed his Romeo to celluloid) as Henry the Fourth. Gus Van Sant might have used Gielgud when he made his post-modern version of the same material in MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO, he could have played Keanu Reeves' disapproving dad just as well as the guy who did so.

Jeanne Moreau is arresting as Doll Tearsheet, the tavern wench who serves as a sort of Miss Kitty romance for the aging Falstaff. She has a luminous beauty, extremely thin, Kate Moss thin, so sometimes it almost seems as though you can see the wallpaper behind her back. It is rumored that Welles considered Eartha Kitt for the part; Welles and Kitt had worked together on stage ten years before, and he remained fond of the demanding, fiery singer and actress. Accompanying Moreau is Margaret Rutherford, Miss Marple in the movies, reminding us once again what an exquisite actress she could be when reined in. Marina Vlady, an icon of the French nouvelle vague due to her leading role in Godard's TWO OR THREE THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER, is Lady Percy, who deplores Harry's switch from loving her to loving war more. "Tell me sweet lord, what it is that takes from thee thy stomach, pleasure and thy golden sleep? Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth, and sit so often when thou sit'st alone?" Vlady brings a sexy confidence to Kate Percy that makes Keith Baxter's diffidence almost a crime against nature.

Only in his late forties when he filmed CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT, Welles appears much older, and properly subdued when he has to be. Gone are the accidental grotesqueries that make watching him in OTHELLO or MACBETH sort of wince-making. Falstaff is an adult performance in every sense of the word. The big battle scenes are famous indeed, conveying a devastating impression of the horrors of war, and yet some of its humanity as well, all on what appears to be a twenty-five dollar budget, due to clever use of montage and a rousing musical score. The movie has its lapses, but here's hoping that one of these days the Welles estate will get off its ass and release his late films in restored versions, or indeed, any which way it can. Until then you'll have to take my word for it.

As I recall, this was one of Orson Welles' favorites of his own films (he wrote, directed, and starred in it), and many have commented on the parallels between Welles' career and Falstaff's. At any rate, he had every reason to be proud of "Chimes," because it's a splendid movie. The film's script is a conflation of the two Henry IVs, plus a little of Henry V, one speech from Richard II, and apparently a bit of The Merry Wives of Windsor that I've never been able to spot, cut to focus on the relationship between Falstaff and Hal and its eventual breakdown. This dynamic is realized beautifully, extending sympathy to both protagonists; Welles' Falstaff is both funny and vulnerable, while Keith Baxter as Hal goes from being a young goofball prince who clearly does love his fat old mentor to being a repressed and angsty king - in the rejection scene, Falstaff is both deeply wounded and yet proud of his kingly young protégé, while the newly-crowned Henry V looks the model of composure, but his voice shakes as he pronounces Falstaff's banishment. It's tremendous. I also need to put in a good word for John Gielgud (as always!) who appears as a splendidly chilly Henry IV (equipped with a Look of Withering Disappointment which is capable of peeling lead paint off of walls), and Norman Rodway's very entertaining Hotspur (granted, Hotspur is rarely not entertaining). Also, fans of Branagh's Henry V (of which I am one of the most rabid) will note the influence of this film on his treatment - in particular, his Agincourt owes much to "Chimes'" nightmarish rendering of the battle of Shrewsbury.

I love this movie! I waited years to see this until I found this particular VHS copy for sale in the late 90's. Of course, it was hard to get my hands on, and I had to wait a while until it actually came in, but when I finally watched it, I was not disappointed. Welles' acting here is the best of his career. His Falstaff is essentially a good character whose habitual lies are relatively harmless and amusing to those around him. The contrast drawn between him and Prince Hal is conveyed brilliantly on the screen -- Falstaff being a warm and sympathetic character while Prince Hal is revealed as cold, condescending, and insincere. The actor who plays Hal (Keith Baxter)does a very good job in portraying the prince, but it is Welles' Falstaff who dominates the story with his amusing escapades and abounding wit. The ending is quite sad as the good-hearted Falstaff is rejected by the reptilian prince at the latter's coronation. This is an unforgettable film with richly developed characters and atmospheric scenery -- Welles at his best!