Chimes at Midnight (1965)

It has grown mythic in my mind since several Europeans that I talk

to on the internet began to tell me many months ago that Chimes

at Midnight was an Orson Welles film that they preferred even to

Citizen Kane. Yet it was unavailable in the US, and I thought that I

would never see it. But finally I found a copy at a local alternative

video store.

I must say, to suggest that it beats Kane is giving it more credit

than it deserves. That film is today generally considered the very

best ever made (on my own list, the latest version, it lands at #12),

though that status was hard fought over those who overrate the

castrated version of The Magnificent Ambersons, though that film

is indeed, too, a masterpiece in its own right. But Chimes at

Midnight is itself also a small masterpiece. Considering how

cheaply it seems to have been made, the results are jaw- dropping. It is among Welles best, though saying that is as

redundant as saying a play is ranked highly in Shakespeare's

canon.

I have to confess to not knowing much about which Shakespeare

plays Welles was using; I don't have the necessary research tools

as I write this. I believe that he used a mixture of several plays, but

nothing in the film seemed familiar to me, who have read only a

quarter of them. Whatever Welles did, though, the results are

amazing. His direction and editing give the film an enormous

kinetic energy. The famous battle scene, the centerpiece of the

film, ranks among the best ever created on film (I would say

captured, but Welles, presumably on account of the low cost of

production, creates the tension and fury of it by editing mostly, not

cinematography or complex direction). Welles the actor is at the

peak of his form, though that is redundant, too. Did Welles ever

give a bad performance? I haven't seen too many outside of his

own directorial efforts, but the few I have seen I must concede

were beyond excellent. One other mention of acting: what the hell

happened to Jeanne Moreau? Was Orson Welles stealing her

meals? For Christ's sake, she looks like she's dying.

I've seen six of the, what, ten or eleven films that Welles directed.

Five of those I've given a 10/10, including Falstaff. Only Macbeth,

which I felt paid too much attention to the technical aspects and

not enough to the actual play (although it was only the second

Welles film I saw and that was a while back), I have given less

than that, a 7/10. Falstaff I rank fifth out of the remaining five (in

order: Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, The Trial, The Magnificent

Ambersons). Perhaps I would rank it as highly as my European

friends do, but there is one issue that may be destroying its

brilliance: the tape that I rented was in the most awful condition.

Generally, my credo is that I won't watch a direct cinematic

adaptation of a Shakespeare play unless I have read the original,

but lately I have noticed that I can understand his dialogue quite

sufficiently. However, as Shakespeare is difficult to comprehend by

ear alone, imagine hearing Shakespearean dialogue spoken by

Charlie Brown's teacher! As the print I saw was terrible, voices are

sometime

Fmovies: Shakespeare Scholars are always complaining how this film used and abused Shakespeare's plays but I think what was done in this film was pretty clever: Take the character of Falstaff from several plays and piece them together to get a complete picture of the man.

Of the two Orson Welles Shakespeare films I've seen, this one and "Othello" (1954), both had the ability to make me want to read Shakespeare's plays and any film that makes you want to read what the author wrote is a very positive thing to say about a film. So there Shakespeare Scholars!

I did go out and buy the books with the plays used in this film, much like trying to solve a puzzle to see how the pieces really fit. And Orson did twist and bend things a little to make it come out his way.

I also read in Videohound's "World Cinema" (1999) by Elliot Wilhelm that this film may be getting a restoration. If it's as good a restoration as "Othello", I'm looking forward to it!

Welles as Falstaff really shines in this film and Falstaff's later rejection by Henry V is one of the most sobering in cinema. And Welles still has some very creative power left in him by 1965, look at the Battle of Shrewsbury scenes. When it comes to battle scenes they've been done probably only 10 different ways by 1000 directors in a 1000 movies over the years, but this one is probably the most memorable. It's also strange to have in the heat of battle Falstaff looking like a big metal beach ball running around back and forth trying to avoid any conflict.

This film is also a good example of good music and how to use it in a film and it's another one of my favorite movies about Merrie ol' England.

I won't belabor the point that you can gather from reading 40+ other reviews, so I will offer a few short words on the theme of the movie, as well as caveat, for watching Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight.

The film overall deals with that time-honored notion noted by St. Paul "When I was a child, I used to talk like a child, and see things as a child does, and think like a child; but now that I have become an adult, I have finished with all childish ways." Prince Hal is growing up and becoming an adult, and as such must soon leave his childish pranks and habits behind. His friend, Falstaff, is that childhood friend (paradoxically old in age, as if he never grew up himself). Boisterous, drunk, and a glutton, the blowhard gleefully recounts all the good times that he, Prince Hal, and their other misfits used to have, doing the things that children and adolescents do, like being a nuisance, harassing others, and goofing off. It is the type of life Falstaff still leads and he is quite happy with it. Prince Hal is, too, until the weight of responsibility is slowly thrust upon him thanks to his sick father. As the stakes are raised, he slowly loses the time and desire to be a silly young boy and now must be a man.

Falstaff is oblivious to this development all the way until the end, thinking that these are just momentary phases before the parties can begin anew. He is ever hopeful that the Prince and the world will see things his way. He fails to see how the world moves past a fat, blundering fool. His love for the prince, for the girls of the bawdy bar, for his compatriots is, while sometimes humorous and self-serving, he nonetheless wishes no real ill on anyone and merely lives for fun and pleasure. In his old age, he has decided that being an adult (if he ever was one) is not something worth putting time and energy in to. He is unimportant and carefree enough to have that luxury; however, his closest friends cannot shirk away from their duties as men, and thus Falstaff fails to realize how he is left behind.

All of this is turned into a moving portrait. We realize that Falstaff is wrong, and that sometimes the world calls for more than just joking around, goofing off and indulging one's self. But we sympathize with him, because we can see a gentle and loving person underneath the bluster and idiocy - and perhaps we ourselves wish the world were more "childish" and carefree. At the climactic battle scene (were Welles' camera work makes a hundred men or less look like a thousand), men grind and pulverize each other into hamburger meat - but Falstaff never manages to hurt a single soul. Perhaps there is some good in being childish!

For those wishing to watch the movie, the Criterion package is an excellent one. The customary supplemental materials are fascinating, and the picture brings out Welles' cinematography. Criterion and co. did there best with the sound, and the sound is the biggest single issue with which you will struggle with (or at least I did) with Chimes. Even with work done on it, the sound levels are inconsistent, especially with actors' lines. Sometimes whole scenes will go by with what sounds like dubbers mumbling their lines, straining your ears and making you crank the volume up on your TV. Then all of the sudden someone will speak loudly and clearly, blowing you back with the force of it and making you quickly turn the volume back down... only for the process to repeat again. I have not done this yet, but I would probably recommend watching w

Chimes at Midnight fmovies. It has been at least 35 years since I first saw Chimes at Midnight at one of the art film theaters located near Carnegie Hall, but the memory lingers still of yet another remarkable and visually stunning film by Orson Welles. I remember the soundtrack being inadequate at times, but since I was a theatre student at the time, my knowledge of the text helped fill in any of the garbled lines. What an amazing Falstaff by Welles; he creates a truly human and tragic figure! Moreover, what an enviable cast, especially by today's standards.

Among the thousands of artists who have adapted Shakespeare, Welle's movies still are the least appreciated and estimated of them. Welles repeated Verdi's task in turning Macbeth, Othello and Falstaff, but in films rather than operas.

We can only imagine what it is to adapt the pinnacle of the English comic literature, the huge hill of flesh Falstaff into a film knowing that you're at risk of being an heretic to loosel'd one of the masterpieces of the greatest author that ever left their mark on literature. But here we can say that welles really turned Shakespeare and inevitably into an loss of complexity. First of all like many artists (Verdi one them) that have the mistake of thinking that Falstaff is the main figure of Henry IV's plays, Welles adapts the historic tragicomedy in a melancholy comedy, political issues are ignored or comixed, Hotspur is transformed into bad comic scream-ever character. Shakespeare play is not really about Falstaff, despite that he dominate the stage, nor is a comedy in the basic term sense. Falstaff's quartet friends (Pistol, Bardolph, etc) lose all power. The play is all about politics, Hal and Hotspur, honor and kingdoms. That's the thing and to adapt such a corpus of literary complexity Welles wrong itself connecting the two plays parts when the first part works excellently alone.

To escape the literary aspect of the review. Chimes at Midnight It's an excellent entertainment, a must view for those who want to see one of the three greatest comics characters (the others being Don Quixote and Pantrugel) in the cinema. Highpoints are Shrewsbury Battle, Falstaff's welles performance and direction as always. But not exaggerating in the purism, Chimes at midnight does not have the psychological depth of Macbeth (1948) or the beauty of performances of Othello (1952) and in my opinion he's the minor of the three Shake-welles films.

IT SHOULD BE RESTORED, preserved and cared for. It is a masterpiece of direction, action, camera work, casting, story. From Orson Welles to Miss Rutherford, it is a delight to be an audience in any theatre that will show this magnificent film.

No one can out do Orson Welles, no one can touch the characterisation of all these magnificent actors. There is not one weak point. It is a huge film. Too bad there are no decent prints of the film available.

Hopefully somewhere, through FIAF and the international film archives and the great work they are doing, a negative of the film will be found, restored and then the film will be available for screenings on television, DVD, movie theatres, cinematheques around the world.

Thank You Orson Welles and everyone involved in this great great film!