Chimes at Midnight

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Chimes at Midnight
Directed by Orson Welles
Produced by Ángel Escolano
Emiliano Piedra
Harry Saltzman
Written by William Shakespeare
Orson Welles
Starring Orson Welles
Jeanne Moreau
Margaret Rutherford
Keith Baxter
John Gielgud
Marina Vlady
Fernando Rey
Beatrice Welles
Ingrid Pitt
Cinematography Edmond Richard
Release date(s) December 22, 1965 (Spain)
Running time 117 min.
Language English

Chimes at Midnight, also known as Falstaff, is a 1965 film directed by Orson Welles based on William Shakespeare's recurring character Sir John Falstaff. Welles himself plays Falstaff, Keith Baxter plays Prince Hal (who will later become Henry V), and John Gielgud plays Henry IV. Jeanne Moreau appears as Doll Tearsheet and Margaret Rutherford as Mistress Quickly.

The script contains text from five Shakespeare plays: primarily Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2, but also Richard II, Henry V, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. It was based on Welles's play Five Kings, an adaptation of four Shakespeare plays which he produced in 1939 and again in 1960. The film's narration, spoken by Ralph Richardson, is taken from the chronicler Raphael Holinshed.

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 unauthorized BitTorrent download.

Contents

[edit] Cast

[edit] Books

Chimes at Midnight. Rutgers UP, 1989. ISBN 0-8135-1339-1 (complete screenplay included).

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Festival de Cannes: Chimes at Midnight". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/2819/year/1966.html. Retrieved 2009-03-07. 
  2. ^ Interview with Orson Welles, BBC Arena, 1982.

[edit] External links

[edit] References


Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimes_at_Midnight"