Falstaff - Chimes at Midnight (12A.)
1966. Directed by Orson Welles.
Starring Orson Welles, Keith Baxter, John Gielgud, Jeanne Moreau, Margaret Rutherford, Norman Rodway and Fernando Rey. Black and white. 115 mins.
At times I wonder if Orson Welles might not have been better off sticking to the theatre. They would have loved him (they like any old rubbish if it talks posh) and lauded him to the skies. It wouldn't have fulfilled him but it might've been preferable to what the cinema gave him: broken dreams and glimpses of half achieved wonders.
Making the argument both for and against this notion is the re-release of the film he considered the favourite of his films – a Shakespeare adaptation, filmed in fits and starts and with next to no money in Spain. Only Welles would deign to rewrite Shakespeare, cobbling together from bits of various history plays, the Henrys and the Richards, the IIs, the IVs and Vs, a star vehicle for himself that concentrates on the relationship between Prince Hal, the future V (Baxter) and the cowardly, blustering father substitute Falstaff (Welles obviously.)
Chimes is arguably the first irreverent big screen Shakespeare (unless you really count Forbidden Planet as a version of The Tempest.) It's not quite Baz Luhrmann but it's earthy, jokey and bawdy. It is also mercifully brief, to the point and relatively approachable: even I could follow the basics of the story and made sense of half of what they were saying.
It is also pointedly changes the focus from nobility to the yeomanry. Gielgud's King Henry IV is mocked and demeaned constantly. At least three different performers get to do impersonations of the distinctive Gielgud delivery and the majesty of his presence is undermined by him being represented by stand-ins shot from the back or in one scene a lookalittlelikey who sits on the throne trying not to look too embarrassed. He is mocked in his absence and is he much absent: Gielgud was available for only five days of shooting but the way the film has been put together you do wonder if there was some ill feeling directed towards him.
As was the way of Welles films a quarter of a decade after Kane, Chimes is a make do and mend production, filmed in Spain on a pitiful budget only granted to him on the understanding that it would stretch to make a version of Treasure Island. It's rough around the edges and sometimes rough in the middle too, with supposed corpses blinking and there being no money to reshoot. Almost all of the sound was recorded post production and the disjoint between lips and voice is very noticeable, as is the way the dialogue seems aloof from its surroundings. This though may work to the production's advantage, making it easier to catch what is being declaimed. Usually when a film is released as a restoration you'd expect crisp picture quality and sound clarity but such was the state of the film when it was actually made that the aim of this one is just to get back to looking as ramshackle as it did wen first made.
If you have found yourself getting burned in the past by Welles films that were lauded by critics as semi-realised masterpieces, then approach with caution. For me though, I think this is a really rewarding experience, mostly because it has a terribly poignancy.
Welles not only had the nerve to rewrite the Bard but to make it all about himself. Falstaff was the role he was born to play; even so it is a shock to think that this morbidly obese figure with Santa Clause white whiskers and no mind for his self respect, was the dashing, charismatic if chipmunk cheeked Charles Foster Kane just a quarter of a century earlier. Here is a figure of wit and wisdom, of jovial and boisterous good company, but also duplicitous and self deluding, who operates in the vicinity of great power and influence yet always fails to turn this to his advantage and so is reduced to scrambling around in the gutter.
Chimes At Midnight doesn't just showcase one of his finest performances but also one of his most thrilling pieces of staging, the Battle of Shrewsbury. With just 180 extras, a bit of mist and some razor sharp editing he musters up a shocking vista of bloody mayhem and dishonourable victory. In their clanking Armour the soldier flap about in the mud and make ungainly swipes at the enemy. It is bravura sequence, one that has been the template for any subsequent director trying to show the inglorious reality of the battlefield, and it still shocks today.
Throughout Welles pops up as comic relief, his Falstaff running around in his enormous suit of Armour, looking ridiculous and trying to hide. Even in his moment of triumph, Welles still presents himself as a figure of ridicule, a blustering failure. There's a strong streak of self pity in the film: is it dignified for a man in his early fifties to make a film concerned with aging and his own mortality? Probably not, but the melancholy caught here really cuts to the heart of human despair.
Review of Lady of Shanghai
Falstaff - Chimes at Midnight (12A.)
1966. Directed by Orson Welles.
Starring Orson Welles, Keith Baxter, John Gielgud, Jeanne Moreau, Margaret Rutherford, Norman Rodway and Fernando Rey. Black and white. 115 mins.
At times I wonder if Orson Welles might not have been better off sticking to the theatre. They would have loved him (they like any old rubbish if it talks posh) and lauded him to the skies. It wouldn't have fulfilled him but it might've been preferable to what the cinema gave him: broken dreams and glimpses of half achieved wonders.
Making the argument both for and against this notion is the re-release of the film he considered the favourite of his films – a Shakespeare adaptation, filmed in fits and starts and with next to no money in Spain. Only Welles would deign to rewrite Shakespeare, cobbling together from bits of various history plays, the Henrys and the Richards, the IIs, the IVs and Vs, a star vehicle for himself that concentrates on the relationship between Prince Hal, the future V (Baxter) and the cowardly, blustering father substitute Falstaff (Welles obviously.)
Chimes is arguably the first irreverent big screen Shakespeare (unless you really count Forbidden Planet as a version of The Tempest.) It's not quite Baz Luhrmann but it's earthy, jokey and bawdy. It is also mercifully brief, to the point and relatively approachable: even I could follow the basics of the story and made sense of half of what they were saying.
It is also pointedly changes the focus from nobility to the yeomanry. Gielgud's King Henry IV is mocked and demeaned constantly. At least three different performers get to do impersonations of the distinctive Gielgud delivery and the majesty of his presence is undermined by him being represented by stand-ins shot from the back or in one scene a lookalittlelikey who sits on the throne trying not to look too embarrassed. He is mocked in his absence and is he much absent: Gielgud was available for only five days of shooting but the way the film has been put together you do wonder if there was some ill feeling directed towards him.
As was the way of Welles films a quarter of a decade after Kane, Chimes is a make do and mend production, filmed in Spain on a pitiful budget only granted to him on the understanding that it would stretch to make a version of Treasure Island. It's rough around the edges and sometimes rough in the middle too, with supposed corpses blinking and there being no money to reshoot. Almost all of the sound was recorded post production and the disjoint between lips and voice is very noticeable, as is the way the dialogue seems aloof from its surroundings. This though may work to the production's advantage, making it easier to catch what is being declaimed. Usually when a film is released as a restoration you'd expect crisp picture quality and sound clarity but such was the state of the film when it was actually made that the aim of this one is just to get back to looking as ramshackle as it did wen first made.
If you have found yourself getting burned in the past by Welles films that were lauded by critics as semi-realised masterpieces, then approach with caution. For me though, I think this is a really rewarding experience, mostly because it has a terribly poignancy.
Welles not only had the nerve to rewrite the Bard but to make it all about himself. Falstaff was the role he was born to play; even so it is a shock to think that this morbidly obese figure with Santa Clause white whiskers and no mind for his self respect, was the dashing, charismatic if chipmunk cheeked Charles Foster Kane just a quarter of a century earlier. Here is a figure of wit and wisdom, of jovial and boisterous good company, but also duplicitous and self deluding, who operates in the vicinity of great power and influence yet always fails to turn this to his advantage and so is reduced to scrambling around in the gutter.
Chimes At Midnight doesn't just showcase one of his finest performances but also one of his most thrilling pieces of staging, the Battle of Shrewsbury. With just 180 extras, a bit of mist and some razor sharp editing he musters up a shocking vista of bloody mayhem and dishonourable victory. In their clanking Armour the soldier flap about in the mud and make ungainly swipes at the enemy. It is bravura sequence, one that has been the template for any subsequent director trying to show the inglorious reality of the battlefield, and it still shocks today.
Throughout Welles pops up as comic relief, his Falstaff running around in his enormous suit of Armour, looking ridiculous and trying to hide. Even in his moment of triumph, Welles still presents himself as a figure of ridicule, a blustering failure. There's a strong streak of self pity in the film: is it dignified for a man in his early fifties to make a film concerned with aging and his own mortality? Probably not, but the melancholy caught here really cuts to the heart of human despair.
Review of Lady of Shanghai
