#830: WELLES, Orson: Chimes At Midnight (1966)

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WELLES, Orson (Spain)
Chimes At Midnight [1966]
Spine #830
Blu-ray


The crowning achievement of Orson Welles's extraordinary cinematic 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 antihereo 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 as a lament, he said, "for the death of Merrie England." Poetic, philosophical, and visceral — with a kinetic centerpiece battle sequence that rivals anything in the director's body of work — Chimes at Midnight is as monumental as the figure at its heart.

116 minutes
Black & White
Monaural
1:66:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2016
Director



A

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

 The Booklet

Eight-panel foldout poster featuring an essay by film scholar Michael Anderegg.

Commentary

Featuring film scholar James Naremore, author of The Magic World of Orson Welles.

Interview 1

With actor Baxter.

Interview 2

With director Welles’s daughter Beatrice Welles who appeared in the film at age nine.

Interview 3

With actor and Welles biographer Simon Callow.

Interview 4

With film historian Joseph McBride, author of What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?

Interview 5

With Welles while at work editing the film, from a 1965 episode of The Merv Griffin Show.

Trailer

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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