By Jeremy Carr
It’s easy to see why Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight is generally regarded as his finest post-Touch of Evil achievement. This Shakespearean mélange is a dazzling showcase for Welles’ ingenuity, his evident appreciation for the film’s literary foundation, and his relentless aptitude for stylistic inventiveness. However, its haphazard production and its rocky release comprise a backstory as complicated as the movie’s multi-source construction (the script, based on the lengthy play “Five Kings,” written and first performed by Welles in the 1930s, samples scenes and dialogue from at least five of Shakespeare’s works, primarily “Henry IV,” parts one and two, “Richard II,” “Henry V,” and “The Merry Wives of Windsor”). Plagued by what were at this point familiar budgetary constraints, Welles shot Chimes at Midnight over the course of about seven months in Spain, with a break when the financial well went dry.
It’s easy to see why Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight is generally regarded as his finest post-Touch of Evil achievement. This Shakespearean mélange is a dazzling showcase for Welles’ ingenuity, his evident appreciation for the film’s literary foundation, and his relentless aptitude for stylistic inventiveness. However, its haphazard production and its rocky release comprise a backstory as complicated as the movie’s multi-source construction (the script, based on the lengthy play “Five Kings,” written and first performed by Welles in the 1930s, samples scenes and dialogue from at least five of Shakespeare’s works, primarily “Henry IV,” parts one and two, “Richard II,” “Henry V,” and “The Merry Wives of Windsor”). Plagued by what were at this point familiar budgetary constraints, Welles shot Chimes at Midnight over the course of about seven months in Spain, with a break when the financial well went dry.
- 4/8/2017
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Sweet Creature of Bombast: Welles’ Restored Homage to Shakespeare’s Ultimate Clown
Before the world finally gets a chance to see Orson Welles’ last uncompleted film The Other Side of the Wind, which had been intended to be the troubled auteur’s return to American filmmaking following a decade in Europe, audiences can feast on a restored version of his final narrative masterpiece, Chimes at Midnight. For decades, the 1965 title has been unavailable and now arrives restored on behalf of Janus Films. Playing in competition at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival, Welles homage to one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comic characters, Sir John Falstaff, initially received a chilly reception and stilted marketing campaign upon hitting Us theaters. Despite a throng of critics attempting to recuperate its reputation since then, it has remained an obscure classic.
Taking place from the years 1400 to 1408 in England, a narrator explains King Henry IV (John Gielgud...
Before the world finally gets a chance to see Orson Welles’ last uncompleted film The Other Side of the Wind, which had been intended to be the troubled auteur’s return to American filmmaking following a decade in Europe, audiences can feast on a restored version of his final narrative masterpiece, Chimes at Midnight. For decades, the 1965 title has been unavailable and now arrives restored on behalf of Janus Films. Playing in competition at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival, Welles homage to one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comic characters, Sir John Falstaff, initially received a chilly reception and stilted marketing campaign upon hitting Us theaters. Despite a throng of critics attempting to recuperate its reputation since then, it has remained an obscure classic.
Taking place from the years 1400 to 1408 in England, a narrator explains King Henry IV (John Gielgud...
- 12/31/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
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