Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Teringer An Exercise In Nonsense

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Charles Herold (cherold) This review is from someone who struggles with Shakespeare. I have enjoyed productions of Shakespeare well enough, and usually can follow the story enough to follow it, but I just can't adapt to the language. At times it's like watching a foreign movie without subtitles.For someone like me, a fan of Welles but less so of Shakespeare, Chimes at Midnight is a tough one. The movie is beautifully directed, full of Welle's unique approach to composition and movement. Only Welles would put cross talk into Shakespeare, and much of the film is as visually glorious as Citizen Kane. The battle scene is electrifying and brutal, making most battle scenes feel like bowdlerized lies.I could generally follow the story. Falstaff is a scoundrel who is friends with the disapproving King's sons. There are various escapades and a war.But while I got the shape of many of the conversations, much of the time I had no idea what people were talking about. I have rarely struggled this much to understand Shakespeare, and I'm not sure why. It may be that the film is built out of the later plays, which are a lot tougher than something like Romeo and Juliet. It may be in part an effect of sound issues critics complained about at the time. I do wonder if it has to do with Welles approach to the material. Shakespeare's plays have a rhythm to them, and I wonder if Welles own rhythm is simply harder to follow. Would I follow Henry IV plays better than this revision of them? I just don't know.I don't understand the dialogue well enough to speak intelligently on any flaws there may be in the film's structure. I can only say that your enjoyment of this film will be conditional on your comfort with and familiarity with Shakespeare.

clanciai Orson Welles was always good at Shakespeare and second only to Laurence Olivier, and in each Shakespeare he made he made it even better. You can see a very interesting line of maturing development through Macbeth and Othello to Falstaff, the final masterpiece - not even Laurence Olivier could make Shakespeare this good. And yet it has its minor flaws.My greatest pleasure and enjoyment, as I saw it now for the third time since the 60s, is above all the marvelous film and picture composition. Every scene could be seen as pictorially a masterpiece of its own. Orson Welles has created his film with an enormous load of experience from experimental cinematography through 30 years, and he seems to have learned everything. Usually in Shakespeare films there are long moments of doldrums but not here - the tempo is exceedingly efficient all the way, even in the calmer scenes. The virtuoso peak is of course the battle scenes in the middle of the film, comparable with Sergei Bondarchuk's overwhelmingness but here made more realistic and convincing in black and white. The mud is really muddy. It's also the point of the film's musical climax - here the music plays an important part of its own.The actors are also perfect every one, but here we come to the one minor detail. The diction is extremely important in Shakespare, the language is all, and if you muddle it all is lost. The best actor here is John Gielgud, who really understands his Shakespeare and makes him right, while the most difficult to understand is actually Orson Welles. His Falstaff is a little too bulky and fat, and his voice is many times lost in the flesh.Another wonderful thing, which gladdened me enormously, is the absolute faithfulness to realism. Welles has really tried to recreate medieval England, especially in the tavern scenes and above all the last one - you can really see how he enjoyed filming it. This faithfulness to style and realism makes the film outstanding in a way almost transcending all other Shakespeare films. Kenneth Branagh wallowed in transforming Shakespeare into any time, age and circumstance including the first world war, many others did even worse, while only Laurence Olivier was equally faithful to realism and style.In brief, it's a perfect film, and its minor flaws you easily forgive for its massive deserts. Only ten points is possible.

Jackson Booth-Millard I know that Orson Welles has done Macbeth and Othello from William Shakespeare as films, but this one he directed is different because it mixes small bits and pieces from a few of them, particularly Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, Richard II, Henry V and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Basically Henry IV (John Gielgud) is the ageing king watching with discontent over his son Prince Hal (Keith Baxter) as he lives a rude and irresponsible life with overweight and constantly drinking Sir John Falstaff (BAFTA nominated Welles). I will be honest and say that I did not understand everything going on, admittedly mostly because of the usual Shakespeare higgledy-piggledy dialogue that I can usually get to grips with, but I know that Hal becomes Henry V, there is a big battle, and in the end Falstaff supposedly gets what's coming to him. Also starring Margaret Rutherford as Mistress Quickly, Jeanne Moreau as Doll Tearsheet, Norman Rodway as Henry 'Hotspur' Percy, Marina Vlady as Kate Percy, Fernando Rey as Worcester and Alan Webb as Justice Shallow, with narration by Ralph Richardson. Despite not knowing what was going on most of the time, Welles gives a good performance as the overindulgent git, and his size do provide many of the good bits of humour, of course the most memorable scene is of course the big battle scene in the middle, also because of Welles in that fat metal suit, it may not be to everyone's taste, the critics rate it well, it is Shakespeare and Welles combined, so it is certainly a watchable historical comedy drama. Orson Welles was number 16 on 100 Years, 100 Stars - Men, and he was number 45 on The World's Greatest Actor. Good!

Randy_Kryn Well, a little more. When Orson Welles decided to remove and digest one character, John Falstaff, from several of William Shakespeare's works and build a failed play and then a masterpiece of a film around him, he successfully combined Shakespeare's inner-child and playfulness with some of the most subtle commentary on human nature in its diverse faces, masks, and merriments ever to appear on these creations of light we call cinema. The result: a team effort by Shakespeare and Welles--the bard meets the belly--in which Falstaff comes to life clothed in the girth bestowed upon him by both sides of the team as he frolics his way through dens of pleasure, landscapes of death. and the even more joyful and deadly emotions humans express until Will and Orson weave together the laughter of days and then a touch of despair as the night turns. And so we find these two men, with this film, jostling and combining talents, always just touching, simply with wisdom, what it means to inhabit human.