Archive of films Chimes at Midnight / Campanadas a medianoche

France / Spain / Switzerland
1965, 113 min

Section: Seven Close Encounters Section includes annotation
Year: 2016

Viktor Tauš presents

Supreme loyalty to the spirit of Shakespeare’s plays and the ultimate in cinematic mastery… If anyone were seeking this sort of calibre in the hundreds of Romeos and Juliets, Hamlets and Othellos they would never find anything that came remotely close to Orson Welles’s Falstaff. The endearingly libertine companion to Prince Hal (the future Henry V) is the natural, early Renaissance “godfather” of all great Wellesian fraudsters, inexorably bound to representatives of Order, who, sooner or later, reject and betray them – in the name of Law and Truth.

Synopsis

“Of all the films by Orson Welles, Chimes at Midnight is exceptional in many respects… Beyond the fascinating, original compilations of Shakespeare plays and the breathtaking visual aspects, it is associated in my heart with goodness. As depicted by Welles, Falstaff is the essence of a good person. Never before or after did Welles recount a story with such tenderness…” – Viktor Tauš. Here Welles shows supreme loyalty to the spirit of Shakespeare’s plays in an awe-inspiring specimen of cinematic mastery. If anyone were seeking this sort of calibre in the hundreds of Romeos and Juliets, Hamlets and Othellos they would never find anything that came remotely close to Orson Welles’s Falstaff. The English poet never wrote a work entitled Falstaff; an erudite Shakespearian, Welles skilfully pieced together a text drawn from several of the dramatist’s plays in which the character of Sir John Falstaff appears. In this case, the endearingly libertine companion to Prince Hal (the future Henry V) is the natural Renaissance “godfather” of Citizen Kane and other great Wellesian fraudsters, inexorably bound to representatives of Order, who, sooner or later, reject them – in the name of Law and Truth.

Milan Klepikov

Introduced by Viktor Tauš

About the director

Orson Welles (1915, Kenosha, Wisconsin – 1985, Hollywood) was a tragic titan of 20th century culture. Film direction was only one of the many disciplines on which this multi-talented artist left his mark. If his feature film debut Citizen Kane (1941), shot when he was a mere 25 years of age, reflected the clearest departure from established narrative and technical conventions to date, then subsequent, often misunderstood works revealed a greater endeavour to attend to formal and intellectual aspects. This applies to the heavily cut The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), his very next work; masterpieces of Welles’s mature period include Touch of Evil (1958), screened last year at Karlovy Vary, and also Chimes at Midnight. Film professionals worldwide are currently focused on efforts to complete The Other Side of the Wind, his most ambitious project from the early 1970s.

Contacts

Filmoteca Española
Magdalena, 10, 28012, Madrid
Spain
Tel: +34 914 672 600
E-mail: [email protected]

Mr Bongo Films
24 Old Steine, 2nd Floor, BN1 1EL, Brighton
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 127 360 0546
E-mail: [email protected]

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About the film

Black & white, DCP

Section:	Seven Close Encounters

Director:	Orson Welles
Screenplay:	Orson Welles podle románu / based on the novel by Raphael Holinshed
Dir. of Photography:	Edmond Richard
Music:	Angelo Francesco Lavagnino
Editor:	Elena Jaumandreu, Fritz Muller, Peter Parasheles
Art Director:	Mariano Erdoiza
Producer:	Ángel Escolano, Emiliano Piedra, Harry Saltzman
Production:	Alpine Films, Internacional Films
Cast:	Orson Welles, Jeanne Moreau, Margaret Rutherford
Sales:	Filmoteca Española
Contact:	Mr Bongo Films