Barev2013 Review of Chimes at Midnight

Chimes at Midnight (1965)

Chimes at Midnight -- A rare loser by a great director

[2/10 · 16 November 2014]

Locarno 2005 ran a complete Orson Welles retrospective including all of his masterpieces and some lesser known works that are less than masterpieces. The Orson Welles highlight of day seven was his very rarely shown "Falstaff --Chimes at Midnight", 1965, which Welles always claimed as his personal favorite. Loosely adapted from several Shakespeare plays in which the boisterous character of John Falstaff appears. Welles himself plays the ribald central character at a very portly age of fifty and is ably supported by a mainly English cast, notably John Gielgud as the king. French nouvelle Vague actresses Marina Vlady and Jeanne Moreau have cameos. Moreau, it is said, worked for almost nothing just to be directed by a living legend like Welles. The film was shot in Spain and was an international co-production with such complicated distribution rights that they remain unsettled to this day making the film well nigh unseeable under normal conditions. I found it almost unwatchable because Welles is so hammy in it, and it looks like it was just slapped together from whim to whim -- very self indulgent and just plain boring from where I sat. It was an effort to sit it out, which I did as a kind of "critique oblige" type duty. Nevertheless one must offer Kudos to the Munich film archive for getting the unadulterated "Chimes" to Locarno. One of Orson Welles daughters, Chris Welles, is also here to take in the retrospective and said that she is learning things about her own father she never knew before. One thing I never knew is that, in addition to his numerous undeniable masterpieces he made some hammy throwaway junk which, like this film, is nevertheless highly acclaimed by many critics because it would be heresy to find any fault in the works of a certified genius like Welles. Can't complain because it filled in a gap in the filmography of a director whose work I basically venerate just like everyone else, but this one didn't ring any resounding chimes in my personal belfry. Alex, Locarno, August 12. 2005