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Wonderful character development!

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT is a historical comedy drama film that delves into the intelligence and tradition at the same time. The script contains text from five of Shakespeare's plays; primarily "Henry IV, Part 1" and "Henry IV, Part 2", but also "Richard II" and "Henry V", as well as some dialogue from "The Merry Wives of Windsor". Therefore, any deviation from the standard of Shakespeare can be fatal to some extent. Mr. Welles loves to deviate from certain standards.The legendary Shakespearean character Sir John Falstaff, the notoriously drunken and obese is a charming companion of a young Prince Hal. King Henry IV of England has succeeded Richard II, whom he has killed. Richard II's true heir, Edmund Mortimer, is a prisoner in Wales, and Mortimer's cousins Northumberland, Worcester, and Northumberland's son Hotspur demand that Henry rescue Mortimer. The king refuses, and thus Mortimer's cousins begin to plot Henry's overthrow. The young prince, to the chagrin of his father, spends most of his time at the Boar's Head Tavern, drinking and carousing with prostitutes, thieves and other criminals under John Falstaff's patriarchal influence. However, one day, the young prince will have to become the king.Mr. Welles has tried to put this story between a sense of pride and despair, youth and experience, love and duty. He has adapted a tragicomic plot to a generational relationship. Is socializing with some sundowner and demimonde worthy a place in history? That's the real question in this film. The dialogues are very vivid and can be characterized as a kind of association game. The scenery is striking. Director's imagination and his mockingly exaggeration have inflicted some damage to this film.Orson Welles (Sir John Falstaff) is very good as a boastful cowardly knight and father-figure to Prince Hal. A little drama was played on his face. Keith Baxter as Prince Hal goes through phases of a youthful insouciance and historical obligations. Therefore, a playful young man can become a good and noble king. John Gielgud as King Henry IV is a sharp, cold and politically wise character. Jeanne Moreau as Doll Tearsheet is a prostitute, who will further spice up this soup.Everything is allowed in a loyal false game.

I won't belabor the point that you can gather from reading 40+ other reviews, so I will offer a few short words on the theme of the movie, as well as caveat, for watching Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight.The film overall deals with that time-honored notion noted by St. Paul "When I was a child, I used to talk like a child, and see things as a child does, and think like a child; but now that I have become an adult, I have finished with all childish ways." Prince Hal is growing up and becoming an adult, and as such must soon leave his childish pranks and habits behind. His friend, Falstaff, is that childhood friend (paradoxically old in age, as if he never grew up himself). Boisterous, drunk, and a glutton, the blowhard gleefully recounts all the good times that he, Prince Hal, and their other misfits used to have, doing the things that children and adolescents do, like being a nuisance, harassing others, and goofing off. It is the type of life Falstaff still leads and he is quite happy with it. Prince Hal is, too, until the weight of responsibility is slowly thrust upon him thanks to his sick father. As the stakes are raised, he slowly loses the time and desire to be a silly young boy and now must be a man.Falstaff is oblivious to this development all the way until the end, thinking that these are just momentary phases before the parties can begin anew. He is ever hopeful that the Prince and the world will see things his way. He fails to see how the world moves past a fat, blundering fool. His love for the prince, for the girls of the bawdy bar, for his compatriots is, while sometimes humorous and self-serving, he nonetheless wishes no real ill on anyone and merely lives for fun and pleasure. In his old age, he has decided that being an adult (if he ever was one) is not something worth putting time and energy in to. He is unimportant and carefree enough to have that luxury; however, his closest friends cannot shirk away from their duties as men, and thus Falstaff fails to realize how he is left behind.All of this is turned into a moving portrait. We realize that Falstaff is wrong, and that sometimes the world calls for more than just joking around, goofing off and indulging one's self. But we sympathize with him, because we can see a gentle and loving person underneath the bluster and idiocy - and perhaps we ourselves wish the world were more "childish" and carefree. At the climactic battle scene (were Welles' camera work makes a hundred men or less look like a thousand), men grind and pulverize each other into hamburger meat - but Falstaff never manages to hurt a single soul. Perhaps there is some good in being childish! For those wishing to watch the movie, the Criterion package is an excellent one. The customary supplemental materials are fascinating, and the picture brings out Welles' cinematography. Criterion and co. did there best with the sound, and the sound is the biggest single issue with which you will struggle with (or at least I did) with Chimes. Even with work done on it, the sound levels are inconsistent, especially with actors' lines. Sometimes whole scenes will go by with what sounds like dubbers mumbling their lines, straining your ears and making you crank the volume up on your TV. Then all of the sudden someone will speak loudly and clearly, blowing you back with the force of it and making you quickly turn the volume back down... only for the process to repeat again. I have not done this yet, but I would probably recommend watching with subtitles on to help alleviate the issue of figuring out what some of the whispers and mumbles are supposed to be. Not an elegant solution, but with Welles' later work, you will have to deal with some technical issue or another.Don't let the above turn you off from seeing this beautiful, and moving film. It is a worthy adaptation and remix of Shakespeare and one of Welles' greatest movies.

This movie, which is very nicely filmed, very cinematic, as we'd expect from it's director, has one very big problem with it. Falstaff, in the Shakespeare plays, is no hero. In the plays he symbolizes everything wrong with England. He is an adulterous, corrupt, criminal, even stooping so low as to become a common thief, he is a congenital liar and manipulator. In the plays, while we have a certain amount of fun with him for a while, in the end he is acknowledged for what he is: evil. The director of this film had a different idea, he had a strange romantic vision of the age of chivalry, and felt that this was somehow embodied in the character of Falstaff. Film buffs can read the interviews. This interpretation is at logger-heads with Shakespeare's Fallstaff. The director, of course, felt that you can play Shakespeare any number of different ways, and all will be well and good. But you can't turn the criminal, the embodiment of evil, into the good-guy. That's a little too "Hollywood", in the worst possible way. Personally, I don't feel any sympathy for Hal's rejection of Falstaff. He got what was coming to him. The Prince grew up, developed a sense of moral character when it was needed of him. He rose to the occasion and met that which was demanded of him for the good of his country. The sad coward Falstaff could never change. The director, self-confessedly, is on Falstaffs side. Makes you wonder about his view of life in general and understanding of Shakespeare in particular.Very disappointing.

I have to admit right here and now that except for "Romeo and Juliet" and "Macbeth", I am not too familiar with the plays of William Shakespeare. As a result, hearing the Old English of the Bard in the beginning of this latter-day Orson Welles movie almost alienated me to the point of almost not watching the rest of it on YouTube. But since I just got a jones for seeing many of Welles' films that aren't Citizen Kane or Touch of Evil, I felt I had to watch the rest of this so I could say I have done so. I'm very glad I did as I got used to the dialogue as being something from the 16th century and would eventually understand what is going on. Kudos for Welles for giving compelling battle scenes in the middle part and for performances of not only himself as John Falstaff but also Jeanne Moreau as his mistress and especially John Gielgud as the King especially his final scene. And I did get some of the humorous scenes near the end. So on that note, I highly recommend Falstaff (or Chimes at Midnight).