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Chimes at Midnight

Falstaff - Chimes at Midnight

1965

Orson Welles

Orson Welles, Keith Baxter, John Gielgud, Jeanne Moreau ...

7.6

5,573

Drama. Comedy. War Sir John Falstaff is the hero in this compilation of extracts from Shakespeare's 'Henry IV' and other plays, made into a connected story of Falstaff's career as young Prince Hal's drinking companion. The massive knight roisters with and without the prince, philosophizes comically, goes to war (in his own fashion), and meets his final disappointment, set in a real-looking late-medieval England.

	Media	Author	Review
		Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"A brilliant tribute to Falstaff (...) Welles brings several passages of genius (...) Here is a film to treasure (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"
		Vincent Canby The New York Times	"'Chimes at Midnight' carries an astonishing emotional kick that seems to grow each time I see it (...) This film has a way of creeping up on you"
		Philip French The Guardian	"Some performances are crude and it has an unfinished feel (...) But overall this elegiac, monochrome movie (...) is a rich masterpiece"
		Richard Brody The New Yorker	"[Welles] directed the film with an imaginative and expressive clarity that propels it to the front rank of his movies—and of the history of cinema"
		Ignatiy Vishnevetsky AV Club	"The best and most touchingly personal of all Shakespeare adaptations (...) Inventive and expressive in its approach to text, and consistently surprising and creative as filmmaking"
		Joe Morgenstern The Wall Street Journal	"For all of its flaws it’s a glory (...) Welles orchestrates, ferociously and magisterially, the clubbing, slashing, piercing monstrosity of war."
		David Parkinson Empire	"An often-ignored masterpiece. Check it out (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"
		Tom Huddleston Time Out	"It is Welles’s most human film, his most poignant, funny and empathetic. It’s also one of the best screen adaptation of Shakespeare (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"

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