DVD
Chimes at midnight
Call Number
- DVD DRAMA (CEN)
Edition
Two-DVD special edition.
Languages
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing.
Performers
Orson Welles, Keith Baxter, Jeanne Moreau, Margaret Rutherford, John Gielgud, Norman Rodway, Marina Vlady, Walter Chiari, Michael Aldridge, Tony Beckley, Alan Webb, José Nieto, Fernando Rey, Beatrice Welles ; narrator, Ralph Richardson.
Publication Information
[Irvington, NY] : Criterion Collection, [2016]
Physical Description
2 videodiscs (116 minutes) : sound, black and white ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 folded sheet (illustrations ; 19 cm)
Audience
Not rated.
Uniform Title
Summary
The crowning achievement of Orson Welles's extraordinary cinematic career, Chimes at Midnight was the culmination of the filmmaker's lifelong obsession with Shakespeare's ultimate rapscallion, Sir John Falstaff. Usually a comic supporting figure, Falstaff--the loyal, often soused friend of King Henry IV's wayward son Prince Hal--here becomes the focus: a robustly funny and ultimately tragic screen antihero played by Welles with looming, lumbering grace. Integrating elements from both Henry IV plays as well as Richard II, Henry V, and The Merry Wives of Windsor, Welles created a gritty and unorthodox Shakespeare film as a lament, he said, "for the death of Merrie England." Poetic, philosophical, and visceral--with a kinetic centerpiece battle sequence that rivals anything in the director's body of work--Chimes at Midnight is as monumental as the figure at its heart.
Notes
Title from container.
Based on five plays by William Shakespeare and the book "Holinshed's Chronicles" by Raphael Holinshed.
Originally released as a motion picture in 1966.
Special features: New high-definition digital restoration ; audio commentary featuring film scholar James Naremore, author of "The magic world of Orson Wells" ; new interview with actor Keith Baxter ; new interview with director Orson Welles's daughter Beatrice Welles, who appeared in the film at age nine ; new interview actor and Welles biographer Simon Callow ; new interview with film historian Joseph McBride, author of "What ever happened to Orson Welles?" ; interview with Welles while at work editing the film, from a 1965 episode of "The Merv Griffin show" ; trailer.