Chimes at Midnight
Orson Welles (1965)
Orson Welles said that ‘the betrayal of friendship’ was at the heart of Chimes at Midnight though that’s not the film’s only subject. When Falstaff (Welles) excitedly interrupts the coronation of his protégé Prince Hal (Keith Baxter) as Henry V, the new king brusquely tells the old man that his enjoyably misspent youth is now behind him. The look on Welles’s face – a mixture of hurt and near wonderment at Hal’s sudden authority – increases the poignancy of the rebuff. Falstaff’s final, lonely exit from the castle where the coronation is taking place is even more piercing. Change-and-decay is also an important theme. The narrative comprises a series of deaths, starting with Richard II’s and ending with Falstaff’s own. Both of these are off-screen, the latter, at the Boar’s Head Tavern, described by Mistress Quickly (Margaret Rutherford). The on-screen deaths of Henry ‘Harry Hotspur’ Percy (Norman Rodway), at the Battle of Shrewsbury, and Henry IV (John Gielgud) are dramatic highlights. Extracts from Holinshed’s Chronicles, read by Ralph Richardson, open and close Chimes at Midnight. The Holinshed epilogue notes that Henry V proved a good as well as a successful king. In spite of his seemingly unkind rejection of Falstaff, that glowing report doesn’t come over as ironic. Hal’s growing away from his friend is a consequence of time and circumstance.
Welles’s script includes text from five Shakespeare plays, predominantly the two parts of Henry IV, also including Richard II, Henry V and The Merry Wives of Windsor. The resonant title is a phrase in a line from Henry IV, Part 2. This opens the film (and is reprised towards its end), as Falstaff and the elderly Justice Shallow (Alan Webb) recall the all-night carousing of their distant youth. ‘We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow’ introduces a persisting tone of nostalgic melancholy. Chimes at Midnight, although it derives from theatre pieces devised by Welles, is much more than a filmed Shakespeare stage production – Welles and his cinematographer Edmond Richard create plenty of fine and fascinating (black-and-white) images. They include two contrasting shots of Prince Hal, on both occasions watched by Falstaff as the young man recedes into the distance. The first, following a light-hearted episode, is sunlit and Hal moves swiftly. The second comes at the end of the Battle of Shrewsbury, where the weather is dull and Hal’s gait weary. A sequence that shows two knights in heavy armour hoisted on pulleys by their attendants before being lowered onto their horses makes the knights seem for a moment like hanged men. It anticipates a later shot of corpses hanging from a gibbet.
The Battle of Shrewsbury, fought in 1403 between Henry IV’s army and rebels led by Percy, is staged imaginatively and powerfully – it’s the culmination of the almost relentless movement that contributes strongly to the momentum of the film’s first hour. (The battle was actually fought by 180 extras; Welles manages to suggest a cast of thousands.) After this, the tempo seems to change and the prominence of cold ritual to increase. A host of raised spears is a recurring image in Chimes at Midnight, vaguely martial but definitely ominous clinking a recurring sound. Shooting took place in various locations in Spain: the physical scale of the settings occasionally seems too big for England but it fits the expanding existential themes of the piece. Like most Orson Welles productions, this one was fraught with difficulty. There was a lengthy break in filming when money ran out. Whether or not Welles felt cheated in the making of this particular movie, it’s safe to assume that ‘betrayal of friendship’ continued to be – in terms of personal experience as well as a focus for telling Falstaff’s story – a subject close to his heart.
A particular technical difficulty is the post-recorded sound throughout (except for, unless my ears deceived me, one or two scenes in the latter stages). There’s no doubt this detracts from Chimes at Midnight, as does the dubbing into English of some of the voices of continental European actors – most obviously Fernando Rey, in the role of Worcester. There are consolations, though: the post-recorded sound throws into relief some beautiful verse speaking, especially by Gielgud and Keith Baxter. Welles’s own readings are rhythmical and very natural. His vast bulk is only one reason why his playing of Falstaff is so imposing: ingenious make-up never threatens to obscure the eloquence of his facial expressions. He combines Falstaff’s incorrigible rogue and bereft old man aspects to great effect.
The physical casting is, for the most part, vividly right: the stocky, vigorously insistent Norman Rodway and the tall, emotionally supple Keith Baxter complement each other splendidly. Not everything works so well. Gielgud is too monkish-looking as Henry IV; Alan Webb a vocally fussy Shallow; Michael Aldridge’s Pistol an over-elaborate turn. Welles’s ten-year-old daughter Beatrice, as Falstaff’s page, is given more to say by her father than is good for her. The biggest disappointment is Jeanne Moreau’s Doll Tearsheet – Moreau doesn’t seem to get the character, let alone the hang of her lines. All in all, though, Chimes at Midnight is one of the most convincing and dynamic Shakespeare films – and features the best performance from Orson Welles – that I’ve seen.
12 February 2019