Capital Celluloid 2015 - Day 214: Sun Aug 2

Chimes at Midnight (Welles, 1966): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 8.30pm


This film, increasingly considered Orson Welles' finest achievement, is part of the season devoted to the director's films at BFI Southbank and also screens on 1st and 3rd August. Details here.

Chicago Reader review:
Orson Welles's 1966 version of the Falstaff story, assembled from Shakespearean bits and pieces, is the one Welles film that deserves to be called lovely; there is also a rising tide of opinion that proclaims it his masterpiece. Restrained and even serene (down to its memorably muddy battle scene), it shows Welles working largely without his technical flourishes—and for those who have never seen beyond his surface flash, it is ample proof of how sensitive and subtle an artist he is. With Keith Baxter, John Gielgud, Margaret Rutherford, and Jeanne Moreau.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the memorable battle scene.

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