Chimes at Midnight Orson Welles, Director

Among the films inspired by Orson Welles's lifelong involvement with Shakespeare, the greatest is "Chimes at Midnight" (1966). It is a masterly conflation of the Shakespearean history plays that feature Falstaff, the great comic figure played by Welles himself in the film. For Welles, the character was also potentially tragic: the doomed friendship between Falstaff and Prince Hal becomes an image of the end of an age. To this epic subject Welles brings the innovative film techniques that made him famous in "Citizen Kane," "The Lady from Shanghai," and "Touch of Evil."Lyons, Bridget G. is the author of 'Chimes at Midnight Orson Welles, Director' with ISBN 9780813513386 and ISBN 0813513383.