By RAY KELLY
Out in time for the Orson Welles centennial is a book by Spanish film scholar Esteve Riambau examining Welles’ fascination with the character of Sir John Falstaff and the making his beloved Chimes at Midnight.
Las Cosas Que Hemos Visto: Welles y Falstaff (Things We Have Seen: Welles and Falstaff) by Riambau, director of the Film Library of Catalonia, was published this month in Spain.
According to Spanish publisher Luces Galibo, the 280-page book looks at Welles fascination with Shakespeare, the character of Falstaff, his theatrical productions involving Falstaff and the filming of Chimes at Midnight in Spain.
Riambau is the author of Orson Welles:The Show Without Limits (1985), Orson Welles (1993) and Orson Welles. An Immortal Spain (1993), co-screenwriter of the documentary Orson Welles In The Land of Don Quixote (Canal +, 2000) and stage director and adapter of the play Yours truly, Orson Welles (2008).
Chimes at Midnight can trace its lineage back to the Todd School for Boys in Woodstock, Illinois, where a 15-year-old Welles in 1930 first adapted several Shakespearean plays into a single work entitled The Winter of Our Discontent.
With his Mercury Theatre troupe, Welles returned to the concept of re-editing Shakespeare for his 1939 play Five Kings. Burgess Meredith played Hal opposite Welles’s Falstaff with a score composed by Aaron Copland.
Welles revisited the story with an even greater emphasis on the relationship between Hal and Falstaff for the 1960 Irish stage production Chimes at Midnight. Welles again played Falstaff, but this time with Keith Baxter as Hal. Some performances took place at the Gate Theater in Dublin, the stage where Welles began his professional career at the age of 16.
The motion picture adaptation of Chimes at Midnight was filmed in Spain between the fall 1964 and spring 1965 with the backing of Spanish film producers Emiliano Piedra and Ángel Escolano and Harry Saltzman, who co-produced the James Bond films. Alessandro Tasca served as executive producer. As he had done a decade earlier with Othello, Welles invested his own money into the project.
Welles and Baxter continued in the roles they had played on stage in Belfast and Dublin. They were joined by John Gielgud (King Henry IV), Margaret Rutherford (Mistress Quickly), and Jeanne Moreau (Doll Tearsheet) with Ralph Richardson providing narration. Beatrice Welles, the director’s youngest daughter, reprised her stage role as Falstaff’s young page.
A restored version of the film will be released on Blu-ray and DVD in June by Mr. Bongo. A U.S. release is expected in the near future.
(Special thanks to Joseph McBride for alerting us to the publication of Las Cosas Que Hemos Visto: Welles y Falstaff)
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