| Author | Message | ||
     Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 92.9.142.11 |
Not totally off topic, I don't think. But seriously, has anyone ever seen a better or more violent battle scene than this? - from CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT (1966). Talk about the grim reality of medieval warfare. Orson Welles directing at the peak of his powers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX9-9ae0ymI | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Wow, that's pretty intense...you can see how it must have influenced films like Ran, Braveheart and Gladiator. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.11.79 |
CHIMES is a movie I've been meaning to see for years, and I downloaded it (it's widely available online, I think its copyright has expired), but have yet to see it, so I won't spoil the whole by watching the clip just yet... considered to be one of the world's great films, though.... Falstaff in the H4 plays is not so nice. I remember he jokes at one point, about all the men he's commanding being slaughtered - a sort of "Oh well!" moment... Shakespeare being darkly humorous.... | ||
| Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 92.9.142.11 |
As far as I know, Craig, there is some dispute about the ownership of CHIMES, the Orson Welles estate v some studio or other, which has prevented it being released on DVD. I remember it from TV years ago, and it's a classic. The staging of this battle scene - the battle of Shrewsbury (an absolute bloodbath which happened in the year 1403) - was massively influential among film-makers for the sheer savagery of the fighting; it knocked the action in many bigger budget historical epics into a cocked hat. As Gary says, directors as diverse as Kurosawa and, much later on, Mel Gibson (for BRAVEHEART), Ridley Scott (for GLADIATOR) and Ken Branagh (for HENRY V) were inspired by it. | ||
| Ian Alexander Martin (Iam) Username: Iam Registered: 10-2009 Posted From: 207.6.255.47 |
Craig: about a week ago or so we saw a production of Falstaff which is Henry IV parts 1+2 smooshed into one play, so you get to see Prince Hal grow up, basically. ...Anyway, it's astonishing at how incredibly awful Falstaff was: whoring, thieving, blatantly disrespectful of then King Henry IV, cutting a dead body to provide as evidence that he himself had killed the man... THIS was the 'lovable rogue' of fame? Sheesh! Granted, there were times you did love him, so that's good... Maybe he's the Sgt. Bilko of his time? | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.152.74.159 |
I played Falstaff when I was in school. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.3.15 |
...whoring, thieving, blatantly disrespectful of then King Henry IV, cutting a dead body to provide as evidence that he himself had killed the man... I played Falstaff when I was in school. Uh - you mean literally, John, right? I hope?  |