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= = = Pre @-@ production = = =
In 1964 , Welles met and befriended Spanish film producer Emiliano Piedra , who wanted to work with him . Piedra did not think a Shakespearian film was marketable enough and proposed that Welles make a version of Treasure Island instead . Welles agreed to this on condition that he could simultaneously make Chimes at M...
Welles said that the Boar 's Head Tavern was the only full set built for the film , and the other sets were simply dressed or decorated on location . Welles stated that he designed , painted and blow @-@ torched the set , and designed all of the film 's costumes . Early in pre @-@ production Welles was approached by A...
= = = Filming = = =
The film was shot in Spain from September 1964 until April 1965 , with a break in filming from late December until late February . Welles 's limitations on the film included a budget of $ 800 @,@ 000 and actors Jeanne Moreau and John Gielgud being available for five and ten days respectively , while Margaret Rutherfor...
By late December Welles had run out of money and the film was put on hold while he searched for additional funding . However , some small scenes were shot during the break . Welles later said that he had rejected offers for funding that were conditional upon filming in color . Welles eventually secured funding from Ha...
= = = Post @-@ production = = =
Keith Baxter said that the film 's soundtrack was post @-@ dubbed months after filming was completed , and that actors Fernando Rey and Marina Vlady were dubbed by different actors because of their heavy accents . Baxter also stated that he , Welles and Michael Aldridge recorded voices for several characters in post @...
= = Style = =
= = = Cinematography = = =
Welles had originally wanted the entire film to use high contrast cinematography , resembling engravings of the Middle Ages ; only the opening title sequence uses this technique . The film 's most famous sequence is the Battle of Shrewsbury ; only about 180 extras were available and Welles used editing techniques to g...
The Battle of Shrewsbury sequence has often been called an anti @-@ war statement by film critics and likened to contemporary films like Dr. Strangelove and Culloden . Shakespearean scholar Daniel Seltzer said that " the social consciousness of the movie is as alert as Shakespeare 's , and thematically pertinent in Sh...
= = = Sound = = =
Due to budgetary constraints , both the on @-@ set and post @-@ production sound was poorly recorded . Anderegg wrote that this , in combination with Welles ' fast @-@ paced camera movements and editing , makes the Shakespearean dialogue more difficult to understand . Many scenes are shot in long shots or with charact...
= = = Interpretation of Shakespeare = = =
Welles 's adaptation of five Shakespeare plays was not a chronological transcription of the original texts . Shakespearean scholar Kenneth S. Rothwell said that Welles " goes beyond mere tinkering with Shakespeare 's scenes ; [ he ] massively reworks , transposes , revises and deletes , indeed reconstructs them . " Th...
= = Reception = =
= = = Critical response = = =
Chimes at Midnight premiered to a positive audience reception at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival . However , after New York Times critic Bosley Crowther 's unfavorable advance review , American distributor Harry Saltzman decided to give the film little publicity and minimal distribution when it was released in the U.S. ...
Judith Crist praised the film as " stark , simple , concentrating on word and performance , serv [ ing ] as a reminder of where the substance of the play lies . " Pauline Kael also criticized the poor sound , but gave a favorable review overall , singling out the film 's casting and calling Welles 's performance " ver...
= = = Legacy = = =
Welles held Chimes at Midnight in high regard . " It 's my favorite picture , yes , " he told interviewer Leslie Megahey in a 1982 interview for BBC Arena :
If I wanted to get into heaven on the basis of one movie , that 's the one I would offer up . I think it 's because it is to me the least flawed ; let me put it that way . It is the most successful for what I tried to do . I succeeded more completely in my view with that than with anything else .
He also considered it to be his most personal film , along with The Magnificent Ambersons . Many critics , including Peter Bogdanovich and Jonathan Rosenbaum , also consider Chimes at Midnight to be Welles 's finest work . Several years after its initial release , film critic Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote ...
The Battle of Shrewsbury sequence has been particularly admired , and inspired later movies , including Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan . Film critics have compared it to the Odessa Steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin and the Battle on the Ice sequence in Alexander Nevsky , both directed by Sergei Eisenstein . Ke...
In 2011 , Bonham 's Auction House sold a large archive of Welles 's material that had once belonged to the film 's executive producer Alessandro Tasca di Cuto . Most of the material was from Chimes at Midnight , and included Welles 's original artwork , photographs and memos . This collection was later donated to the ...
In 2012 , for the British Film Institute 's Sight and Sound poll , 11 film critics and two directors voted Chimes at Midnight one of the 10 greatest films of all time , including McBride and Todd McCarthy .
Spanish writer and director of the Film Library of Catalonia Esteve Riambau published a book about the film called The Things We 've Seen : Welles and Falstaff in 2015 .
= = = Awards = = =
At the 1966 Cannes Film Festival , Chimes at Midnight was screened in competition for the Palme d 'Or and won the 20th Anniversary Prize and the Technical Grand Prize . Welles was nominated for a BAFTA award for Best Foreign Actor in 1968 In Spain , the film won the Citizens Writers Circle Award for Best Film in 1966 ...
= = = Home media = = =
Because of legal disputes over the rights , Chimes at Midnight has only been released twice on VHS video in the United States , neither of which is currently available . Harry Saltzman 's widow Adriana Saltzman , the families of producers Emiliano Piedra and Angel Escolano and the estate of Orson Welles — maintained b...
The film had a European release on DVD and Blu @-@ ray on June 29 , 2015 .
= = = 2016 Restoration = = =
Janus Films released a restored version of the film on DCP that premiered on January 1 , 2016 , at Film Forum in New York City and Cinefamily in Los Angeles . This restored version is not derived from the Distribpix print .
A new restoration by Janus Films and The Criterion Collection screened at the Film Forum in New York January 1 – 12 , 2016 . Peter Becker , Criterion 's president , said that the release is the product of more than 20 years of effort : " There is no film we have waited longer for or worked harder to free up , and none...
= = Welles and Falstaff = =
= = = Welles 's views on Sir John Falstaff = = =
Welles considered Falstaff to be " Shakespeare 's greatest creation " and said that the role was " the most difficult part I 've ever played . " Keith Baxter believed that making the film was Welles 's life 's ambition . Before the 1939 Boston premiere of Five Kings , Welles told journalists " I will play him as a tra...
Welles said , " the film was not intended as a lament for Falstaff , but for the death of Merrie England . Merrie England as a conception , a myth which has been very real to the English @-@ speaking world , and is to some extent expressed in other countries of the Medieval epoch : the age of chivalry , of simplicity ...
= = = Welles 's personal connections to Sir John Falstaff = = =
Keith Baxter compared Welles to Falstaff , since they were both perpetually short of money , often lied and cheated people to get what they needed and were always merry and fun loving . Film scholar Jack Jorgens also compared Welles to Falstaff , stating that " to a man who directed and starred in a masterpiece and ha...
Welles 's biographer Simon Callow has compared Falstaff to Welles 's father Richard Head Welles , stating that like Falstaff , Welles 's father was " a drunkard , a trickster , a braggart , a womanizer , a gentleman and a charmer — and he is rejected by the person he loves the most . " Welles 's father was an alcoholi...
Welles 's alleged biological son Michael Lindsay @-@ Hogg , who was born out of wedlock to Welles and actress Geraldine Fitzgerald , first met Welles when he was 15 and later worked on the 1960 stage play Chimes at Midnight . This was the only significant amount of time that the two spent together and afterwards Linds...
= Python ( programming language ) =
Python is a widely used high @-@ level , general @-@ purpose , interpreted , dynamic programming language . Its design philosophy emphasizes code readability , and its syntax allows programmers to express concepts in fewer lines of code than possible in languages such as C + + or Java . The language provides construct...
Python supports multiple programming paradigms , including object @-@ oriented , imperative and functional programming or procedural styles . It features a dynamic type system and automatic memory management and has a large and comprehensive standard library .
Python interpreters are available for many operating systems , allowing Python code to run on a wide variety of systems . Using third @-@ party tools , such as Py2exe or Pyinstaller , Python code can be packaged into stand @-@ alone executable programs for some of the most popular operating systems , so Python @-@ bas...
CPython , the reference implementation of Python , is free and open @-@ source software and has a community @-@ based development model , as do nearly all of its variant implementations . CPython is managed by the non @-@ profit Python Software Foundation .
= = History = =
Python was conceived in the late 1980s , and its implementation began in December 1989 by Guido van Rossum at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica ( CWI ) in the Netherlands as a successor to the ABC language ( itself inspired by SETL ) capable of exception handling and interfacing with the operating system Amoeba . Van Ros...
About the origin of Python , Van Rossum wrote in 1996 :
Over six years ago , in December 1989 , I was looking for a " hobby " programming project that would keep me occupied during the week around Christmas . My office ... would be closed , but I had a home computer , and not much else on my hands . I decided to write an interpreter for the new scripting language I had bee...
Python 2 @.@ 0 was released on 16 October 2000 and had many major new features , including a cycle @-@ detecting garbage collector and support for Unicode . With this release the development process was changed and became more transparent and community @-@ backed .
Python 3 @.@ 0 ( which early in its development was commonly referred to as Python 3000 or py3k ) , a major , backwards @-@ incompatible release , was released on 3 December 2008 after a long period of testing . Many of its major features have been backported to the backwards @-@ compatible Python 2.6.x and 2.7.x vers...
= = Features and philosophy = =
Python is a multi @-@ paradigm programming language : object @-@ oriented programming and structured programming are fully supported , and many language features support functional programming and aspect @-@ oriented programming ( including by metaprogramming and metaobjects ( magic methods ) ) . Many other paradigms ...
Python uses dynamic typing and a mix of reference counting and a cycle @-@ detecting garbage collector for memory management . An important feature of Python is dynamic name resolution ( late binding ) , which binds method and variable names during program execution .
The design of Python offers some support for functional programming in the Lisp tradition . The language has map ( ) , reduce ( ) and filter ( ) functions ; list comprehensions , dictionaries , and sets ; and generator expressions . The standard library has two modules ( itertools and functools ) that implement functi...
The core philosophy of the language is summarized by the document The Zen of Python ( PEP 20 ) , which includes aphorisms such as :
Beautiful is better than ugly