Chimes at Midnight: What is honour? A word

'[Shakespeare] was very close indeed to another age, if you understand me. He was standing in the door which opened onto the modern age and his grandparents, the old people in the village, the countryside itself, still belonged to the Middle Ages, to the old Europe… his humanity came from his links to the Middle Ages.… and his pessimism, his bitterness – and it's when he allows them free rein that he touches the sublime – belong to the modern world, the world which has just been created.' (Orson Welles)

'Falstaff is a man defending a force – the old England – that is going down. What is difficult about Falstaff, I believe, is that he is the greatest conception of a good man, the most completely good man in all drama. His faults are so small and he makes tremendous jokes out of little faults. But his goodness is like bread, like wine. That was why I lost the comedy. The more I played it, the more I felt that I was playing Shakespeare’s good, pure man. I can see that there are scenes which should be much more hilarious, but I directed everything and played everything with a view to preparing for the last scene, so the relationship between Falstaff and the Prince is no longer the simple comic one that it is in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part One, but always a preparation for the end. And as you see, the farewell is performed about four times during the movie, as a preparation for the tragic ending: The death of Hotspur, which is that of Chivalry, the death of the King in his castle, the death of the Prince (who becomes King) and the poverty and illness of Falstaff. These are presented throughout the film and must darken it. I do not believe that comedy should dominate in such a film.' (Orson Welles).