Sleepy womanizer I swear when I reach greatness,
I'll lose weight, I'll take br/
I'll leave the sherry to drink.
And I will live like a lord.
Gumilev "Falstaff"
A beautiful day to die was once in one of the cities of misty Albion. All night the open heavens mourned the souls of the sinners whom Fatum had prepared for a meeting with the Supreme Judge. The rain lasted all morning and without stopping spread for a day. However, for the surroundings of Windsor, on the way to which tired travelers waited inn "Kabanya head", overcast weather is not a curiosity. According to rumors, Christopher Marlowe was killed in this tavern - one of the few whose poems William Shakespeare did not hesitate to quote. Ironically, in the year of Marlo's tragic death, Shakespeare published his first opus, which gave reason to doubt the truth of the departure into the world of another Marlo. Perhaps Christopher faked his death, later adopting a new alias? A beautiful legend, and the truth is known only to British intelligence, in which Marlowe served the Crown in his spare time. But their styles are similar.
The owner of the inn is a friend of Shakespeare, who knew all his works by heart. He often entertained noble guests, talking to them with an exceptionally high syllable of drama. Playing Hamlet, he filled his speech with depressive poetry, but often switched to prose (the voice of the people) from the monologues of Falstaff's balagur. The day has come when it is time to silence all sounds, for a hearse arrived along a wet, muddy road, accompanied by a gravedigger. But, as they say in Odessa, you can’t wait. It's too early to lower the curtain. This is not death, but the dream of a sick person. The show continues.
Synopsis lies. The movie is not about Falstaff, but about the innkeeper, or rather about his scrappy dreams, where he sees himself as Falstaff - one of the most popular characters of Shakespeare. He has a genius of more than 1,200 lines, more than Hamlet. Salieri, Verdi and lesser-known composers dedicated their operas to him. A good-natured fat man and a cowardly drunkard, but at the same time an impoverished knight, albeit with imaginary exploits. He became one of the key characters of parts I and II of the play “Henry IV”, his death is told in “Henry V”. In Henry IV, scenes with Falstaff alternate with serious ones. The same problems are considered in comic and tragic aspects. John Falstaff is often contrasted with Don Quixote. The knight of the sad image is an allegory of departing feudal lords, a knight of the hedonistic image of the nascent bourgeoisie. The first is a romantic who fights with windmills, the second is a pragmatist who enjoys life. Falstaff is repulsive and charming. The Queen was so admired by this character that she demanded the continuation of the story, making Falstaff in love, which was partly performed in the comedy “Windsor Mockers”, where the innkeeper moved in his dreams. The action of the comedy took place in the modern Shakespeare Elizabethan time. This comedy formed the basis of the script of the prepared film.
Belarusian Soviet director Valery Rubinchik, waking up one day with the thought - ".. it's time for us, friends, to swing at William of our Shakespeare", and, barely sketching the script, the first thing he did was invite Evgeny Evstigneev to the role of Duke, the main role went to Anatoly Papanov. The star cast was supplemented by: Boris Khmelnitsky (Viscount), Tatiana Vasilyeva (Yezeville), Igor Yasulovich (Alex). For the director, this picture was the tenth in his filmography, but he had no experience with the classics. He may have bet on the luminaries of our cinema, but, frankly, Shakespeare did not give him. Evgeny Evstigneev was cramped within his tiny role and there was nothing to show the full power of his talent. Papanov professionally performed all the director's installations, but this was too little for the credibility of the image. Comedy farce is not a simple genre at all. Here, the main thing is not to cross a thin line and not to slide into a showroom. Best of all, Tatiana Vasilyeva coped with this, and Valentina Shendrikova and Marina Shimanskaya, who played those very pranksters, could not resist and failed their roles, and together with them blurred the general impression of what they saw. The director understood that it was pointless to compete with Orson Welles, due to the difference in “weight” categories and therefore refused to literally film. He took only one part and made a free interpretation of it. In fact, only the storyline remains. Instead of rich citizens, a duke and a viscount appeared, the wives also changed their status, and even became much younger and prettier than in the original source. Shakespeare’s Falstaff was driven by greed, Rubinchik by lust. In the original, the fat man is hidden in a basket with not washed clothes and thrown into a dirty ravine, in the film he hides in the Japanese Ofuro and finds himself in the Thames. Such changes are not one tenth. In addition, the plot introduced themes from the Italian contemporaries of Shakespeare - Gianfrancesco Starparola and Giovanni Fiorentino, as well as the French poet of the XIII century Adam de La Al. The film pays tribute to Federico Fellini. All this is interesting, the very idea of the innkeeper's dream is curious, but the implementation is frankly weak. There is a sense of seriousness in her. Maybe it’s money, or maybe it’s lack of experience? It’s hard to find a definitive answer, but it’s all unprofessional. And the epitome of the amateurish approach was the replacement of a wild boar in the hunting scene for either a painted or dumped in the mud domestic pig.
Even with the above, watching a movie is quite interesting. First of all, as a clear example - and great actors have weak roles, and also as a good motivator, in order to read Shakespeare and revise the real picture of Falstaff - "Midnight Bells" by Orson Welles. Good things. Here's a curious ending, a looping film. The dream becomes real, everything repeats, only Falstaff is not that cheerful, but barely weaving, not without the help of a page, old man. The ending is symbolic. Classic because its stories are taken from life and from time to time there and return, regardless of the century. She doesn't have time.