Special Screening event to benefit scholarship program

Friday, Oct. 25

6 p.m. – Light appetizers and cash bar

7 p.m. – Screening

9 p.m. – Q&A with SIU alumnus Michael Dawson $15 / $7 for students (see link)

A modern restoration of Orsen Welles’ favorite directed film will be screened at the Varsity as part of a fundraiser for the scholarship program in the College of Arts and Media at SIU.

Michael Dawson, a 1978 graduate of SIU in film production, film history, theory, and criticism, has created a 6k scan of “Chimes at Midnight” from the original master negative.

Dawson has been in the motion picture industry for nearly half a century. He will attend the event and present a post-screening Q&A and discussion.

The film focuses on a theme of betrayed friendships and is based on several Shakespearean plays. The film is about Sir John Falstaff and his companions at the end of King Henry IV’s reign and their angst at witnessing the events as Merry Old England enters the modern age. Welles shot it in 1964 and 1965 in Spain and debuted it at the Cannes Film Festival in 1966. While the shadow of “Citizen Kane” looms large whenever the public thinks of Welles, he held “Chimes” in his highest regard. As he told the BBC in 1982: “If I wanted to get into heaven on the basis of one movie, that’s the one I would offer up.”

The event takes place on Friday, Oct. 25 and begins at 6 p.m. with appetizers and cash bar. The screening begins at 7 p.m. After the screening, Dawson will be available for discussion and a Q&A. Tickets are $15 or $7 for students with ID (see link). Tickets aren’t available in advance at the venue but can be purchased on the night of the event when doors and the Varsity Bar open at 6. The Varsity is downtown Carbondale at 418 S. Illinois Ave.