"I think Shakespeare was greatly preoccupied, as I am in my humble way, with the loss of innocence. And I think there has always been an England, an older England, which was sweeter, and purer, where the hay smelt better and the weather was always springtime and the daffodils blew in the gentle warm breezes. And its the..you feel the nostalgia for it in Chaucer, and you feel it all through Shakespeare.
And I think that he was profoundly against the modern age, as I am. I'm against my modern age, he was against his. And I think his villains are modern people, just as they're likely to be continental. I always see the villains in Lear are non-Anglo Saxon, they're from over there; they're from, they represent the modern world...
Innocence is what Falstaff is. He is a kind of refugee from that world. He has to live by his wits, he has to be funny. He hasn't a place to sleep if he doesn't get a laugh out of his patron. So it's a rough, modern world that he's living in. But I think you have to see in his eyes--it's why I was so very glad to be doing it in black and white, if it's in color he must have blue eyes. You've got to see that look that comes out of the Age that never existed, but exists in the heart of all English poetry."
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