 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 Shakespearean terms too ... the footage of the Battle of Shrewsbury itself must be some of the finest , truest , ugliest scenes of warfare ever shot and edited for a movie . " Welles scholar James Naremore said that " the underlying eroticism of the chivalric code ... is exposed in all its cruel perversity . " Tony Howard wrote that Welles used Shakespeare 's historical plays " to denounce modern political hypocrisy and militarism . " 
