Mr. Arkadin (aka Confidential Report) (1955)
Peter Martin - Managing Editor
I watched Confidential Report, the 1955 release version of Orson Welles' film, some years ago, and most of it had vanished from memory. Recently, however, I read This is Orson Welles, a book of interviews that Peter Bogdanovich conducted with Welles, which reawakened my interest in the maverick filmmaker. Owing to a dispute with producer Louis Dolivet, Welles lost control of his cut, which he says was filled with intricately structured flashbacks; Dolivet edited it in a more straightforward chronological fashion, which is what came out in 1955. Bogdanovich located a print that appeared to be closer to Welles' intentions, known as the Corinth Version, and that came out in 1962.
Criterion packaged those two versions together with a third "comprehensive" version in a 2006 DVD set, and I finally watched the so-called Corinth version, which was not as revelatory as I had hoped, especially viewed in concert with the 1955 version. Whichever version you watch - and there may be as many as eight versions in circulation - the film is filled with familiar Wellesian touches: framing from atypical angles, deep focus compositions, and quirky characterizations. The story follows low-level smuggler Guy Van Stratten (Robert Arden), who is hired by mysterious billionaire Mr. Arkadin (Welles) to dig up dirt on himself; he's worried that a secret he wants to keep buried may come back to bite him. Van Stratten hops from country to country, unearthing juicy tidbits and even more oddball former acquaintances of Mr. Arkadin.
It's a quick-witted, fast-moving journey; what struck me most was the humor that manifests in a delightful manner, as well as the bravura staging of scenes that enliven what might otherwise be dull exposition. Arden, unfortunately, makes for a most unappealing, annoying lead, and everyone else is too self-consciously oddball, but watching the movie twice in quick succession was in no way a chore; even in his most minor works, Welles is nothing less than fascinating in his filmmaking.
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
Nominated for 4 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress
James Marsh - Asian Editor
Welles' follow up to Citizen Kane also depicts the downward trajectory of a wealthy man, or in this case an entire family. Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons is the story of a rich mid western family, who struggle to survive in the early 20th Century, when their family businesses fail and the rise of the automobile changes the face of modern society.
While the film was critically well received on first release, garnering Welles his only other Best Picture nomination, Ambersons was a financial flop. The director had long since rejected the project, however, which went over budget and was taken away from Welles by RKO Pictures and heavily re-edited ahead of release. Tragically, the 40-odd minutes of excised footage, largely from the film's third act, have since been destroyed, so there's no hope of ever seeing a reassembled version, despite Welles' detailed editing noted surviving.
There are certainly points of interest throughout the film, from its innovative camerawork, long complex single takes, daring use of light and shadow, not to mention the end credits being spoken by Welles himself, rather than appearing on screen, but I found the narrative stilted and largely unsatisfying. The complex central heroine, Isabella (Dolores Costello), torn between her long-time suitor Eugene (Joseph Cotten) and her spoilt, entitled son George (Tim Holt) remains frustratingly enigmatic throughout. Substantial studio tampering also leads to a rushed and cobbled together second half, culminating in a deeply unsatisfying attempt at a happy ending, much removed from the elegiac denouement envisaged by Welles.
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
Nominated for 4 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress
Kurt Halfyard – Contributing Writer
Even when Orson Welles is not starring in his films, he leaves an indelible impression. My favourite part of The Magnificent Ambersons his second directorial effort for RKO pictures which was made one year after Citizen Kane - is Welles’ lengthy narration over the prologue which elegantly kicks off the story and give a flavor of the town and the times (which will soon be a-changin’!) The language, the delivery, the curiosity of this prologue is only intermittently fulfilled by the picture itself, as it was butchered by the studio never to be restored.
But all is not lost, as the film is wonderfully lensed on huge sets that highlight, or dwarf the Amberson family, who is on the outs with progress, as they resist the progress represented by the automobile. The car would transform the 20th century into what it was, the solution to and cause of many problems, not the least of which the downfall of this dysfunctional clan. Connections to Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums are spurious (in particularly a complete lack of father figure) but both films are conveyed in equal parts petulance and melancholy and have reservoirs of depth.
Starting in the 1890s and ending on the doorstep of World War I, the story focuses on Amberson scion Georgie who as a boy terrorizes the town with his self-entitlement, and as a young man sabotages his mother’s late-in-life chance at happiness because he does not like the cut of the jib of her ex-flame (an excellent Joseph Cotton who is the inventor of a newfangled horseless carriage) as he attempts to re-kindle their romance. In the opening moments Georgie is prophesied to someday get his comeuppance for his arrogance and laziness, but it is to Welles credit (and a surprising faith in the human condition) that by the time karma catches up to the vile little twerp, the result is not so much glee, but a profound sadness for all the damages
tallied.
For my recent and first time watching this film, I managed to catch a 35mm print of The Magnificent Ambersons just a couple weeks ago at Toronto’s TIFF Lightbox cinema, which indicates that the programmers had a sense of humour to program this on Mother’s Day, for it is a sad tale of parents (and aunties) to raise their children to embrace the world, and not get so set in your ways too early. Progress comes at a benefit and a cost. In hindsight, this has always been the lesson of the great director and actor’s career.
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
Nominated for 4 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress
Niels Matthijs - Contributing writer
It's been a while since I was first introduced to the films of Orson Welles. No young, naive and inexperienced film fanatic can escape the clutches of Citizen Kane. Not quite as impressed as I'd hoped to be, I followed up with Touch Of Evil. Even less impressed, I quickly lost interest and abandoned the work of Welles. Until this item came along. Without a clear preference, I picked one of his earlier (and shorter) works. The first film that popped up was The Magnificent Ambersons, so I set out to reacquaint myself with his work.
Surprisingly enough, I actually enjoyed the first 10 minutes. Orson's voiceover works wonders, there's a quirky tone to the introduction and the pacing is tremendous. But then the fall part starts (without a real rise to speak of) and slowly but surely all the fun seeps out of the film. The Magnificent Ambersons quickly turns into a fully-fledged drama, but misses amiable characters and good actors to guide the audience through the switch. After 30 minutes, I stopped caring.
Afterwards I read a good half-hour was cut from the film. Even though I'm completely against studio interference and prefer to see films as the director intended (as far as I know, the material is lost and won't be restored anyway), I was glad enough that the film didn't last that extra 30 minutes. To be honest, I didn't notice it all that much either. Sure enough the final half hour picks up some speed, but at that point I was more than happy to see things moving along.
It just doesn't click between Welles and me, though I must admit that the first 10 minutes had me hoping for more. But whenever Welles' films turn to drama, he loses me with little to no chance of turning things around. The Magnificent Ambersons merely confirmed that suspicion.
Touch Of Evil (1958)
Ard Vijn - Contributing writer
Ever since seeing Robert Altman's The Player, I've been curious about the famed opening shot of Orson Welles' Touch of Evil. A shot so memorable, from a 1958 film, and directed by the person who created Citizen Kane? Sold!
Yet somehow it never came to be. I bought the super duper Eureka Blu-ray, which includes five versions of the film, and before I could solve the conundrum of which version to watch, another film had already pushed in front of it on my list (giving it the Shove of Evil...). When Orson Welles became this month's subject in Full Disclosure, however, I could refuse it no longer.
I chose the 1998 restoration, which changed the editing based on Welles' infamous 58 pages of notes, and which was the preferred version of star Charlton Heston (then still alive). Heston had personally requested Orson Welles to be the director, and was staunchly on his side during the editing battles which followed. Astonishingly, Welles managed to get the shots in his film composed in such a way they can be viewed in 1.85:1 and 1.33:1 ratios, and I chose the latter as it's an open matte (meaning you see more, not less).
All these shenanigans don't matter any more once the film starts. Warts and all, it's a fine sweltering "Noir", with plenty of details to gloat at, including cameos by Marlene Dietrich, Sza Sza Gabor and Dennis Weaver. While he's fine in the darker shots, in full daylight Charlton Heston looks almost offensive in his Mexican black-face, marking the film as an oddity indeed. But Orson Welles steals the show, both as a director pulling some great visual tricks, and as an actor playing a disgusting pig who once was a man. He is the reason for watching this and no mistake.
Touch Of Evil (1958)
Kwenton Bellette - Contributing writer
Touch of Evil is the first Orson Welles film I have seen, and judging by his direction, style and cinematography being far ahead of their time, it will certainly not be the last.
The film takes place in a bizarre Mexican-US border town, a place seemingly removed from reality where gangsters and crooked cops cavort and there is hardly any sign of decent human life. The film starts with a bang (literally) as a swooping, gushing camera follows a questionable character who puts ‘something’ in ‘someone’s car’. The scene continues unabated, the camera follows masterfully, matching the car in a gorgeous crane shot that in a single take captures the driving, the town bustle and the thrill. Each time the car stops for a pedestrian or gives way to another car there is a pulsating feeling of dread that the device will go off. It is of course fitting for the plot that the bomb explodes once it is on US soil; people scream and scatter, and from this point on the civilians have gone, only the dregs remain.
The film follows a pretty archetypical noir plot, filled with equally stereotyped genre figures larger than life, including of course Welles himself as the corrupt and evil detective ‘on the case’. Charlton Heston plays the manly protagonist well, with equal bouts of wit and worry reserved for his lover Janet Leigh. One scene finds her trapped in a motel – sound familiar? She would go on to star in Psycho just a few years later.
The plot continues without a ‘hitch’ (pun intended) as the dubious backstories of these men are revealed and a deliciously simple tale of wicked revenge emerges. Welles has the last word on the matter in a tour-de-force performance as a crooked, broken and yes, evil man who commits hideous deeds and unspeakable acts. The film is dark even for the noir genre – it is a bitter pill to swallow, particularly the conclusion that laments on the evil in all men.
Part throwaway dime store genre, part directorial genius and part philosophical quandary, Touch of Evil comes highly recommended.
The Stranger (1946)
Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Story
Christopher O'Keeffe - Contributing writer
Directed by and co-starring Welles, and released just one year after the end of the Second World War, The Stranger is a classic slice of noir filmmaking.
Puffing away on a pipe and wearing the long coat and fedora so staple to any private eye of the forties, Edward G. Robinson is on fine form as Nazi hunter Mr. Wilson. Welles himself plays the suave villain of the piece, Professor Charles Rankin, known in other circles as the barbaric Franz Kindler. Rankin has the whole town fooled, particularly his new wife, Loretta Young, who will end up being the key to either his salvation or downfall.
The film carries all the familiar tropes of the genre, low and high angle shots emphasize the flight of wanted men or the lofty position of the clock tower where Rankin looks down on the town and foolishly believes he is safe. Hard lighting casts sinister shadows, as when Rankin enters the bedroom of his sleeping wife and his terrible shape is cast upon the wall. Character actor Billy House plays the quaint all-American town’s shopkeeper, whom Wilson subtly pumps for information over a friendly game of checkers.
The townsfolk are unaware, unlike the audience, of the true identity of the stranger in their midst and this leads to some fine scenes of sleuthing from Wilson as he starts to put the pieces together as in an early scene where the two men are trying to figure each other out over an innocent family dinner: after laying down a speech intended to clear himself of any suspicion the chameleonic Rankin slips up accidentally, “Marx wasn’t a German, Marx was a Jew”, and as Wilson later realizes, only a Nazi would not consider Marx a German because he is a Jew.
It’s wonderful to remember when a story could be told, and told well in 90 minutes, but this game of cat and mouse shuttles along as Rankin’s mask begins to slip. If Nazis-in-hiding could be considered a genre, this would be make a great double-bill lined up alongside 70s classic Marathon Man.
The Stranger (1946)
Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Story
James Dennis - Contributing writer
I’m not in awe of Orson Welles. The man clearly had directing skill and a hefty screen presence, but I don’t revere him in the way countless others appear to. An ill-nurtured fondness for noir led me with some trepidation to the The Stranger (1946), which Welles both directs and stars in.
The Stranger is defined by two performances and, ironically, neither is Welles’. War crime investigator, Mr. Wilson, as played by Edward G. Robinson, is a wonderful pulpy creation. Robinson’s bulldog-like face articulates a steadfast purpose whilst concealing exactly what’s going on behind those glistening eyes. Contrary to this, we have Loretta Young shrieking her way through the film as the wife of Welles’ Nazi-in-hiding (Charles Rankin). If you’re looking for a hard-edged femme fatale, look elsewhere. Unfortunately Young’s character ends up being at the centre of the plot, and whilst she does have a stab at final act redemption, by that point I’d thrown her to the wolves.
Welles’ direction is unremarkable, with few of the more adventurous stylistic flourishes he’s known for, and it’s a slow-paced movie. There’s some tension to be had in the small town setting and Rankin’s clock obsession is nicely rendered, right up to the amusingly foreshadowed finale. Welles’ performance reminded me of his turn in The Third Man; a shadowy figure, often half-lit, face tackled side-on, with shifty eyes betraying a sinister soul behind that breezy confidence.
As noir, I was disappointed, yet there’s a fascinating thread of post-war propaganda around the Nazi-hunting plot. Particularly hammering the point home is an uncomfortable scene in which Mr. Wilson encourages Rankin’s conflicted wife to watch footage of concentration camp atrocities, to show just how nasty her husband really is. Yet Welles the actor is too theatrical, too mannered, to be convincing as someone who would be linked to this very real horror. I just didn’t buy it.
There’s a mixed bag here, with enough to keep me watching, but little to excite.
The Trial (aka Le Proces) (1962)
Ernesto Zelaya Minano - Contributing writer
Anyone who’s ever been to a public office has had to deal with bureaucracy; being unable to get things done and having to put up with an endless stream of roadblocks. It’s frustrating, and that is exactly the type of frustration Josef K has to put up with in The Trial.
The great Orson Welles pulled a David Lynch and created this surreal and confusing mindbender. Mr. K is accused of a crime which he’s never even aware of and has to jump through so many hoops, by the end I wanted to tear my hair out just as much as him. “Damn The Man!”, indeed.
The whole thing is really just a metaphor for an uncaring, oppressive society, one where people are mere cogs in a machine with no rights, and no one to help them. They’re all part of a system which they can’t fight because it has already absorbed them.
In this world, people are made to feel insignificant: look at the courthouse, a jungle of men arguing and yelling, or Josef’s office, with mindless automatons banging away endlessly on typewriters. Everyone is dwarfed by their surroundings. It’s a marvel of set design, and proof that Orson Welles had an amazing affinity for the technical aspects of filmmaking.
Even if you haven’t read the book, this is probably a pretty close adaptation. It’s so literal it borders on being cryptic, without any human connection. Mr. K is solely here to react against everything being thrown against him, and any other characters are either unhelpful or make no sense at all. Things pretty much just randomly happen from scene to scene; it probably had more logic on paper. This is a movie that demands multiple viewings.
It’s worth seeing for its surrealism, for watching a great filmmaker at work, and for seeing Anthony Perkins display the same mix of wide-eyed innocence and intense weirdness which had already won him raves in Psycho. But it’s a bit harder to swallow as a narrative.
F For Fake (aka Verites et Mensonges) (1973)
Jaime Grijalba - Contributing writer
The concept of forgery and fakery, permeates the film, and even Orson Welles knows that it's obvious that he's going to betray the concept itself by making a mostly factual yet still highly opiniated film about two of the most famous fakers at the time he made the film.
Orson himself was obsessed with trickery and how to make people wonder at how certain elements of a film or even his own magic were made (his obsession with magic tricks becomes clear in the 1967 film Casino Royale, that he only agreed to sign on if he was allowed to have his character doing card magic tricks, and that they stay in the final cut of the film.
F For Fake shies away from being a completely standard and informative documentary, and comes closer to the documentaries of Alain Resnais or Chris Marker, which I think were the biggest influence on Welles at the time, especially since his departure from the United States, when it came to directing new films and finding new ways to fund them.
The film is a masterpiece of a movie essay, becoming something entertaining to watch because of Welles' personality and how he assembles the film from bits and pieces that he shot. He seemed to have the complex editing in his head all the time, or was just piecing together what seemed to be unusable footage from interviews, recreations and even what he called "other films" that never truly existed (like the one who used his then girlfriend Oja).
It's playful in the way it uses the "frame within a frame", and it's always tongue-in-cheek in the tone of its narration. It even amounts to being laugh out loud funny for most of its length. I wouldn't blame anyone if they prefer this to Citizen Kane. I don't, but I wish I could.
It's All True! (dir. Bill Krohn/Myron Meisel, 1993)
Jim Tudor - Contributing writer
“South America is my least favorite part of the world.” An inflammatory sentiment, to be sure, but in the case of its credited source, a late-in-life Orson Welles, it's entirely understandable. In many ways, it was Welles' filmmaking venture to South America that expedited if not enabled his (perhaps inevitable) professional decline. After the debacle of It's All True, Welles would still make great films. But never without struggles and tensions that a filmmaker of his calibre should have been far beyond.
Shortly after Welles made his carte-blanche Citizen Kane, he was tapped by Nelson Rockefeller on behalf of President Roosevelt's Good Neighbor policy to go spend $1 million making a film in Brazil. Welles left his yet-to-be-edited The Magnificent Ambersons in what he thought were the trustworthy hands of editor Robert Wise and his home base RKO Radio Pictures for completion in order to fulfil this presidential edict. Little did he know that that edict would be the flashpoint of his undoing. That film was the intended four-part anthology It's All True. It too proved to be doomed.
At least, that's the official version, according to its 1993 documentary, directed by Bill Krohn and Myron Meisel. The documentary, also called It's All True (just to keep things confusing), is a dull and innocuous affair, something generally dismissible if not for the fact that it houses a supposedly completely edited version of Welles' Brazilian-shot effort Four Men on a Raft. Raft is a true-to-life tale rooted in political activism on behalf of both the subjects of the short, and Welles in making it. Although there's no synched sound (and the sound Krohn and Meisel added is pedestrian at best), the expressive exoticism of the black and white photography reinforces Welles' own reported sense of loss about the entire project, something that once his funding was cut off (South American activism and samba obsession in WWII time didn't wash, apparently), he fought for years to finish before finally apparently giving up.
Four Men on a Raft may not be regarded as essential Welles, but it is an unavoidable chapter in his essential story in the greater history of this medium we love so much. It's true that we cannot blame It's All True for what happened to Welles, but had he not gone to South America, perhaps things would've deteriorated differently. Perhaps Ambersons would not be the “lost masterpiece”.
Chimes At Midnight (aka Campanadas a medianoche) (1965)
Winner of the Technical Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, nominated for the BAFTA For Best Foreign Actor
Patryk Czekaj
Orson Welles used to say that “Falstaff is Shakespeare’s greatest creation”, and this underseen masterpiece is wonderful proof of his enormous admiration for the somewhat forgotten tragic hero. The opening of Chimes at Midnight sees the aforementioned character reminiscing about glorious old times, a strikingly apt procedure considering how miserable Welles’s situation was in the early 60s. Shooting on location in Spain under limited budget constraints - as if he was banished from the beloved cinematic world - Welles too sensed that his best days are behind him. However, he never lost the enormous passion for filmmaking and once again achieved perfection with a picture that mixes elements of festive comedy, somber drama, and even film noir, in an utterly effective manner.
Though not without its flaws, Chimes at Midnight is a powerful, lyrical tale of friendship and betrayal. Composed of texts from Shakespeare’s five plays, it never really aspires to focus on the relationship between the aging King Henry IV and his rebellious son (magnificent Keith Baxter), but ruminates on the psychology of Falstaff instead. Played by Welles himself (the similarity is unbelievable), the obese knight is as perverse and cowardly, as he is actually witty and crafty. In some sense, Welles cleverly pokes fun at his own shortcomings through the character's specific mannerisms.
Undoubtedly, Chimes at Midnight features one of the most memorable battle scenes ever shot on celluloid. The thick fog that surrounds the battlefield, the elegiac music that pierces through the noise of clashing swords, the fast-paced, almost chaotic editing - all the ingredients give the sequence a mystique, distressing ambiance. The only thing better might be Welles’s excellent monologue in favor of alcohol consumption.
For what it’s worth, I beg to differ with those who say that Citizen Kane is Welles’s most personal film - for me it’s Chimes at Midnight that perfectly touches the heart and soul of this great auteur.
The Lady From Shanghai (1947)
Shelagh M. Rowan-Legg - Contributing writer
The Lady From Shanghai is one of the films that was not released to Welles' satisfaction. I find this a little odd, since after watching it, I would consider it not only a quintessential Welles film, but also one of his best. One of the things I've always admired about Welles is how much he understands the medium he is working in (be it film, radio or theatre, not that I've ever seen the last one), and how the devices used to capture that medium work best for the story he is telling. The Lady From Shanghai is no different.
While ostensibly a film noir, it is a very atypical film noir. There is the voiceover, recalling past events with regret by Michael (Welles). There is the femme fatale, Elsa (Rita Hayworth), the strange husband Arthur (Everett Sloane), and the underhanded friend George (Glen Anders). There is seduction, crime, cover-up, and a final shoot-out.
But atypical is definitely the word that kept coming to mind. It reads more like a combination of noir and at times formal experimentalism. First, locations: yes, there are the usual urban gritty spots. But there is also the tropical vacation, which brought to mind scenes from Suddenly Last Summer. And the great final scene at a carnival it almost something out of Luis Buñuel. Indeed, this could be called a carnivalesque or grotesque noir.
Often, the typical noir shots of extreme contrast between shadow and light are eschewed for frequent close-ups, with a brightness and a concave angle that gives an exaggeration beyond typical noir into the slightly fantastic. At times, it almost slips into Last Year At Marienbad territory, with one conversation scene between Michael and Elsa less typical shot/reverse shot, more odd angles and a tightness that makes you wonder if they are even in the same room, or perhaps talking to a screen on which the other is projected.
I loved this about the film, the strange music, the aquarium, and old carnival. It makes me wonder why Welles wasn’t satisfied with it; to me, this is a masterpiece of noir, precisely because it takes noir conventions and twists them around, looking at the core psychology that makes its pessimism so strange, sad and beautiful.
