Welles Marathon: Prince of Foxes (1949)

 It occurred to me, in the midst of watching this movie, that Orson Welles is a very strange movie star.  I have read no biographies of him so I can't say for sure, but one gets the impression that he's not all that interested in acting.  He was constantly trying to find funding for his movies though, and he was an in demand actor for all of his life, so that's what he did.  He appeared in his own movies because it was easier to get funding.  That's my theory.

The reason I bring this up in a Prince of Foxes review is because this was in the midst of when he made Othello, the movie that had stops and starts for three years and was forced to withstand location shooting changes and actor changes in the middle of production.   He is ostensibly the second banana in this movie, but he's not in that much of the movie! 

At least there was no false advertising here.  Prince of Foxes is a Tyrone Power movie and it's credited as such on IMDB.  Orson Welles is the second name and he's the biggest presence, as in he's clearly the second most important character, but he's third or fourth in amount of screen time.  I just find it so strange how often Welles isn't in his own movies.

I have evidently seen a Power movie before, but I couldn't have told you that if I didn't look it up myself.  He was in Witness for the Prosecution, a movie I don't remember at all, so my current impression of Power as a movie star is completely tied up with his performance in Prince of Foxes.  

And he's good.  He seems to be right in his wheelhouse at the beginning of the movie when he's an arrogant, charming sort of asshole.  I mostly appreciate that he's not overacting at all, especially during scenes when most actors would do so (at least then), such as when he comes into a room dirty, and tortured and broken and he honestly don't look like the same guy, and he just lets the excellent makeup say everything that needs to be said.

As far as the movie, it is fairly obvious this was adapted from a novel.  For one thing, this does not feel like a movie that should be under two hours and coming from me, that's saying a lot.  Too much stuff happens.  Andrea Orsini (Power) decides to go against his mentor, Cesare Borgia (Welles), because he admires the Count and his wife too much, and they will not accept Borgia's demands, so they go to war.

In a way too short of a span, Orsini gives the Count good advice for how to attack them, the Count dies from wounds in that battle, and then we cut to three months later, where now Orsini is preparing for a last stand because they can't withstand another attack.  This all happens in like 10 minutes.  How come the secret to defeating Borgia didn't work?  We don't really know.  Orsini knows how the other guy fights and says as such.  But three months later, and they're about to lose.

None of that is unbelievable or anything, it's just really fast plot developments.  I also don't think the movie really sold that Orsini would change because of how much he respects the Count.  I think this is just a matter of it had to happen fairly quickly in the movie or it would be much longer, which is sort of my point about how this movie should probably be longer given the story it was telling.

That doesn't actually compare though to the character switcheroo of Mario Belli, the assassin, who inexplicably helps Orsini at the end.  He's not a well-fleshed out enough character to make this seem anything but random.  And since the movie hinges completely on this change of heart, it seems to just be there for the plot.  Again, one of those "it is probably more effective in the novel" things.

Given the rules the movie had set out and given Belli's character, I actually think this would have been more effective had it not been a purely happy ending.  I mean the last 10 minute seem fairly random just so that the happy ending can commence.

But hey.  Maybe people watching this can get lost in the moment.  It's a decent movie that is probably a good representative for watching a Tyrone Power movie if you're interested in a mostly forgotten movie star.

2/4 stars

Welles Marathon: Compulsion (1959)

For my third movie, I wanted to cover a movie where Orson Welles only acts, but despite the IMDB credits, Orson Welles did much more than act in Jane Eyre (1943).  While there is less detail about Compulsion, it appears I have found my first Welles picture with him as just an actor.

Of course, he didn't want it to be this way.  He wanted to direct this movie, and was passed over in favor of Richard Fleischer, who was a pretty prolific director for 40 years.  Whatever you want to say about Fleischer in comparison to Welles, he was certainly more reliable.  

It's not that simple though.  Welles was just entering the stage where he had trouble finishing projects, and Fleischer was in the infancy of his career.  Compulsion would not have required a large budget, and I don't have any reason to doubt Welles would have been able to complete this movie in his sleep.

I'm not sure what approach I should take to talk about this film, because the fact is Welles doesn't actually show up in this movie for over an hour.  Before he shows up, two twisted college students want to kill to prove they are intellectually superior than everyone else, and think they can get away with it.  Yes, this is the story of Leopold and Loeb.

It's based off a book by Meyer Levin, who wanted to interview Leopold, the only one of the two alive at that point, so that he could write a book about it.  Leopold didn't want to do that and instead wanted help with his memoir.  Levin blew him off and wrote the book anyway.  Despite everyone knowing what the story is really about, all the names in the book were changed, and thus the main characters of the movie are Artie Strauss (Loeb) and Judd Steiner (Leopold).

Despite Levin having issues with Leopold's refusal to cooperate on a nonfiction book, he still comes across better here.  Maybe that's because he was played by Dean Stockwell, who plays him well.  Stockwell is exceptional portraying a seemingly overconfident man who secretly has no confidence at all.  Bradford Dillman plays his partner in crime and he plays him like an oily worm with no remorse.  Dillman's performance is good, but more broad, although the movie doesn't ask him to really attempt to play a remotely sympathetic character either.

While this movie attempts to create what happened, there is one distracting, clearly made up part of the movie, which is the inclusion of Ruth Evans.  I'm not aware of any Ruth Evans in real life, so I think she's meant to create sympathy for Steiner, as a way of arguing against the death penalty.  But her attraction to Steiner is completely mystifying and she just comes across as incredibly naive and dumb.

Then Welles showed up, who was apparently bitter about not being director and he threw frequent tantrums on set.  I don't know how this makes sense, but it is pretty clear that Welles is barely trying in his performance and yet his performance is great.  Before the closing statement, he underacts every line reading.  But it works?  He plays Clarence Darrow, and he looks like Clarence Darrow, and maybe it's the benefit of having no idea how Darrow acted it in real life, but he feels like Clarence Darrow.

Like Darrow and Welles are both larger than life figures, who can coast into a room and everyone pays attention even if they're barely speaking loud enough for everyone to hear.  They just know they command the room and people will listen.  

Speaking of, I haven't watched a Welles movie with Welles acting in it since Othello and my god has his appearance changed to the point where I'm not sure I would recognize him if I didn't know it was him.  He looks like a very old 43-years-old and he is enormous.  He had to have gained 100 pounds in less than the 10 years I've seen him.  I'll be curious to see what he looks like in Confidential Report or Mr. Arkadin or whatever version I watch, because that's just four years after Othello and four years prior to this.

This is a solid movie, but not necessarily a must watch in my opinion.

2.5/4 stars

Welles Marathon: Triple Feature

Today I'll be covering three movies that barely feature Orson Welles at all.  One of them is basically a cameo while the other two are actual (small) roles, but nonetheless Welles appears in these movies early-ish and that's the extent of his involvement.  I did not know this would be the case when I chose these movies, because both movies have Orson Welles higher in the credits than his involvement would suggest. 

A Man for All Seasons (1966)

In my Orson Welles introduction, I mistakenly said I had only seen one of his films.  I was wrong.  I have in fact seen A Man for All Seasons before. I don't actually remember when or where, but since it's a Catholic's wet dream of a movie, I'd have to guess I watched it when I was in grade school.

Orson Welles, or rather the reason I am watching this movie, plays Cardinal Wolsey, who complains to Thomas More that he's the only one who opposed the attempt for the king to obtain an annulment of his marriage to his first of six wives.  

Orson Welles is well cast.  Watching Welles here, you can scarcely believe that he lived another 20 years.  He looks as big as I've ever seen him.  In the context of the movie, Cardinal Wolsey died soon after this meeting (and I believe in real life).  With little screentime, you get the gist of what Cardinal Woolsey represents: a man who has sacrificed his faith for an easier life.

And that variation - a compromised man demands More change his position - is basically the entire movie.  I know it's more complicated than that, but by the 100 minute mark, I was pretty bored.  Maybe it's because I've seen it before, maybe it's because I knew the outcome, but after the 10th conversation where one person wants More to change, More refuses, it got boring.

It doesn't really help that director Fred Zinneman is very methodical with his approach.  He takes his time.  Sometimes this is a good thing in a movie.  Here, I'm not so sure.  This is a movie that begs to be 90 minutes.  There's just not much there.  Man is unwilling to compromise his principles for anything for 120 minutes while everyone tries to get him to change.  He doesn't.  He dies.

One thing that would possibly have justified the length would be if they portrayed the dark side of Thomas More, you know the person who tortured and killed Protestants.  Yeah he was that kind of Catholic.  I'm reminded of the George Carlin standup routine where he mentions that the more religious you are, the more flexible you are on if killing is wrong.

Anyway, they ignore that aspect of him completely, which is only a problem insofar as that he did those things during the events of the movie.  It's set from 1529-1535, which was also a period of time where he was Chancellor and six people were burned at the stake for basically being Protestant.

What immensely helps this movie is Paul Scofield, who plays Thomas More.  I'll be honest.  If I met his version of More in real life, and I suspect if I met the real More, I would not like him at all.  He is so careful with his words, and if you slip up once, he admonishes you for what you're saying.  This is a version that completely aligns with the real life guy who would kill Protestants.  That's how well he plays him.

Also good is Robert Shaw, who plays Henry VIII pretty gregariously and slightly overenthusiastic, but apparently he was extremely charismatic in real life, so he conveys that well.  A very young John Hurt plays Richard Rich, and here's one of the times where I think the movie strays from reality.  Richard Rich is about 10 years older than he's portrayed in this movie, which makes me think none of his scenes are tethered to reality, except for his betrayal.

Anyway, good acting, pretty boring.

Waterloo

I would have watched A Man for All Seasons anyway if I had known Welles was barely in it.  He was in enough of it and Zinneman is a fairly acclaimed director in his own right.  I would not have watched Waterloo had I been aware of Welles cameo.  For starters, he's in maybe five minutes of this movie, which is a little different than someone dying at the 30 minute mark after having been in most of the movie.  And the director is not nearly as acclaimed.

This is another pretty boring movie.  The main reasons to see this movie are basically just to see the acting by Rod Steiger and Christopher Plummer.  Plummer, most recently seen in Knives Out, fares better.  He seems to be written to be an out of touch, posh general, but Plummer makes him more than what he could have been.  Like this part could have easily gone wrong.

Steiger on the other hand, well he's extremely over the top.  I guess he's playing Napoleon Bonaparte, so it warrants that, but he's too much.  I wasn't a fan of the portrayal.

The reason I think it's well-regarded is because of the battle scenes, which I don't believe have aged that well.  In terms of scale, it's impressive.  17,000 actual Russian soldiers are extras in this movie.  But in practice, what ends up happening is 40 minutes of the same thing happening over and over.  

Random explosions, people running, people dying.  There's no sense of where anything is happening, so it all just seems to be random to me.  They intercut the battle scenes with the two generals dictating what would happen and I think if you switched around the battle scenes, it would make little difference, that's how similar they all looked to me and how little they connected to what else was happening.

Catch 22 (1970)

I'm just mentioning that I watched this movie, but I don't actually have any thoughts on it.  I fell asleep a little more than halfway in and finished the movie when I woke up, which is not a commentary on the movie, but just an explanation for why I feel not all that compelled to analyze it at all.  Hopefully I'll watch it with more awake eyes next time.  In any case, Orson Welles was in 5 minutes of the movie so I don't really feel badly for the purposes of this marathon for Catch 22 not getting a fair shake.  It's probably the best movie of the three though.

Welles Marathon: Macbeth (1948)

 I mentioned my difficulties with older Shakespeare movies in my Othello review, and all of those apply here as well.  I'll add to my points there and say that I think part of the problem is the acting, and I mean the acting in all Shakespeare films that more or less take his text directly.  It's nearly impossible to sound natural when reciting Shakespeare's lines, which has the effect of making me completely aware I'm watching something (instead of me getting engrossed in the story) and making me not connect with the material on an emotional level.

Shakespeare's works are emotional.  You're supposed to feel things when reading his plays, the tragedies that happen.  But I've never once actually felt anything watching a movie that adapted Shakespeare, and that includes the ones I actually managed to like.  And adding to the acting is that I simply spend time to try to understand what is actually being said as well.  But the words tend to be spoken so fast that I might as well be watching a foreign language film with no subtitles.

And look, I'm aware of how I sound.  I took a Shakespeare in film class my senior year of college, and I took that at 8 am if you're wondering how much I've tried to enjoy these films.  I purposefully took that class my senior year of college, because it was the only time it was offered.  And in that class, we would read the play, and then watch 3 examples of that play.  And this had the effect of the material being fresh in my mind, so that even if my mind wasn't really able to catch up with what was being said, I knew what was being said.

But now I'm nearly six years removed from that class, and I haven't read any Shakespeare in the meantime, and all I have to go on is the broad strokes of what happens.  Again, that helps.  We didn't take Othello in that class, so I basically went into that blind.  We did Macbeth in film and even watched this very movie then.

What I will say about Orson Welles' adaptations of Shakespeare, and I believe I have one to go, is that he makes sure that his version needs to be on film.  It couldn't exist on the stage.  Which is always a potential issue with Shakespeare adaptations - why is this a movie?  But there is no question Welles takes advantage of this particular medium.

This may very well be one of the most impressive achievements of Welles' directing career, and I say that with all the caveats I have about Shakespeare above.  He shot this movie in 23 days, which is inconceivable given the camera trickery, variety of shots, lighting for individual scenes, and the fact that it was made in fucking 1947 with all the technology that brought.

Like I just watched Eyes Wide Shut, and I cannot fathom how that movie took 400 days to shoot.  No real break in shooting either.  Then my next movie I watched is a movie that somehow was filmed and completed in 23 days despite seeming infinitely more complex to shoot than a movie made 50 years later.

Welles once again goes heavily to his use of fog to create mood, and it's obviously appropriate for the story of Macbeth.  He also uses a lot of shots looking up at the characters in the scenes.  I particularly liked a shot when he was about to kill Duncan, where the camera like zooms forward and then cuts to Macbeth and it does that a couple times, and it's really disorienting.  His world, and what we're watching, is spinning out of control and I don't know that I've seen many movies effectively convey that feeling purely through visuals as well as here.

If you're inclined to watch this feature, you'd do so for the acting.  Welles can seemingly do Shakespeare in his sleep.  He's especially good when he spends most of the middle part of the movie drunk and paranoid.  It's not exactly subtle - it's not supposed to be - but he doesn't overdo it either.  Also good is Jeannette Nolan as Lady Macbeth in her first ever feature, although she was a veteran of the stage.

I was pretty surprised by the climactic battle sequence where Macduff and Macbeth fight to the death.  It is... a lot better than hand to hand combat sequences of most movies around this time.  There's no elaborate choreography, but the hits seem to actually have some force and there's no real awkward moments in the fight that look staged.

I totally understand why Macbeth, initially panned by critics, is now acclaimed.  My "problems" with the movie have more to do with Shakespeare on film period than this specific production.  Because I spent most of this movie really impressed by the shots.  I would sort of zone out whenever someone would monologue for a while without the camera doing a whole lot, but that feels like an inevitable aspect of Shakespeare.  I do think it helped that most of the monologues were thought, whereas in Othello, they are spoken, and that's really where the bad voice dubbings were noticeable, and it's just not as bad here.

Of course, he had an actual budget here and didn't shoot it over three years, and things went more or less as planned, none of which was true for Othello.  If you're into Shakespeare films, this movie should be up your alley.  If you're not, I don't think this is the one that is going to change your mind.  But it is shot really well and that's something.

2.5/4 stars

Welles Marathon: Mr. Arkadin (1955)

This movie has The Other Side of the Wind levels of fuckery behind the scenes.  Based on a radio play written, starred, and directed in by Orson Welles, Welles ended up leaving the production before the movie was edited.  After he missed some editing deadline, a producer just had the movie edited without any input from Welles, which is what was released in 1955 and it was known as Confidential Report.

Six years later, a very young Peter Bogdanovich discovered the existence of this movie with flashbacks, and made sure it was released.  This was the version I saw and it was re-named Mr. Arkadin, and it's known as the Corinth edit.  In 2006, Criterion made a new version, which is thought to be the closest to Welles' vision.  Of course, Welles died 21 years earlier, so there's really no way of knowing.

HBOMax had the Corinth version, so I watched the Corinth version.  I can pretty confidently say that, based on the flaws of this movie, that it literally wouldn't have mattered which version I watched.  This is not a very good movie.  The plot doesn't make sense and the acting isn't very good.

The biggest reason I'm confident any version of this movie is bad?  Robert Arden.  Arden plays Guy Van Stratten, who tells the story in flashback form and who we follow the entire movie.  He's atrocious in this.  He's extremely unlikable and I don't think he's meant to be.

There's a particularly painful scene that really was never going to age well, but isn't something Cary Grant couldn't have pulled off inexplicably.  He tries to woo the daughter of Mr. Arkadin, and his approach is blunt, uncharismatic, and pushy, and only by forcing himself on her with a kiss does she finally acquiesce.  Yeah that's a problem with a lot of movies from back then, but trust me when I say I've never seen it done as poorly as Arden.

It's not completely Arden's fault.  He's just extraordinarily miscast here.  Like I said, this role is basically Cary Grant type, and I don't mean to suggest only he would make this role work, but Arden is so completely not Cary Grant that I don't know what Welles was thinking with this one.  

To be fair, Arden is hardly alone.  Patricia Medina is not great either as Mily, the flaky girlfriend of Van Stratten, and a scene where she has to pretend she's in a boat and I think drunk and well, I'll just say she overacts and you can let your imagination run wild.  Welles future wife Paola Mori was not terrible, but pretty bland for someone who's supposed to make things difficult for Van Stratten.

I wouldn't say Welles himself is bad, although he is very over the top.  The problem is less his acting, more his ridiculous fake beard.  You can't really take him seriously with that beard.  He's meant to be this menacing, mysterious figure though and he never really sells it.

Then there's the plot.  It doesn't make sense.  Think of it this way.  This movie has the flashback structure, the mysterious billionaire we don't know anything about, and someone trying to find out his history.  Sounds like Citizen Kane right?  Yeah if you have any want to see this movie, just watch Citizen Kane instead.

I was wondering if I should watch all three versions that exist, and compare them, but there's just no need.  Maybe one of them is better than the others, but I don't see how Arden's performance will be magically better in a movie that is basically the same.  Welles described this movie as the biggest disaster of his life, due to his loss of creative control.  Welles should honestly be happy to have a scapegoat for why this is bad.

1.5/4 stars

Welles Marathon: The Lady from Shanghai (1947)

 Intro

I'm starting to sense a trend with Orson Welles movies.  The Lady from Shanghai is a movie that ended up being edited beyond Welles' control, thus the version we see is not really the version Welles made.  And his movies grow in stature over time, but were mostly met to mixed reviews when they were released.

I'm not exactly sure those mixed reviews were wrong though.  Citizen Kane, that was well-received at the time and deservedly so.  But it seems like more modern critics are giving Welles credit for being innovative or creative with how he shoots a movie without actually factoring in that the movie still has to be good.

The Lady from Shanghai is a film noir.  I'm a sucker for film noir.  Although I must give out the disclaimer that for being a film noir, this is a very strange one.  I can't think of another film noir that has the main character on trial for murder halfway into the film.  Usually, yes they are framed for murder, but that's the endgame.  Or rather that's the plot that kicks it off.  

Okay so I think the biggest problem of this movie is probably that the main character is dumb as dirt.  Like film noir operates with the main lead falling for a woman and that causes him to do things he shouldn't do.  At least that's one way a film noir can go.  But, and I can't possibly explain the whole plot, but O'Hara is convinced to fake murder a guy, and then this guy will disappear, and because there's no body, he won't be arrested.

This is incredibly dumb.  I don't care how much money you pay me, I am not going to pretend to kill some dude and have the police think I'm a murderer.  Not to mention that it seems like a set-up and of course it is.  The stupidity one has to have to go along with this plot is ridiculous.  And then the plot just becomes bananas after that, to the point where I can't possibly explain it.

Welles is okay, but unfortunately saddled himself with an Irish accent, and it's not really something that sounds natural or convincing to me at least.  It probably doesn't help that Welles doesn't look Irish at all, like it just sounds weird when an Irish accent is coming out of his mouth.  Rita Hayworth is appropriate for the femme fetale role, alluring and mysterious.  Glenn Anders as the guy who wants O'Hara to fake kill him, is actually pretty annoying in this movie, with one of the worst cases of 1940s acting that you'll see.  It's hard to explain, but basically watch any modern day parody of a film noir, and it's pretty much exactly his acting

The reason to watch this movie, however, is easily the final showdown.  You've seen a variation of this scene before I imagine.  It's a Hall of Mirrors scene.  I have no idea how he filmed this with 1946 technology, but it looks amazing.  Just truly inventive filmmaking for its time and I'd be inclined to think this scene alone is why its reputation has rose over time.  Hell, this looks awesome if it was made today.

Really though, you're here to see how good the movie is, not how well it was filmed.  Sometimes those two things are correlated.  And while the Hall of Mirrors scene absolutely holds up, the plot does not and you're going to spend most of the movie confused.  Maybe that's your cup of tea.  But there's that Hall of Mirrors sequence.  It's worth the price of watching this movie by itself to be honest.

2.5/4 stars

Welles Marathon: The Other Side of the Wind (2018)

When you see a movie directed by Orson Welles released in 2018, it's going to raise some questions.  Welles, if you didn't know, died in 1985.  Welles was infamously plagued by money troubles throughout his career, constantly struggling to complete pictures.  He would supplement his income from acting, which helped, but he always threw all his money into making the next picture and would still have to borrow money from elsewhere.

Nowhere is this more evident than The Other Side of the Wind, which began production in 1970.  It was Welles' return to Hollywood with his last American film being made in 1958.  In the middle of production, his production company was saddled with a huge tax bill from the government, which caused him to cease filming.  He sought filming elsewhere, which he found from a Spanish producer and a French-based Iranian group, headed by the brother-in-law of the Shah.

Filming continued, but the Spanish producer was the connect to the Iranian group and conned both of them.  He would take money from the Iranians, pocket it himself, and then claim to Welles that he never received the money.  The Spanish producer disappeared, and there were further squabbles with money between Welles and the Iranians, who wanted to own a greater percentage of the film.

Anyway, Welles was forced to edit the film on his own time, and by 1979, he had edited about 40 minutes of the movie.  But the Shah of Iran was overthrown, which caused a decades-long legal battle over who owned the film, and suddenly Orson didn't have access to his own film that he shot.  In 1998 Showtime stepped in and at various times, his daughter Beatrice Wells was the impediment, then his long-time girlfriend Oja Kodar, and then the Showtime executive pushing for this to get made retired and well you get the idea.

Netflix stepped into the game in 2017, offered a two-picture deal to make this movie and a companion documentary and then there was the hard work of trying to edit the rest of the movie in Welles' style, and they at least had 40 minutes of a finished film to work off of to figure that out.  

All of this information would threaten to overwhelm the the movie itself, except that the movie itself is, in a strange twist of fate, basically about exactly this.  A Welles stand-in, played by John Huston, is struggling to finish his last work, because his star walked off the set in the middle of filming.  It is announced at the beginning of the movie that this is the last day of legendary director Jake Hanneford (Huston), so we know that the work ultimately remains unfinished.

Hanneford is not exactly Welles, but apparently a composite of directors, including Huston himself.  We know it's not exactly Welles, because in the film within the film, Welles never did anything remotely close to what Hanneford did in his last, uncompleted film.  It is argued that the film is a compromise of Hanneford's vision, that he's trying to directly appeal to young people.

This film within the film, called The Other Side of the Wind, is apparently a parody of arthouse movies during that time period.  I say apparently, because I'm very unfamiliar with whatever it's parodying.  But it becomes clear, pretty quickly, that it's not really meant to be good.  There's not a single line of dialogue in the fake film, and most of it follows a nude Oja Kodar being chased by a guy.  The movie is shown mostly in order throughout the film, and it's completely incomprehensible. 

And yet, it's strangely compelling.  The rapid cuts of the party and showing of the movie, shown in a kind of mockumentary style, are kind of exhausting and the slow-paced, absolutely gorgeous cinematography of the fake movie is a nice reprieve.  While the movie is incomprehensible, it's extremely well-shot.  We obviously know that Welles shot the fake movie himself, but the style of that fake movie is unmistakably Welles, so the Hanneford character maybe has Welles' backstory in inventive filmmaking.

Insomuch as there is a plot, it's this.  Hanneford, struggling to finish his movie, has a party and plans to show the movie to secure financing for the film.  Journalists, a studio boss, his protege, and a whole lot of young people are invited to this showing.  The showing keeps getting interrupted by the projector not working.  When it does work, we are shown the film within the film.

In the "real" film, the movie is shot in universe through a constant barrage of editing.  There are visible cameras all over the scenes, because it's purporting to look like a documentary.  I think it could be called mockumentary style except there are no talking heads, it just follows Hanneford throughout his last day.  Sometimes, you'll see a shot in color, sometimes black-and-white to reflect the quality of camera of whoever is shooting it.

I cannot stress enough that this is an altogether strange movie.  It, however, does not feel like a movie that went unfinished for 40+ years.  The modern day editor, Bob Murawski, did a miraculous job making it feel like this entire movie wasn't edited by two different people.  So the strangeness of the movie appears to be Welles' true vision.

In case this movie wasn't hard enough, Welles also casts mainly directors, not actors.  There's Huston.  Peter Bogdanovich, who later became a regular working actor, but wasn't at all when this movie was made.  Norman Foster was an actor turned director who hadn't acted in over 30 years when filming started who died very shortly after filming completed.  A lot of the old Hollywood types that surround Hanneford were also directors.  A screenwriter plays an awkward film critic.  The acting works much better than it should honestly.

I will say that the claims of this being a lost masterpiece may perhaps increase your expectations too much.  It is much better than it has any right to be given its history, that's for sure.  And I wouldn't necessarily be surprised if I end up on the masterpiece train with repeated viewings.  But there is no way in hell you should go in expecting one, or you'll probably be disappointed.

And really that will be reflected in my grade.  I enjoyed the movie and will probably be thinking about it long past the time when I would think about better movies than this.  Hence my thinking that I may change my mind about this later.  But it's only two hours, and it feels quite a bit longer than that, and part of that is that the film within the film could perhaps be trimmed and the overall style of the mockumentary becomes tiring after a while.

2.5/4 stars

Welles Marathon: Jane Eyre (1943)

For my third Orson Welles feature, I wanted to do a film where only his acting is evident in the final picture.  For the vast majority of the movies I want to cover, he typically acts as the director and writer, but not in every picture.  And with Jane Eyre, it represents the first movie he took where he is neither the director nor writer.

Except that he was reportedly heavily involved in the behind-the-scenes of the making of this movie and wasn't just an actor like I thought he was.  Apparently, there was some debate prior to the release of this movie over whether to give Welles a producer credit, because Welles helped with the changes to the script, the casting, and the editing.

He was not given a producer credit, because the infamous Hollywood film producer David O Selznick didn't want Welles to overshadow the actual director Robert Stevenson.  Just earlier that year, Journey into Fear (which I will not be covering) was released and Welles' involvement did just that to director Norman Foster.  Selznick was worried about Stevenson being seen as a "stooge."

Regardless of Welles' impact in the final film, IMDB does not credit him as the director in any way.  For Journey into Fear, he's listed as one of the two directors of that film with Foster.  And while he may have helped with changes to the script, he's also not given credit there either, and three other guys are, so this may just be the best I'll get in terms of minimal involvement from Welles.

As for the movie, well I've talked about the making of the movie, because I actually find it more interesting than the movie itself.  So far I've watched two of Welles movies, and this is the first one that makes me fear the time period of some of these movies may just be a huge impediment for me.  Citizen Kane, if there ever was one, is one of those "exceptions to the rule" movies while I had no fear that me not particularly like Othello meant anything about the rest of Welles' filmography because of the myriad of hoops it already had to jump through for me to like it.

But Jane Eyre, theoretically, should be more accessible than Othello (and it is), and I'm a little worried that Citizen Kane is just a huge outlier (because, well it is!).  I'm still happy to watch Orson Welles' films, but I would prefer to praise his films.

If I were to look at a film that doesn't appear to be an Orson Welles film except for him acting in it, I still don't think Jane Eyre is a good example.  This is kind of filmed in his style.  A few scenes in Jane Eyre reminded me of Othello, because there is a shit ton of fog for no discernible reason.  I mean the reason is "to create mood," but you just don't see fog much in movies, so that caught my attention.

This movie is probably strongest, oddly enough, in the first 30 minutes of the movie.  When Orson Welles is not in any of it.  Jane Eyre's childhood features what is probably about as good of child acting as you got at the time.  I won't say Peggy Ann Garner is perfect - but it's vastly better than most child acting at the time.  And you also get a very young Elizabeth Taylor, who is also good.  I've never seen a child look so much like her adult self like Elizabeth Taylor, which was very weird.

But then Jane goes into the mansion and I did not particularly like the performance of Margaret O'Brien as Adele, which it's a movie in 1943, it's amazing I like even two performances from kid actors, three would just be a miracle.  

And Welles and Joan Fontaine have... basically no chemistry.  Fontaine is very quiet, subdued, and Welles is very theatrical, and it doesn't really mesh that well.  It has the weird effect of me not really thinking either actor is bad, but they're just giving performances as if they're in two totally separate movies.  And it's that classic old Hollywood thing where they basically glance at each other once and are suddenly in love.

And parts of the book are just weird now.  Like for instance the ending.  Jane realizes she wants to go back to Rochester, and he finds him in a burned down house.  His "mad wife" burned it down and it caused him to go blind when unsuccessfully tried to save her.  And then they have a son, and his vision is cured.  What the fuck kind of ending is that?

And look.  I know Bernard Hermann is a legendary composer of movies.  He did Citizen Kane, he did Psycho.  But the score was too much.  Too loud, too here's how you should feel.  We're still a few decades from the golden age of movie scores, so I don't necessarily think this is his fault necessarily, it's just that movies tended to have scores that were loud and told you how to feel more than later.

Anyway, this movie wasn't really for me.  I suspect that may be true of a few of the projects I'll look at over this series, moreso than the Soderbergh marathon, although if you followed that, you'd know I wasn't really feeling a few of his movies either.  And Welles is simply in this, he didn't direct this.  But I'm happy to have knock one Joan Fontaine movie off my list at the least.

2/4 stars