Welles Marathon: F for Fake (1973)

 Well this is a strange movie.  Between this and unreleased The Other Side of the Wind (until 2018 that is), Welles clearly was in an experimental stage of his career by the 1970s.  He wanted to push the limits of what a film was.  As such, it is best to go in with an open mind.

I honestly thought F for Fake was a fake documentary.  Like completely made up.  And, well, that's not a wrong impression, per sé.  You truly don't know what to believe.  But to my surprise, despite seeming like a fake person, Elmyr de Hory is in fact real, and him being an art forger is real.

Okay, so the backstory to this movie is pretty interesting, as all backstories to Welles movies seem to be.  The accepted story is that Francois Reichenbach filmed a documentary about Hory, which featured his biographer Clifford Irving.  He then handed it to Welles to edit.  

Sometime in this process, Irving was revealed to be a fraud himself.  He claimed to have had interviews with famous recluse Howard Hughes, and wrote a biography on him.  Only trouble was that it was not real.  He made it up.  And this news broke sometime in the editing process.

For Welles, this was too good to be true.  Suddenly, it was not just a documentary on Hory, but a documentary on something larger.  No, he was going to comment on fraud itself, and compare making a movie to fraud.  A filmmaker's ability to fool the audience with trickery.

And actually, the way he did this was quite clever.  Like almost too clever for its own good.  Because he purposefully makes you question if what you're watching even really happened.  Which is directly commenting on a movie fooling you.  In this instance, how the framing of a documentary can mislead you.  But also just a normal movie.  And he used the art forgery of Hory, and the fraud of a skilled writer as a backdrop to make these points.

He references his own career.  His famous War of the Worlds broadcast, the story of which seems mostly apocryphal, no doubt egged on by Welles himself.  Were people really in a panic over his broadcast?  It may have happened, but it has definitely taken a life of its own and has been overstated to an insane degree.  Most people were not stupid.  But he eggs this myth on.  He reads from the War of the Worlds broadcast, but doesn't say the same words as the original broadcast.  But the way its filmed, you think it is.

In another lucky twist of fate, the fact that Irving was a fake biographer of Howard Hughes worked out quite nicely because the original subject of Citizen Kane was going to be Hughes.  Or at least that's what this movie tells me.  It could very well be bullshit.  Welles said he was going to tell the true for the first hour.  This information was in that hour.

This is all pretty brilliant, but there is one weakness in this movie: the Oja Kador sequences.  I get her place in the movie.  It's adding to the unreliability of the whole thing.  But it's just not interesting.  The fact that everything about her story ends up being fake makes it even less interesting than it already was.

I don't have a solution for this problem.  Kador herself just isn't that compelling.  You need something like her, a fake story to help with the movie's themes.  And I hate to say it but the fact that she's his mistress in real life makes it seem like she's just in this movie because she's his mistress.  Which is pretty much true.  And it seems like that too!  

Her presence in The Other Side of the Wind works better, because she's just walking around in an experimental art movie making fun of experimental art movies while an entirely different movie is happening and she has basically no impact on the final product.

I do wish I found the Kador scenes more compelling, because I think I'd find this to be a masterpiece otherwise.  But 25 or so minutes of a short movie weigh it down enough that it's not particularly close to a masterpiece.  It's still a good movie though.

3/4 stars

Welles Marathon: The Third Man (1949)

 I wish I could have watched this movie in a different context.  As you can tell by the title, I am doing an Orson Welles marathon.  Orson Welles' appearance in this movie is supposed to be a surprise.  Me, being on an Orson Welles marathon, was waiting for him to appear and it became fairly obvious what role he would be playing when the movie continued without his presence.

Now, it must be said that most people who watch this movie know Orson Welles is in it.  But I think there's a difference between that and specifically watching a movie because of Orson Welles.  Which is to say, you can forget he's even in the movie if you're just picking this movie because it's a great movie.  And then when he appears, you're genuinely surprised. 

Theoretically anyway.  I bring this up because of what Roger Ebert wrote about the film in one of his Great Movies entries, because it was absolutely not true for me:

"As for Harry Lime: He allows Orson Welles to make the most famous entrance in the history of the movies, and one of the most famous speeches. By the time Lime finally appears we have almost forgotten Welles is even *in* the movie. "

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Welles hasn't been in the movie yet and he probably isn't in a bit part, so Welles is Harry Lime, so Harry Lime is actually alive.  Which does not ruin the movie - a movie ruined by knowing the twist is not a good movie - but I think it did take something away from the experience of watching The Third Man.

One thing is clear: it would absolutely suck to direct a movie with Orson Welles in it.  No matter what his involvement, rumors persisted that he actually directed the movie.  And that's to say nothing of his, shall we say, prima donna tendencies.  I don't believe he had any issues with the latter on this movie, but there was rampant speculation that Carol Reed did not direct this movie. 

Basically, Reed did such a good job directing this movie - and taking a significant amount of influence form Welles - that Welles just had to have actually direct this movie.  Or so goes the theory.  The fact that it could have been directed by Welles is used as proof that it was directed by him.  I am not making this up, this is an actual theory.

Despite my suggestion that watching this blind about the casting would have been better, I think I'll enjoy this movie more on rewatches.  It just feels like a movie where I can focus less on the plot, and just get lost in the movie.

One thing that I'm not really sure I liked is the score.  Which I think is sacrilege to say and maybe I'll appreciate it more on subsequent viewings, but I was thrown for a loop at the famous score.  I'll reference Ebert again who said there has never been a more perfect score for a movie, but I don't think I agree. 

Maybe I'll change my opinion of course, but the music doesn't really fit the tone of a film noir.  Part of me respects that the score is very original and different and hell, I actually don't like most music scores from 1940 movies.  Too over the top, too loud.  That's not a problem here at all.  But I don't know, it just felt out of place at times.

There's not much new I can add to what has to be a wealth of film criticism on The Third Man.  The cinematography is great and adds to the atmosphere of the movie.  The atmosphere and sense of place is maybe the greatest thing about this movie.  It feels like a very specific place and time and the movie could not be set anytime else.  You can't say that about many movies.

It's a little surprising the writer of the movie wanted a different ending (and he wrote a different ending in the book).   This is not a movie that should have a happy ending.  Absolutely the right choice from Reed, and even writer Graham Greene has said Reed has been proven "triumphantly right."

And even though Welles did not direct it, it wouldn't be a Welles movie without some studio fuckery.  Apparently eleven minutes were replaced in the American version, although I'm pretty sured I watched the version with those eleven minutes.

I'm excited to watch this again soon and I genuinely think I'll gain an even greater appreciation for it.  I have two more Welles movies to cover and both are I believe considered classics.

Welles Marathon: The Magnificent Ambersons

The making of Citizen Kane is a fairy tale.  Orson Welles, having reached the top of his game in the theater and on the radio, was given unlimited control and a huge budget to make Citizen Kane at 25-years-old.  He never experienced anything like that again in his career, starting with his second feature, The Magnificent Ambersons.

Things started well enough, but the biggest problem was that he conceded control over the final cut, which he did not do for Citizen Kane.  So when he had to leave the country to make a film as a part of the Good Neighbor Policy, RKO Radio Pictures took control from him.  His original 135 minute cut of the movie turned into an 88 minute movie with a different ending.

Here's the kicker: it was probably a better movie than Welles' original movie.  There is of course no way to tell for sure.  After the film was received poorly, editor Robert Wise cut 7 minutes from the movie and it was shown again to a poor response.  RKO took over editing at this point, asked Robert Wise and the assistant director to do reshoots, including a new ending, and it ended up as the 88 minute version available now.

Wise, who himself was a pretty good director in his own right (which happened after this movie), says the original cut was not better than the newly edited version.  It seems to me that the biggest beef people have with the edited version is a happy ending.  Welles did not have a happy ending.  The book the movie is based on, however, did have a happy ending.

As it stands, you can't really tell that this movie was supposed to be over two hours long, which is astonishing to me.  If I had no idea of the backstory, I would have thought this was Welles' vision.  There truly is no disconnect here.  Okay maybe the ending is a little weird, since it's heavily foreshadowed it won't be a happy one.  

Okay, so since this review may be for people who've never seen it, I'll explain the plot.  A wealthy family sees its fortunes decline during the time of the advent of the automobile.  You see a boy and girl loved each other, but the boy made a fool of himself one time, and then she decided to never see him again and she married someone she didn't love.  Certainly not a plot that you could really make nowadays that's for sure.

So roughly 20 years later, George Amberson, the only child of the loveless marriage, is spoiled and generally unpleasant.  At a huge party, the boy who loved the girl had since married, had a kid, and had his wife die.  George instantly takes to his daugher, Lucy, but hates her father, Eugene.  Eventually, George's father dies, and Eugene and his mother look like they might get together, with both being available, but George is a spoiled brat and lets it be known he does not approve.  Which is a thing that mattered then.

So that's what happens.  And it's foreshadowed, hell outright stated, that George will "get his comeuppance" which largely seems to happen until the surprise happy ending.  Here's the thing: I think that A) the happy ending isn't really that happy and B) is plausible.

So spoilers, but this is an 88-year-old movie, so I feel like the window has passed for you to be mad about spoilers.  So the mother dies as a result of George's petulance, and this causes him to change.  He didn't see the point of working, now he wants to work for a good cause.  He then seriously injures himself in an automobile accident.

Eugene, who truly loved his mother, decides to take after the boy, because well that's what a man who loves someone would do.  Also Lucy and George are implied to have reconciled and eventually gotten together.  But the evidence for this is: she visits him in the hospital.  We don't even see their reunion scene. 

If this were a more modern movie, there would be doubt about the fate of Lucy and George's relationship, no question.  And I don't mean if it were filmed differently, I mean if it were filmed exactly the same way.  She visits him in the hospital.  That's the entire basis for imagining a relationship when there previously was none.  Only in the context of happy endings always happening in 1942 is there no doubt.  And the music.  But you could have sweeping, romantic music in 2020 and there would still be doubt about their future.

Anyway, my only point is that since George does change and has a comeuppance of sorts, the happy-ish ending doesn't feel cheap.  So whether or not this is the vision Welles had, doesn't matter to me.  The movie still works.

Aside from that, the one huge Welles influence is the amazing party scene where George and Lucy first chat, and the camera follows them as they walk throughout the party.  In the background, while they're chatting, the party still happens.  And actually, I was under the mistaken impression their conversation was one long shot, and I think that's a testament to how effectively he inserts us into that scene.

I'm actually glad I visited this after I had already seen most of Welles' filmography.  Because it wouldn't be immediately apparent how much of an aberration this movie is in his resume.  It's really nothing like anything else he's ever done.  And I wouldn't have quite appreciated that if I had watched this after Citizen Kane, in order of when they were made.  This is no Citizen Kane, but it's one of his best movies.

3.5/4 stars