Welles Marathon Conclusion

The Orson Welles marathon has finally come to an end.  It took longer than I thought.  My first post was on August 4th, writing about the classic Citizen Kane.  And it ended Monday earlier this week, which means that it took me nearly four months to watch and write about every Orson Welles movie I picked.  I only posted twice a week, sometimes talked about other movies, and skipped some weeks, but still: I wasn't expecting to finally be able to move onto my next marathon in December.

I can't speak to Orson Welles personal motivations, but after having watched both the movies he directed and the movies he starred in, it seems like he was just unnaturally gifted.   I come away especially impressed with his acting.  It seems like he could act in his sleep.  And I mean that.  Some movies, it seems like he was barely trying and it legitimately did not matter, he was still the most compelling part of a movie.

The popular perception of Welles was that he was a wunderkind who ultimately blew his potential by being unreliable and never quite having enough money to make his projects happen.  A lot of his older movies were reevaluated later and praised as classics, but they weren't at the time.

Citizen Kane, immediately a flop, was received as the best movie of all time within two decades.  And every movie he made after Kane was compared to Kane, and the reception of the vast majority of his movies suffered for it.  Modern critics have responded to the mostly lukewarm receptions of the time by praising some of his movies as classics.

I compared Orson Welles to another artist at the top of his game in one of my Welles marathon posts, and I'll do it again here.  But fair warning: if you're not a fan of hip hop, you might find this jarring and not understand my comparison. 

Orson Welles is Nas.  I can already hear you groaning.  Both were impossibly young prodigies who produced their best work first.  Nas was 17 and 18 when he recorded Ilmmatic.  Welles was 25 when he did Citizen Kane.  Both have their subsequent works compared to their first work, which caused their later works to be under-appreciated for their time.  Later appraisal of those works have elevated those works to masterpieces. 

It's not a perfect comparison.  Illmatic was nearly immediately recognized as the best while Citizen Kane was not.  Nas has not had the equivalent of Welles struggling to make movies after Citizen Kane, or anything close to it.  And to say the least, hip hop did not evolve like film did, making Illmatic sound boring in comparison (I don't find Citizen Kane boring, but it's a popular criticism nowadays)

In any case, the movies that more or less hold up from Welles catalogue are The Magnificent Ambersons, made immediately after Citizen Kane; The Stranger, made immediately after World War II, The Trial, and Chimes at Midnight.  And Citizen Kane of course. Which is why I think modern critics overcompensate by calling too many of Welles movies classics.

But I'm aware my opinion of Touch of Evil is not with the hivemind.  I almost can't speak to either Macbeth or Othello, where I completely acknowledge my opinion of both is influenced by the fact that I find Shakespeare movies difficult to like.  Didn't stop me from liking Chimes at Midnight.  And I stand by the fact that Othello does not stand the test of time, thanks to shoddy sound and what certain critics call "bronzeface" which still leaves me with a queasy stomach watching.

Both The Lady from Shanghai and Touch of Evil, to me, suffer from style over subtance.  Really cool shots, story makes no sense.  Even reviews, such as Roger Ebert, who love the movie, say that the story makes no sense.  And his only truly bad film that he directed was Confidential Report, or Mr. Arkadin, which mainly suffers from some truly bad acting from the lead (not Welles.)

And like I said, as strange as it may sound, I come away most impressed by his acting.  Well most impressed isn't how I would define it.  Most surprised maybe.  A lot of acting from around his time period simply doesn't hold up.  And no matter the movie surrounding him, he is always good, even when he's seemingly not on his 'A' game.

I will continue with my director marathon in 2021.  I'm going to leave my next director in suspense, but just know, I already know who I'm covering.  It may be a bit before I start though.  I like to get a head start on the posts before I actually release to them to the public, because I may very well be unable to watch the movies at a two-a-week pace every week and a head start eases that burden.

But in the meantime, I am going to be posting my favorite posts of 2020 next week on my twitter.  That will be followed with a ranking of my favorite movies of 2019, yes 2019.  Took me a long time to get through that list, and I'm probably going to post my favorite movies of 2020 pretty late in 2021 too (though ideally before December).  Then it's the week of my favorite shows of 2020.  And then, well, then I'll probably figure some random movies I want to write about until I have a few marathon posts written and then I'll start the marathon.

I'm excited, and I hope you'll like my next director pick.

Note: If you're interested in reading my thoughts on specific Welles movies, I have a link inserted onto the names of the movies mentioned above.  So just click the movie and it should take you to a new page.  And of the movies not mentioned above, I'll post the rest below.

Jane Eyre 

The Other Side of the Wind

A Man for All Seasons, Waterloo, and Catch 22 were all covered in one post here.

Compulsion

Prince of Foxes

The Third Man

The Long Hot Summer

F for Fake

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 Long Hot Summer (1958)

In this marathon, we hit the last movie that Orson Welles was only an actor in and we only have one more movie period left.  A movie I have purposefully not watched yet.  Because the last few posts, including this one, have been me writing about movies I saw roughly a month or so ago, which is not ideal from my perspective.

I'll keep you all in suspense over what exactly that movie is, and focus on the movie today: The Long Hot Summer.  This movie gets off to a great start with what is a fantastic theme song by Jimmie Rodgers.

And the movie that follows it... is actually pretty good.  I was not aware of this movie's existence before researching what Orson Welles movies to watch (because he made a few just to get a paycheck that... do not hold up).  So my expectations were nill.

It helps that the lead role is played by Paul Newman, not exactly playing against type here.  Probably because this movie, and Cat On a Hot Tin Roof the same year, helped define his "type."  He's a smooth talking,con man who ingratiates himself into a rich family and finds love well the love changes him.  Fairly typical stuff here.

But it is probably helped by what was a real life love story behind the scenes.  Newman played opposite Joanne Woodward, still alive by the way, and they fell in love off screen and were married until Newman died.  You can get a sense of that when watching this movie.

It's a fairly stacked cast.  Angela Lansbury, also still alive, is in the movie for a comic little sideplot that doesn't really work.  Not her fault.  It was probably funny in 1958.  Anthony Franciosa was fresh off an Oscar nomination when he did this movie, and plays Woodward's brother, while Lee Remick plays her sister.

And then there's Orson Welles.  He adds to the entertainment with his Southern accent.  With his bellowing voice and big frame, he does not really try to make sure people understand what he's saying.  You need subtitles to understand him.  It doesn't really matter, because it's seriously entertaining as hell.  Honestly, I don't know that I would be that interested in the movie if Welles didn't keep my interest.

3/4 stars

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

Because I don't have much to say, and I don't feel like making a whole post about this movie, I'll quickly explain my thoughts on the other movie Newman made in 1958.  I'm not a fan.

If I could sum up why, it's that the director did not take advantage of the fact that he was making a movie.  He might as well just filmed the play and released it that way.  Bewilderingly, the screenplay changed a lot of the play's dialogue and less bewilderingly because of the time, removed the gay element of the play.  So you're not even getting the best version of the play in this version.

When I say Richard Brooks, the director, didn't take advantage of this being a movie, I mean there are two settings in the entire movie: the house and in the first few minutes when Brick injures himself.  That's it.  When we go to the house, we are there for the rest of the movie and the rest of the movie is pure melodrama turned to 11 for the entire freaking movie.

Give me flashbacks of Brick being his normal self.  Don't need to reveal what actually happened.  Do something interesting instead of just regurgitating the play, which you have changed so much that Tennessee Williams didn't like it.  I don't know.  There are lot of words spoken and the everyone is just talking in circles for most of the runtime.  Don't really get the love for this movie.

Also, if you play a drinking game for every time Big Daddy is said, you would die before the movie was over.  Good lord did that get annoying.  Acting is good though.  Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, Burl Ives.

2/4 stars

Welles Marathon: Touch of Evil (1958)

Touch of Evil was one of the few Orson Welles movies I had seen before I started this marathon, but I was excited to re-watch considering I haven't seen it in a long time.  But appropriately enough, I'm pretty sure I watched a different version.  It's Orson Welles, so of course there are more versions than just one.  Couldn't be easy!

I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I think critics have a tendency to overrate movies based on the technical skill of how the movie was made.  And I think this is especially true of older movies analyzed retroactively, because we can see the influence they made.  And I'm all for putting the movie's accomplishments into context to better appreciate it.

But there's a difference, I think, between appreciating what the movie did and looking at how good the movie actually is.  I can appreciate that what a movie did was impressive while also thinking that for whatever reason the movie hasn't necessarily aged well, and I don't even mean in terms of political correctness or the sort.  

The version I watched this time is evidently much more clear in terms of plotting than the version I think I watched the first time, but it has a wide swath of time given to what I think is a black hole.  And that's when Susan Vargas is threatened by a gang in the motel in the middle of nowhere.  

None of this part of the movie works in my opinion.  I do not remember this part being quite as prominent in the first version I watched, like significantly less screen time was dedicated to it.  I don't know what the fuck Dennis Weaver is doing in this movie, but his performance as the hotel manager is quite terrible.  Like these motel scenes alone drag this movie down.

I think there a couple of scenes in this movie that made this movie a classic to most.  The opening scene is the clearest example.  It's a memorable and impressive way to begin a movie.  And I believe there's another unbroken take in an interrogation scene later in the movie. 

I began my review noting that I think certain critics overrate movies because of how they're shot, and the reason I did that was to provide to following anecdote.  In Roger Ebert's "Great Movies," he says that Peter Bogdanovich once told Orson that he didn't notice the story until he had already saw it four or five times, because he was focused on the direction.

Ebert follows that up with saying "That might be the best approach for anyone seeing the film for the first time: to set aside the labyrinthine plot, and simply admire what is on the screen."  That's all well and good, but this feels like a backhanded compliment to me, or at least not as much of a compliment as intended.  What's great about the movie are the shots, but as a story, well go ahead and ignore that to really enjoy it.

But between the disastrous motel scenes, Charlton Heston playing a Mexican, and that it's better enjoyed if you ignore the story, well these are a little too much for me to accept personally.  I'm not saying it's a bad film.  It's actually mostly a good film.  But I don't think it's a classic and I think it's probably one of Welles' more overrated movies.

3/4 stars

Welles Marathon: The Stranger (1946)

After a slight hiatus caused partially due to the fact that the MLB playoffs were happening and I think I just forgot about this last week, this feature is back.  I have just four more Orson Welles movies to cover.  Unfortunately, I haven't seen three of those movies in about a month, so my shoddy memory is going to have to be relied upon.  I'll make sure to put this disclaimer for each of the three where it applies.

I had certain expectations for most Welles movies - he has a ton of movies that he's either made or been in that are part of lists that I follow to determine classic movies to watch.  This is a double-edged sword.  Expectations are not necessarily the greatest thing to have when watching a movie, at least not in my case, because they tend to influence my opinion of the film for better or worse.  

If you go in expecting a classic, and the movie has some flaws, you are disappointed.  And it is very rare to find an older movie - from around Welles time - that is without flaws.  If you can watch a movie blind, which is a different type of risk, you and the movie are on neutral ground.

I bring all that up because I had never heard of The Stranger.  The Stranger, by all accounts, is a run-of-the-mill film noir, or so I was guessing.  It's not on any "Best of" lists whether that be all-time, the specific year it was made, or even within its own genre of film noir.  I had no real reason to expect much when I started this film.

So maybe it was that, but this is probably the film that surprised me the most in this marathon.  I liked this better than The Lady from Shanghai and I liked it better than The Touch of Evil.  I will not deny that both of those films are perhaps better from a filmmaking perspective - more innovative and whatnot.

But the brass tacks of actually making a good movie?  I think this is more effective.  The Stranger, on the heels of the end of World War II, is about an investigator who follows a famous Nazi into a small town in Connecticut to arrest him for war crimes.

It's not a chase movie despite the beginning premise.  The Nazi blends into the small town, and the investigator needs to learn who it is.  We learn who it is immediately.  That's how simple the premise is.  The investigator is played by Edward G Robinson, usually more well-known as a gangster tough guy.  He does what's needed for role, which is simply to be invested in him catching the Nazi, played by Welles.  

Welles has the harder part and he steps up to the challenge.  He needs to convince us how he's able to infiltrate the town - he does so by seeming to be normal, but there is just enough off about his performance that he's never completely lost the Nazi side of him.  And when he takes off the mask, so to speak, it's not completely disconnected from the rest of his performance.

The cast is rounded out by Loretta Young, Welles new bride, Phillip Mervale, a judge and the father of the bride, and Richard Long, the bride's brother.  But the real stars of the movie are Robinson and Welles, and the others are just there to support them.  (Young does get a bit more to do than I'm suggesting)

The Stranger is notable for two reasons.  The first is that it was the first film to feature footage of Nazi concentration camps following World War II, which maybe doesn't seem as shocking to us as it did at the time, but just for that fact alone, I'm surprised this movie isn't more well-known.  The second is that it's the only movie of Welles to show a profit in its original release.  So it was a fairly popular movie at the time.

If you're looking for a good film noir, you can't do much worse than The Stranger.  Hopefully, I haven't built up your expectations too much so that you don't suffer the same fate as I have with other Welles' projects.

4/4 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: Chimes at Midnight (1965)

Throughout his career on the stage and behind the camera, Orson Welles returned to Shakespeare numerous times.  It makes sense.  One of the first things he did as a professional was direct a stage adaptation of Macbeth with an all African-American cast.  He directed it at just 20-years-old.  A couple years later, Welles intended to stage The Five Kings, which was taken from several Shakespeare plays.  Welles blew it off, went drinking, and never went to rehearsals so the play was a disaster and scrapped soon.

Elements from that original play formulated into a reworked Chimes at Midnight 20 years later.  He didn't really seem to treat the revamped play any more seriously than he did the Five Kings, ending the play's run prematurely because he was bored with it and always intended it for it to be a rehearsal for the movie.  He scrambled to find funding for this, eventually finding it but only with the promise of making A Treasure Island as well.  He never made it and never intended to make it, lying to the producer to get A Chimes at Midnight made.

Of the three Shakespeare films that Welles made, Chimes at Midnight is easily my favorite.  For one thing, the production value is better than the previous two.  He clearly got more money to make this than Othello and while Hamlet had a good and comparable budget, technology presumably improved a lot from 1948 to 1965.  

But I think the bigger reason that I like it more is that it just feels much more original.  I've seen a few movie adaptations of Hamlet.  I don't believe I've seen any movie adaptations of the Shakespeare works he takes to make this movie.  According to Wikipedia, he takes from five different Shakespeare plays.  

And really, it doesn't matter if I had seen a movie adaptation from any one of those movies.  Because the play is a combination of texts from those plays, but it's not in chronological order and he inserts scenes from one play into another play.  It would have felt original even if I had been intimately familiar with Shakespeare's works.

Despite the fact that taking scenes from one play and combining them into scenes from another play  could make the story incoherent and hard to follow, it has a clear story on its own.  Because every line of dialogue is directly lifted from Shakespeare, you could in fact mistake this movie as an adaptation of the nonexistent "Chimes at Midnight," but of course Shakespeare never wrote such a play.

At its core, Shakespeare stories are effective, because amidst all the plot, the story is simple.  And that's the case here.  This is the relationship between Falstaff, previously a joke in Shakespeare productions, and Prince Hal.  And the story seems engineered to make the climax of the movie the rejection of Falstaff by Hal.

And it's effective!  Welles is very good at Falstaff.  One thing I've learned from the Welles movies I've watched is that Welles is good even when he's not trying.  He's trying here.  He's able to gain you sympathy for him even while you understand that really, Hal is doing the right thing by rejecting him.  Keith Baxter is good, although I admit when I found out that Anthony Perkins wanted to do this role, I couldn't help but think it'd be better with him.  But alas, that's unfair to Baxter.

Apparently, and I say apparently, because I am reading about it, but the lengthy battle sequence was very influential.  And it's well filmed.  But I'll admit that had I not read about it, I would not really have thought twice about the battle scene.  It's sometimes really hard to put your mind in 1965 and understand that nobody was filming battle sequences like that.  

Usually, I think if a film is the first to do something, even if films copy it to death, that shines through in the material.  My best example is It Happened One Night, which despite the fact that every romcom in existence copies this movie, it doesn't really feel cliché because it did it so well, and yes first.  So I confess, I was impressed by the filmmaking but didn't really recognize it as the influential scene it apparently is.

Orson Welles thought Chimes at Midnight was his best work, and along with The Magnificent Ambersons, his most personal film.  I disagree with him on that.  I still think Citizen Kane was the best, however, I will not argue with Vincent Camby of the New York Times that it may very well by the greatest Shakespeare movie ever.  Which, to be completely fair, is not necessarily saying much coming from me, person who has trouble with Shakespeare movies. 

But I will say this: it's the rare Shakespeare movie to feel wholly original to me, because well it's hard to be original when adapting someone else's work.  And Shakespeare has been adapted more than anyone in history.  While Hamlet and Othello certainly have great critical reputations, I have no desire to see them again.  But I will want to watch Chimes at Midnight again.

4/4 stars

Welles Marathon: The Trial (1962)

I'll be honest.  I was not expecting a parallel with Steven Soderbergh at all in this marathon.  In my Soderbergh marathon, I covered Kafka, which was Soderbergh's second movie.  Part of that movie was based on The Trial, one of Kafka's most well-known novels.  And of course, this movie, which came further into Welles career, was based entirely on the novel The Trial.

In both cases, I feel not entirely qualified to judge the movie.  Because both movies seem largely to depend on mood, and that mood is Kafkaesque, a mood I'm not necessarily in tune to, being mostly unfamiliar with the author's work.  I suppose I should read The Trial and watch these movies again and then maybe I'll feel more qualified.

But... that's not what movies are about!  The vast majority of people will never have read the novel, short story, or comic book that a movie is based on, and they're forced to judge the movie on its own merits, not with a preexisting knowledge.  So I can't take that cop-out and just be done with this movie.

Of the two, I think Orson Welles is the more successful movie.  I think it helps that he is just adapting the novel straight while Soderbergh is sort of crafting an original narrative.  There's more of a singular purpose that propels the movie forward, which is Josef K. trying to figure out what crime he's being accused of so he can defend himself.

If there's a weakness in this movie, I think it's inherent in the material.  Which is to say, it's the point.  The movie is almost incoherent about what exactly is happening, but well I feel like that's what the movie is trying to do.  Josef K. has no idea what's going on, and we're just thrust into his world and the absolute insanity of what's happening to him.

Basically, the movie is a mostly faithful adaptation of the novel.  I mean I imagine.  I haven't read it.  But I can see how it'd be easier to portray confusion when you're reading about the perspective of Josef K as opposed to seeing it on screen.  So I think Welles did about the best he could with putting us in the mind of someone who is rightfully paranoid and lost.

I don't really understand the women though.  I know it's in the novel.  But he encounters three separate women who appear to want to fuck him.  Why?  I'm sure there's a reason.  He had some sort of platonic or otherwise relationship with his neighbor, so that one is easy enough to explain.  The others?  Kafka appears to be saying something here but what I do not know.  I had a similar problem with Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, where everyone wanted to fuck Tom Cruise.

You can tell this is well-directed.  Not that the narrative really needed the push, but the camera angles add to the uneasy feeling of the movie.  Lots and lots of disorienting camera angles to let you know something's not right.  It certainly adds to the tension of the film.

As for Welles performance, it's about as expected.  At this point in his career, he could be menacing in a bed, and that's exactly what he is.  He had that kind of presence and voice that he didn't really need to do much but be there and talk and you were afraid of him.  Which reportedly transferred to real life whenever he was on set with certain actors, so clearly he just had an intimidating presence about him.  Which was used quite effectively in his movies.

But the real star in the movie is Anthony Perkins, a couple years after Pyscho pigeonholed his career.  He plays a twitchy, nervous guy - nothing like Norman Bates - and he's very good.  I know he was not happy about the way his career developed post-Pyscho, but he also said this role was one of the highlights of his career.

The interesting thing about The Trial is that at first, it basically looks like a filmed stage play.  The first scene is quite long.  He spends time asking the cops what he's being charged with, and then he talks to his two neighbors, and the whole thing lasts like 20 minutes and it appears the 20 minutes is meant to be roughly 20 minutes on screen too.  And as he starts going to new locations, the camera angles start being disorienting.

Anyway, I wish I could say I loved watching this more, but without a specific connection to the novel it's based on, I did not.  I just thought it was a well-made film that I believe was essentially true to the novel, and I think that's all you can ask for in an adaptation.

3.5/4 stars

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

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: 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: Othello (1951)

 Intro

Aside from maybe a silent film, I cannot think of a production that carries with it so many hurdles to enjoy a film in 2020 than Othello.  For some, it being in black-and-white would be one such hurdle, although I have no issue with films in black-and-white, except insofar that it's usually a sign that it's from a period of time where actors felt the need to be theatrical and broad.  

Shakespeare films are extremely hard for me to enjoy, because I barely understand the dialogue to be perfectly honest.  The whole thing feels like homework, because I'm concentrating so hard on hearing what the characters are saying.  Watching a film should feel effortless.  Watching Shakespeare, unless you're well versed in his plays, is not.

And then there are the problems unique to Orson Welles Othello.  Well, one such aspect is unfortunately not unique at all given the time period: blackface.  I've seen critics refer to it as "bronze" face which I guess makes it better.  Certainly looks better than Laurence Olivier in Othello.  Look that shit up.  But this is still something that hasn't aged well.

The problem unique to Othello is that Welles shot the movie with no money, or rather, he was constantly forced to accept acting jobs to complete the production, and the production took stops and starts over the course of three years before being done.  The result is a production that is filmed in different countries, with re-casting in the middle of production, and pretty much every nightmare you can imagine when trying to make a film.

As far as the location is concerned, black-and-white is a benefit, not a hindrance to the problems the production faced.  You cannot tell that one scene is filmed in Morroco and ends in Rome.  The illusion of it being in one place is preserved.  Would this be the case in color?  I doubt it.

But a consequence of filming the movie on the fly with no money is that he couldn't afford to film it with sound, which is very, very noticeable.  I'm not entirely sure which version I watched - there's an original cut shown at Cannes, it got released in America three years later in a different cut, and then there's the 1992 restored version that is apparently an entirely different cut.  

Whichever version I watched, and I think it's the latter one, it's very clear that actors' voices are dubbed over many, many times, and oddly enough the biggest offender is Welles himself.  Some of the other actors can fool you into imagining you're really hearing their voice, but Welles sounds like he's in a sound studio the entire time.

The other difficulty with watching a Shakespeare play is not that different from watching a normal movie from 1951: the acting.   Shakespeare acting is always extremely theatrical.  As far as it goes, the acting is good, but I'm not a huge fan of theatrical acting in movies.  It's too impersonal, none of the emotion lands for me, it's just extremely over the top by design.

I was also at a disadvantage because, while I'm hardly a Shakespeare neophyte (took a Shakespeare in film class in college), I apparently have never in my life come across Othello.  And you should at least be passingly familiar with Othello when watching this movie.  Welles evidently significantly reduces the play to its most important elements - which I am grateful for personally - but it might have the effect of making it harder to follow than normal for a newbie.

Like, one question I ask, and this is nothing against the performance of Micheál Mac Liammóir, who seems appropriate for the part: is Iago slimy the entire play?  Cause it's very hard to believe he gains anyone's trust with how openly slimy he is.  There is not a moment where he's not slimy.  But literally everyone believes every lie that comes out of his mouth.  In a modern film, I'd demand that there's a scene or two that shows him before he gets passed over for promotion.  

Otherwise, we're just watching 90 minutes of a clearly untrustworthy guy be trusted by everyone.  I suspect the approach here is to either go entertainingly over the top, although it would make a joke of the play, or try to somehow instill the character with some semblance of reasonableness at the beginning.  As it stands, this Iago does neither.

There are certain older movies that seem to be praised even among the last 30 years.  Because again, nothing Welles did in his life was immediately hailed as a classic, but a good portion of his movies were eventually hailed classic.  Othello is a case where I do not understand that.  His filmmaking is undoubtedly impressive, but good filmmaking alone does not a good movie make.  

Maybe a theme in Welles' works will be the excellent cinematography and mood that this movie creates.  The movie has three credited cinematographers.  His cinematographer on Citizen Kane had died by the time he filmed this movie, so he must have taken the right lessons from that movie.  That's probably the greatest strength of this movie.

Anyway, I've illustrated the problems inherent in this movie that would have made it a tough sell for me to enjoy it.  And it didn't overcome those problems.  But this doesn't really worry me, because I'm sure the other two movies from Shakespeare he made had a bigger budget.

2/4 stars

The Orson Welles Marathon

Sometime four years ago, I decided to visit and revisit an entire filmography of one director and I landed at Steven Soderbergh, whose works I had mostly not seen and the movies I had seen I liked.  I lost interest in the project until quarantine, and then I continued what the little I had started.  While in the midst of working on the Soderbergh marathon, I was already working on who to do next.

It didn't take long for me to land on Orson Welles.  Few directors have the resume of an Orson Welles and few actors have the resume of an Orson Welles, and it just so happens that I have seen exactly one Orson Welles movie before this.  It would be hard to find a better choice, since I have seen at least a few movies from people with similar resumes. 

By choosing Orson Welles, I'll be accomplishing several goals of mine.  The first is that I'll be watching Citizen Kane.  That's the big one.  I have actually watched a fair amount of movies that land on the best movies of all time, and this was a big blind spot for many years.  The second is that it covers another blind spot for me, which is movies from the 1940s and 1950s.  Third, I have a few sources that I look to to pick movies, from the Ebert Great Movies to the NYT 1000 to even a critic who has picked a top 10 every year since movies existed, and a decently large amount of Welles movies fall on these lists, even aside from Citizen Kane.

But also, on more general terms, it's Orson Welles.  Few filmmakers have the larger than life persona that he does.  Few filmmakers have a mystery and aura that he does.  He also has a manageable filmography, something that really isn't true of, say, Alfred Hitchcock.  I've seen a decent number of Hitchcock movies, the obvious ones probably, but he's directed a truly ridiculous amount of movies.  

Despite the fact that Orson Welles directed his first movie at 25, he simply didn't direct that many movies, because he never had any money to make the movies.  He also seemed to have little interest in acting, aside from boosting his own movies, which meant that he didn't take roles if he didn't need to, and a decent amount of the roles were purely for the money, which wouldn't necessarily lend itself to being a good movie.  So I get the combination of classic movies, but a manageable amount of them.

And I would by lying if I said I didn't like that he also acted in movies where he didn't direct them.  The fear with doing a director marathon is that you might feel like you're watching a lot of the same movies.  His acting career should break up the sameness that might be brought, since I know Welles has a very distinctive style.

So I'll be covering Orson Welles, starting next week.  Thursday, I'll be posting my rankings of the Mission: Impossible Series movies, but starting next week, expect two Orson Welles movies per week.  Soderbergh had his fair share of obscure movies, and I was worried about the audience on those, but he also had extremely popular movies.  Welles, in 2020, pretty much has Citizen Kane, and maybe Touch of Evil, and besides that, I wouldn't expect most of the people reading this, unless you've sought this out I suppose, to have seen any of his other movies.