The Immortal Story

A rich, bitter, and spiteful old merchant of Macao (Orson Welles) hears the tale of a wealthy man hiring a sailor to impregnate his young wife and seeks to make it true, through the help of his assistant (Roger Coggio) and two young hires (Jeanne Moreau and Norman Eshley). Intriguing minor Wellesian concoction from an Isak Dinesen story feels like something only Welles himself could have cooked up, beautifully shot and directed with a unique and irresistible story.

 **** out ****

Welles' Bard Trilogy (Macbeth, Othello, Chimes at Midnight)

During a decades spanning period of self-imposed Hollywood exile that only saw his return to film Touch of Evil, Orson Welles crafted three Shakespearean adaptations. Having garnered a reputation, producers were often hesitant to work with him, and money was often scant. Filming on the fly over what sometimes amounted to years, these films would often suffer from sound or continuity but are as stylish and dramatically satisfying as anything the maverick director ever created.

Macbeth (1948)

Welles's 1936 stage adaptation of the Scottish play with an all black cast gained mass acclaim. Here, while sublimely starring in the lead role he creates a haunting, atmospheric aura on austere sets.

*** 1/2 out of ****

Othello (1952)

Othello is roughly cobbled together and even after a 1992 restoration, it looks very rugged. Still the camerawork is impeccable and the treatment is extremely powerful, again especially in Welles' performance

*** 1/2 out of ****

Chimes at Midnight (1965)

Chimes at Midnight is probably the best regarded of these works, and one that existed in obscurity until only recently. Depicting the friendship between Falstaff and Henry IV, the film is bold, bawdy, dramatic, laugh out loud funny, and affecting as it demonstrates Welles in full force as actor and director.

*** 1/2 out of ****

Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles

Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles  packs in about as much as possible into 90 minutes on the larger than life, multi-talented, vain, mysterious, ingenious virtuoso, but feels rushed and even confused as a result, while glossing over the bullet points of his life. A little fleshing out would have been helpful, although the documentary does put great footage and guests to use, and it is always a privilege to be in the company of the Boy Wonder.

*** out of ****

Macbeth

The Bard's tragic tale of the ambitious, feeble minded, and ill-fated Scottish Thane has been told many times on film, often in exemplary productions. Justin Kurzel's latest adaptation, a bloodied, scenic, and dourly sumptuous take made in the viscerally violent vein of the recent Aussie cinema, is enervating enough to stand aside Welles, Polanski, and Kurosawa, creators of story's finest entrants. To open up the material, Kurzel starts with a frigid and savage opening battle and an awe inspiring closing onlaught, engages in frenetic cutting, and has his characters break the fourth wall. Michael Fassbender brings a sullenness and quiet ferocity to the title role and I wish there was more of Marion Cotillard as Lady Macbeth, who again demonstrates why she is one of our finest actresses. The doomed couple is surrounded by an upstanding supporting cast, all in fine form, Paddy Considine, David Thewlis, and Sean Harris among them.

*** 1/2 out of ****

The Trial

Joseph K. (Anthony Perkins), an significant pencil pusher, is arrested at his flat for an unspecified crime. As he fights the system through layers upon layers of red tape in an exercise of sheer futility, while encountering increasingly bizarre scenarios and characters, his ordeal sharply turns from farcical to tragic. Kafka's vivid and uncompleted novel gets lost in Orson Welles' spectacular visuals and bemused, lackadaisical, and occasionally confounding storytelling. Perkins is impressive in a perfectly cast role.

** 1/2 out of ****

Moby Dick

John Huston's filmization of Herman Melville's seminal novel, scripted by Ray Bradbury, detailing the foreboding journey of the Pequod, a Nantucket whaling ship, and its obssessive captain's biblical grudge with a massive, elusive white whale is made with technical and directorial prowess and offers a colorful supporting cast, yet is somewhat muddled and features a badly miscast Gregory Peck in a turgid performance as Ahab. After some tremendous opening scenes, including a remarkable cameo by Orson Welles playing a preacher, and some exciting whaling scenes, the film settles down becoming somewhat muddled leading up unto a disappointing showdown.

** 1/2 out of ****

Mr. Arkadin

The words of a dying man lead a shifty American (Robert Arden) to a peculiar European millionaire (Orson Welles) who hires him to investigate his hazy past. Like many of Welles' films, Mr. Arkadin (also know as Confidential Report) was assembled into several different versions. I elected to watch the comprehensive edition on a recent Criterion treatment, the distributor's suggested version and, despite some bad dubbing and rugged cutting, the best as far as I could tell. Arkadin also bears similarity in plotting, in large ways and small, to its auteur's other films: a flashback structure with the protagonist learning the truth about a secretive billionaire (Citizen Kane), a postwar European set black market story (The Third Man), and even the late appearance of assured Katina Paxinou reminded me of Marlene Dietrich's cameo in Touch of Evil. However, despite the similarities to these classics, Mr. Arkadin isn't plotted nearly as well and Arden is dreadful in the lead, but the film features some fine camerawork and Welles is a lot of fun in the title role.
** 1/2 out of ****

Orson Welles: The One-Man Band

When Orson Welles died in 1985 he left a laundry list of unrealized dreams and incomplete projects which, to name a few, included adaptations of Moby Dick, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear and Don Quixote and also a political satire featuring a Kennedyesque leading figure entitled The Big Brass Ring and Cradle Will Rock, which detailed a famous political staging by his own Mercury Theater. His will bequeathed a warehouse sized treasure trove of much of this footage to his longtime mistress Oja Kodar who, with the director Vassili Silovic, crafted this fascinating love letter to the irascible genius which (of course) winds up being a somewhat depressing tease of what might have been.

F for Fake/The Hoax

In 1977, author Clifford Irving shocked the world when he announced he had access to Howard Hughes, the eccentric playboy billionaire who had kept himself in seclusion for nearly twenty years. Securing a million dollar book deal with McGraw Hill, he shocked the world once more when, following the book's publishing, he admitted it all was a sham and wound up serving over two years in prison. Before Richard Gere portrayed this ballsy fabulist in Lasse Hallstrom's 2006 film The Hoax, and even before these improbable events took place, Irving appeared cavorting with a lowly art forger who was the subject of Orson Welles' pseudodocumentary F for Fake. Welles' film, the last one the great provocateur completed as director, is a brilliant assemblage, almost too much to follow at times, and is a whole lot of fun (especially a spurious bit involving Welles' mistress seducing Pablo Picasso) to watch the interactions of these well matched charlatans, Welles included. The Hoax mostly tells Irving's wild story well, but the picture lacks air and though Gere is enjoyable to watch and suited to playing a wily character always thinking on his toes, supporting players Alfred Molina and Marcia Gay Hardin hardly add anything to the production.

Clifford Irving in F for Fake

The Battle Over Citizen Kane

When William Randolph Hearst caught wind that RKO's boy wonder Orson Welles had chosen for his first feature film to tell the life story of a fictional newspaper magnate who gains the world but loses his soul, Hearst sought to destroy all copies of the film, was nearly successful, and actually did succeed in stifling Kane's initial blockbuster success. What Hearst didn't know, was that Welles' film was as much of a reflection of his own life as it was a sharp jab at the all-powerful media tycoon. The Battle Over Citizen Kane is really just separate biographies of these two larger than life personalities which draws fascinating comparisons between both while telling their compelling stories through the use of excellent stock footage, documentary technique, and guest commentators knowledgeable in relation to both megalomaniacs. 

War of the Worlds

On the evening of October, 30th 1938, a country frazzled by economic depression, impending war in Europe, and a series of national catastrophes was primed to be exploited and terrified by Orson Welles, the boy wonder who had already conquered the Broadway stage, along with the rest of his CBS Mercury Theater radio crew, through a surreal, pulse pounding broadcast of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. This documentary essay crafted for the American Experience series is a succinct, informative, and stirring account of both the fearful climate at the time of the infamous Panic Broadcast, as it soon became known, and a fascinating look into Welles' creative process and his responses during the fallout. The only component of the film that doesn't quite come off, though it must have seemed like a good idea, are the recreations of first person reactions to the transmission. 

Jane Eyre

Charlotte Bronte's gothic Victorian novel Jane Eyre is one of the most adaptable books in film history, most recently rendered earlier this year in a wonderful adaptation by Cary Fukunaga. When most people reference the best version though, they often point to this 1943 version starring Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles and directed by Robert Stevenson. "Jane Eyre" tells the story of a young orphan brought up by her nasty aunt who sends her to an abusive girls school run by a tyrannical zealot. After suffering and surviving the abuses their, Jane is summoned to be the governess to the ward of Edward Rochester, a rich and cagey young man. However, Jane's manner begins to soften the lord and the two begin to fall in love, which is only to be stifled by Rochester's dark secret. "Jane Eyre" is a darkly beautiful film, with Rochester's castle brilliantly captured in all its shadows and angles. Fontaine is ideal as Jane, with her beauty shining through her plain facade. Welles is great as the brooding Rochester, and as always when he stars in a film he is not credited with directing, questions of authorship arise. "Jane Eyre" is a great adaptation of a wonderful story that never fails to be moving with its superbly realized and tragic characters.

Me and Orson Welles

In 1937, an affable teenager (Zach Braff) ditches class, heads to the big city, and scores a minor role in the Mercury Theater production of Julius Caesar directed by Orson Welles (Christian McKay), the Boy Wonder who was on the cusp of unprecedented successes in radio, theater, and film. Me and Orson Welles is a fabulous coming-of-age story made in a 1930s screwball vein by the ubiquitous Richard Linklater, a filmmaker who placidly moves from genre to genre to the point that his talent has gone somewhat unsung. McKay is phenomenal in embodying the gusto and personage of Welles and Braff is actually pretty good in a well-cast role.

The Third Man

An American writer (Joseph Cotten), author of pulpy, dime store novels, travels to postwar Vienna upon learning of the death of his friend Harry Lime. There he becomes involved in the investigation of his mysterious death, meets his friends and a girlfriend (Alida Valli), and learns the disturbing truth behind his disappearance and the illicit black market doings of his childhood pal. Carol Reed's The Third Man is a darkly atmospheric, cynical, and brilliantly directed film ingeniously written by Graham Greene. Featuring fine performances from Cotten, Valli, Trevor Howard, and a diabolical Orson Welles, whom you can't help but question how deep his involvement was with this production, with its off-centered camera and high-angled shots which so perfectly capture a desperate city as well the dark and shadowy essences of Noir. This is about as unforgettable as a film can get, and scenes like Welles' famous entrance, the Ferris wheel & cuckoo clock speech segment, the chase through the sewers, and Valli's haunting closing walk down the elm tree lined lane are just a few of its highlights.

The Magnificent Ambersons

In a wealthy Indianapolis community, in an age of progress circa 1900, sits the once prestigious and now fading Amberson mansion. One of its residents, the beautiful Isabel (Dolores Costello), once welcomed the affections of Eugene (Joseph Cotton) but ended the engagement following a public humiliation and went on to marry a lifeless bore and gave her her only child, the pompous, irascible George (Tim Holt). When Eugene returns many years later, widowed and as a successful automaker, George takes a liking to his daughter Lucy (Anne Baxter), but becomes enraged when he learns of Eugene's and his mother's past kinship. Orson Welles' chose to adapt Booth Tarkington's novel (which Welles suspected was modeled after himself and other members of his family) for his sophomore directorial outing and, even in spite of the infamous studio butchering, is still a worthy follow-up to "Citizen Kane." The photography, editing, and storytelling modes are unique and innovative and the performances are excellent, especially Cotton as the bemused and noble suitor, Costello as the sweet and best heiress, Holt as a spoiled no-account, and Agnes Moorehead as his jealous, spinster aunt.

Catch-22

During WWII on the island of Pianosa located in the Mediterranean, Capt. Yossarian (Alan Arkin) finds his discharge request on the basis of insanity denied on the illogical Army maxim that a person recognizing his own insanity cannot in fact be declared. Yossarian now bears witness witness to the mad of war that envelops him as he deals with self serving superiors, the prospect of flying interminable missions, and witnessing the death of his contemporaries. "Catch-22" is a surprisingly sturdy adaptation of Joseph Heller's monumental 1962 which is probably unfilmable but must have seemed prime for a generation engulfed in the Vietnam War. It was director Mike Nichols and writer Buck Henry's (who also appears in the film as Lt.Col. Korn) followup to "The Graduate",  and they make tolerable changes and offer about as good of an adaptation as can be expected, although much of Heller's dialogue is sadly omitted. I found Arkin to be wrong for Yossarian, as he contains hardly any of the disbelief or exasperation which distinguished that character as a hallmark of American literature. The greatest strength of the film can be found in the casting of the supporting roles of the eccentric servicemen, with Orson Welles, Martin Balsam, and Bob Newhart standing out as the most memorable.

Casino Royale

Following the assassination of M (John Huston), an aging James Bond (David Niven) is coaxed out of retirement to once more thwart the evil forces of SMERSH, and instead decides to send his nephew James Bond (Peter Sellers) who himself must contend with a series of agents, opponents, and villainesses also named James Bond. When Columbia Pictures held the movie rights to Ian Fleming's premier film instead of  Eon, the studio which has produced most of the other 007 films, they opted to make a goofy spy spoof mashup instead of trying to contend with the lauded series. Employing no less than 6 directors and 10 writers, which inexplicably features the likes of Huston, Woody Allen, Ben Hecht, and Billy Wilder, "Casino Royale" is an incomprehensible mess which only serves as a curio for its sometimes amusing cameos which include Allen, Huston, Orson Welles, and Peter O'Toole.

Touch of Evil

A hoodlum shows a stick of dynamite to the camera and then places it in the trunk of a car and we follow it in an incredible tracking shot as a tycoon and his mistress get it in, cross the Mexican border to America, and are blown to bits. An investigation ensues led by rotund, corrupt, and highly reputable Captain Quinlan given a hand by Mexican police officer Vargas who is on his honeymoon with his young bride. As the investigation takes its course, Vargas realizes that Quinlan is planting evidence and the odious captain wants the impinging foreigner out of his hair. "Touch of Evil" is the brilliant and impeccably composed work of Orson Welles who wrote, directed, and starred in this border tale of police malfeasance. Starring as Captain Quinlan, Welles dives head on into the despicable and remorseless character, crafting a frightening presence. Charlton Heston, though oddly cast as a Mexican, is nonetheless powerful as the righteous lawman. Janet Leigh is fine as well as his bride and pawn in Welles's sick game. The shadows and angles of the camera are remarkable here and, along with the devilish turns, have the capacity to take your breath away. "Touch of Evil" is an uncommonly good film and one that engages you in a way that few films do.

Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane usually tops great movie lists and is often cited by critics and scholars as our greatest film. Orson Welles' 1941 debut film holds this honor due to the fact that it took all the techniques known to the movies at the time and utililized them while creating a few techniques of its own therefore influencing generations of filmmakers over. On top of being a great film and an extremely influential film, it is also simply an extraordinarily entertaining picture. Citizen Kane stars Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane, inspired by the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst who did not take too kindly to the movie's depiction of him. The film begins with Kane's death in the great estate of Xanadu where, while dying alone, he utters the most famous words in cinema before kicking the bucket: Rosebud. A newsreel producer wants to learn the significance of the word, so he sends a reporter to interview the people who knew him best. Through these men and women we learn the story of Kane's rise and tragic downfall and his eventual loss of childhood innocence signified in his dying words. Citizen Kane is a rich movie and the kind that you can watch over and over again and still feel you can revisit and get something more out of it. With his first film, Welles was able to achieve greatness on so many different levels and craft a movie that would be an inspiration to many great filmmakers to come.

The Lady from Shanghai

Orson Welles was an uncompromising creative genius with a distinct visual style and feel for the camera. He often clashed with the studio heads over how his films were cut and presented and this is the reason, I suspect, why his resume is so short yet filled with great works. The Lady from Shanghai was made following the massive success of Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. It is not his strongest work, yet it is visually exciting and entertaining nonetheless. Welles stars as Michael O'Hara, a tough Irish sailor who right off the bat admits his naievty in falling for a wealthy woman (Rita Hayworth) whom he rescues from an attack in the park. Somehow he is serving as a deckhand on her famous defense attorney husband's yacht and soon after that he is intwined in a murder plot full of double and triple crosses. The film opens as intriguing noir and Welles' narration is wonderfully ominous. The next few scenes play out well as well and then the film somewhat loses focus and becomes plodding during scenes on a yacht and a tropic isle. Then things pick up steam when the murder plot is introuduced and the film wraps up is the highly memorable House of Mirrors finale. Despite its plodding midsection and a plot that no man with any semblance of a brain would find himself in, The Lady from Shanghai is a fine addition to Orson Welles' directorial canon.