The Other Side of the Wind (2018) and They'll Love Me When I'm Dead (2018)

The Other Side of the Wind Director: Orson Welles
They'll Love Me When I'm Dead Director: Morgan Neville

Rarely has an artist been so astonishingly talented and so stunningly unlucky. Orson Welles was only 25 when he made Citizen Kane, a masterpiece among masterpieces, and while it certainly wouldn't be accurate to say that it was all downhill from there, his filmography boasting several great post-Kane movies, things certainly started to get a lot more difficult almost immediately. By the time of his death in 1985, his film work consisted of projects made just for the money so that he could fund his own personal projects, and those personal projects, which were largely left unfinished. One of those projects was The Other Side of the Wind which was filmed off and on from 1970 to 1976, embroiled in various legal battles for decades thereafter, and has now been completed by a team overseen by Peter Bogdanovich and Frank Marshall. They'll Love Me When I'm Dead is a documentary companion piece to The Other Side of the Wind, detailing its troubled production as well as touching on several of his unfinished projects. Both are available on Netflix.

Review: The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

* * *
Director: Orson Welles
Starring: Joseph Cotton, Tim Holt, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Agnes Moorehead

Years after the fact, Orson Welles told biographer Barbara Leaming that before the final cut of The Magnificent Ambersons had been taken away from him, he felt more confident about the film's value than he had about that of Citizen Kane. Granted, you can chalk this up, to a certain degree, to lingering frustration at having had control taken away from him and at wistfulness for the career he might have had, one in which he achieved the creative control he wanted and one which didn't result in him leaving behind a long trail of unfinished projects, particularly when you take into account editor Robert Wise' assertion that Welles' original was not significantly better than the cut that became the film. Yet, it's hard to watch The Magnificent Ambersons, especially if you've read the novel, and not see the movie it could have been. It's a good movie, but the seams show, the ones left over from where those elements that could have made it great have been excised.

Review: The Stranger (1946)

* * *
Director: Orson Welles
Starring: Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young

Writing about The Lady From Shanghai yesterday prompted me to rewatch another of Orson Welles' films, this one a taut crime thriller about Nazis. When I first saw The Stranger a few years ago it didn't make much of an impression on me, but I liked it a lot more on rewatch. If nothing else, it adds a new dimension to Welles' clock speech from The Third Man.

Edward G. Robinson stars as Mr. Wilson, an investigator with the United Nations War Crimes Commission on the hunt for Nazi fugitives, one in particular. He's searching for Franz Kindler (Welles), a top level Nazi (of whom no photographs exist) who has eluded the authorities and assumed a new identity in the United States. Posing as Professor Charles Rankin, Kindler has settled into a nice life in Conneticut and even married Mary Longstreet (Loretta Young), the daughter of a Supreme Court Justice.

Wilson follows the trail to Connecticut and begins to connect the dots, however he can't find any hard evidence to back up his suspicions. Mary might be able to help the investigation, she being the only person who can connect Kindler/Rankin to a man named Meinike (Konstantin Shayne), a former Nazi associate, but she refuses to believe that her husband isn't who he claims to be. By the time she does start to realize that there's something to what Wilson has been telling her, Kindler/Rankin is pretty desperate and she may well become his next victim.

The Stranger unfolds with the efficiency of a well-oiled machine and Welles does a terrific job at building tension and creating memorable set pieces. The big climactic scene, which takes place in a clock tower is memorable and, in a word, awesome. Welles makes for a great villain in this film and, as a director and one of the writers, crafts a really terrific death scene for himself. I don't want to spoil it, but it's really perfect - Welles is a great filmmaker for a lot of reasons, but he's particularly good when it comes to providing satisfying payoffs.

On its release in 1946 The Stranger proved to be Welles' most financially successful film, though it was also reportedly one of his least favourite of his films. It's true that it is not as ambitious as his best remembered films - in fact, it's a pretty conventional thriller in a lot of ways - but it is, nevertheless, quite good. Although, I do wonder about one thing: before Wilson knows for sure that Rankin is Kindler they have a conversation about Karl Marx in which Rankin/Kindler, with a hint of aggression, says dismissively, "He wasn't a German, he was a Jew." It isn't until much later that Wilson has a lightbulb moment and realizes that something is very amiss about what Rankin/Kindler said. Even if 1946, would a comment like that have passed without immediate notice? By a guy hunting down Nazis? Seems like ignorance for the convenience of the plot to me and a bit lazy.

Review: The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

* * * 1/2
Director: Orson Welles
Starring: Tim Holt, Joseph Cotton, Anne Baxter, Agnes Moorehead

The Magnificent Ambersons has the dubious honor of being Orson Welles' follow-up to Citizen Kane, a film so great that it was destined to cast a long shadow over whatever came next, and so disasterous in terms of box office that it pretty much guaranteed that the studio would feel it necessary to undermine the artistic vision of its boy wonder director. Ambersons is famous for having been chopped up by the studio, which not only cut 50 minutes from it, but tacked-on a happy ending that's about as out of place as a musical number would be at the end of Saving Private Ryan. All that being said, Ambersons is still a really good movie, which is a testament to the power of Welles' vision and skill.

Adapted from the novel by Booth Tarkington, Ambersons charts the decline of a wealthy midwestern family against the changing face of America, marked by the invention of the automobile and the subsequent shift from small, cloistered communities to sprawling suburbs around urban hubs. At the head of the family is Major Amberson (Richard Bennett), whose daughter, Isabel (Dolores Costello) is much sought after by the young men in town. For a time, it seems as if she will choose Eugene Morgan (Joseph Cotten), but his wildstreak proves to be too much for her and she turns instead to the staid and dependable Wilbur Minafer (Don Dillaway), whose eventual death is met with the declaration that he was so quiet, no one will even realize he's gone.

Isabel and Wilbur have one child, George Amberson Minafer (Tim Holt), who runs through the town like a holy terror and knows he can get away with it because he's an Amberson (he's never referred to as a Minafer and frequently other characters call him "Mr. Amberson" and then have to correct themselves). By the time George is college-aged, Eugene returns to town and reconnects with the Isabel. Now a wealthy man, he also has a daughter, Lucy (Anne Baxter), who falls in love with George despite his overwhelming arrogance. Although George and Eugene clash from the beginning over both the Eugene's familiarity with Isabel and his introduction of the automobile - an invention George believes to be a "nuisance" - to town, things are relatively cordial between them until George is informed of rumors that Eugene and Isabel are in love. Isabel, bound by love for her son, agrees to go away to Europe with him and breaks off her engagement to Eugene. This is the beginning of the end for the Amberson family.

I've yet to read Tarkington's novel so I don't know what to attribute to him and what to credit to Welles, but I really love the way that this story is constructed to show the incredible transition not just in this one family, but in the organization of society as a whole. It begins with a delightful voice-over by Welles, who sets a scene of Old Worldesque gentility, where everyone in town lives side by side along a handful of streets, all close together, all very much involved in each other's lives, with the Ambersons and their enormous mansion at the centre. With the introduction of cars, the population becomes decentralized; people move out and into the suburbs (getting there, incidentally, along streets named for the Ambersons), and the community becomes less closely-knit. Throughout the film it is said that people can't wait for George to finally get his comeuppance and the tragedy of the story is not that George eventually does get it, but that there's no one left who cares because everyone has forgotten about the Amberson family.

When you hear that the studio cut nearly an hour from the film, you're inclined to think that it must have been really long to begin with, but Ambersons wasn't. The original cut ran about 2 and a half hours, not an exorbitant running time at all when you consider that many "prestige" films today run to about 3 hours. The final cut of Ambersons is 88 minutes and covers a lot of ground. I could easily have sat through another 50 minutes of this movie - I would have loved to see another 50 minutes of this movie. Save for the ending, I enjoyed every moment of this film, which sparkles with life although there is the sense as it reaches its conclusion that pieces are missing. While I would never argue that it's a better film than Citizen Kane, I would say that I like it more, perhaps because it carries less academic baggage. Welles said that if the studio had left it in his hands, Ambersons would have been at least as good as Kane. I totally believe that.

100 Days, 100 Movies: Citizen Kane (1941)

Director: Orson Welles
Starring: Orson Welles

I don’t know that there’s much point in writing about Citizen Kane - everything there is to say about it has already been said numerous times and in every possible way. But maybe that’s exactly why Orson Welles’ masterpiece is still worth talking about. Some films become bogged down by the weight of analysis attached to them, but Citizen Kane rises above the scrutiny it’s undergone to remain purely and essentially a fantastic film entertainment.

The film begins with the death of Charles Foster Kane (Welles), whose final word is “Rosebud”… or is it? Kane is alone in the room when he dies, his nurse entering when she hears him drop his snowglobe, which shatters on the floor. Whether truly his final word or not, the quest to attach meaning to Rosebud, and thereby define Kane, drives the story. We see multiple visions of Kane, as told from the perspectives of different people who knew him. The image we’re ultimately left with is of a lonely man who saw himself as an entity around which other people simply orbited like satellites. “You want to be loved – that’s all you want! I’m Charles Foster Kane. Whatever you want – just name it and it’s yours! Only love me! Don’t expect me to love you,” his wife, Susan (Dorothy Comingore) laments. Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotton) comes to a similar conclusion: “That’s all he ever wanted out of life, was love. That’s the tragedy of Charles Foster Kane. You see, he just didn’t have any to give.” Kane was big, built to be adored, and the people around him were designed to be accessories to his adoration, meant to put a face to it. But, of course, we the audience don’t get that idea from Kane himself, but the people who knew him, some of whom were spurned by him.

Technically and narratively this film is genius and would earn a spot on any “best list” on the strength of either aspect alone. There is the great sequence of Kane and his first wife at the breakfast table which grows longer and longer to symbolize the figurative distance that has grown between them. It is brief, but effective: an entire marriage summed up in a table. And there is the echoing cavern of Xanadu, filled to the brim with objects – so many that they must have been collected purely for the sake of having, rather than enjoying – but empty of life, emphasizing Kane’s isolation from the rest of humanity. There is the scene of Susan’s disastrous opera debut where the camera pans up from the stage to the stagehands far above, one of whom holds his nose to express his opinion. The list goes on and on.

From a narrative standpoint, the film has been much imitated. It tells the story of Charles Foster Kane in a fractured way, jumping to different points in time based on who is being interviewed. It is difficult to get an accurate sense of the chronology of events, which just emphasises the ultimate unknowability of Kane’s life and character. You just can’t pin him down. As Kane, Orson Welles is appropriately larger than life. As most people know, the character is based on publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst and there’s a certain degree of cheek to the way Welles carries himself on screen, as if eager to make trouble. It’s not just hard to imagine anyone else playing this role, it’s downright impossible. No one else could have pulled it off, no one else contained that kind of bravado that was specific to Welles. The rest of the cast is uniformly good, especially Cotton as Leland, who in one line about a girl he saw once from a distance (“I saw her for one second. She didn’t see me at all, but I’ll bet a month hasn’t gone by since that I haven’t thought of that girl.”) manages to reveal more about a character than is sometimes expressed in an entire screenplay.

The end of the film brings us back to the beginning, to Rosebud and the failure of Thompson (William Alland), the reporter, to ascribe meaning to it. But, ultimately, it isn’t really a failure because Thompson has come to recognize the futility of his quest: “Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn’t get, or something he lost. Anyway, it wouldn’t have explained anything… I don’t think any word can explain a man’s life. No, I guess Rosebud is just a piece in a jigsaw puzzle. A missing piece.” No one thing was ever going to define Kane because, like all people, his life and his being had multiple meanings and can’t be easily explained or contained. And in the final moments, when the sled emblazoned with “Rosebud” is tossed in the incinerator, it isn’t the meaning that is being lost, but just another symbol. Knowing that Rosebud is the name of a sled doesn’t help you to better understand the entirety of Kane’s person, it just adds dimension to an already complex life.

100 Days, 100 Movies: A Man For All Seasons (1966)

Director: Fred Zinneman
Starring: Paul Scofield, Robert Shaw, Wendy Hiller, Susannah York

To some a film about Sir Thomas More’s refusal to take an Oath of Supremacy and sanction Henry VIII’s annulment of his first marriage in order to marry Anne Boyleyn sounds, well, just a little dry. However, this film, which vibrates with life and intelligence, is anything but boring. With a compelling performance by the recently departed Paul Scofield at it’s center, and an electric supporting performance by Robert Shaw as Henry VIII, this is easily one of the most entertaining and engaging historical films ever made.

The stage is set at the beginning of the film by Cardinal Wolsey, played by Orson Welles who, as always, brings something a little special to the film (even a bad film is kind of good when Welles is involved). King Henry is seeking a divorce and Wolsey has summoned Sir Thomas More (Scofield) in an attempt to persuade him to change his position and support the King’s pursuit. It’s more or less a matter of politics, Wolsey explains, not a moral issue. More’s response is the heart of the story: “When statesmen forsake their own private consciences for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.” For More, a man who goes against what he feels is right has no place in a position of power. The film is smart in the way that it grounds More’s conviction less in a vague sense of what the public might think of him, and makes his immediate concern the opinion of his beloved daughter Meg (Susannah York). His struggle really is a personal one, not just in the way that it sets his own soul at ease, but also in the way that it allows him to look at his daughter with the certainty that whatever happens, she’ll know that he stood for something.

More’s refusal to spout the party line eventually leads to his imprisonment. He’s given numerous opportunities to change his stance, he’s debated with and mocked and separated from his family. He’s told that the oath doesn’t really mean anything, but still he stands firm in his refusal to swear it. Words mean something, More argues, and he won’t swear an oath he doesn’t believe in for the sake of convenience, because he believes that he’ll have to answer for it in the afterlife. Religious belief and argument play a fairly sizeable role in the film, but it isn’t preachy. This isn’t a story that aims to sway you to one side of the religious spectrum; it just means to show that religious affiliation is meaningless if you don’t stand for it’s tenets.

Scofield delivers an amazing performance as a man who has faith but is not fanatical, who wants to please but not if it will compromise his soul. There are no histrionics here, even when More must defend himself at Hampton Court. He is from beginning to end a steady, reasonable man, a man with serious issues to contend with who nevertheless retains his wit and sense of humour. As Henry VIII, Robert Shaw is simply larger than life, the energy of his performance seeming to expand the very limits of the screen. He delivers a complex, layered performance, showing us a man who is willing to bully and dominate in order to get what he wants, but is also plagued by insecurity stemming from the idea that what he’s doing really isn’t right. If More was to fall in line like everyone else, it wouldn’t just be a matter of saving face for Henry, it would also reassure him that he isn’t acting out of the bounds of his own authority.

The performances really make the film but something must also be said about the art direction and costume design. The color pallet (which reminds me quite a bit of another vibrant film - The Adventures of Robin Hood) helps bring the film so vividly to life, especially in the scenes involving Henry VIII, whose clothes are colourful and overpowering in the same way as his personality. In contrast, the costumes designed for Thomas Cromwell (Leo McKern) are appropriately subdued and dour, reflecting his personality. All the elements in this film, from top to bottom, come together fluidly and complement each other perfectly. If you’re looking for a movie that matches it’s style to it’s substance, look no further.

100 Days, 100 Movies: The Third Man (1949)

Director: Carol Reed
Starring: Joseph Cotton, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard, Orson Welles

The light goes on, illuminating the face of Harry Lime (Orson Welles), who smiles slightly. The light goes off and he disappears. But Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton) knows what he saw and has discovered the identity of the mysterious third man, a man who was supposedly a witness to the death of Harry Lime. It’s one of the best movie entrances ever, played exactly right on every level. And in the corrupt, topsy-turvy world of The Third Man it makes perfect sense that Lime would be a witness to his own death.

Carol Reed’s masterpiece takes place in a crumbling post-war Vienna divided into zones by the Allied troops, where the decadence of Old World art lives side-by-side with the black market commerce of the New World order. Holly has arrived to visit his friend Harry Lime, but instead finds him dead. He quickly falls for Anna (Alida Valli), Harry’s lover, and soon after discovers Harry, whose involvement in black market smuggling and peddling put a target on his back, necessitating his “death.” The British officer Major Calloway (Trevor Howard) is determined to catch Lime and makes a deal with Holly to trap him.

The relationship between Holly and Anna is interesting. He is immediately infatuated with her and wants to protect her (from both Major Calloway, who is convinced that she knows more about Lime than she lets on, and from the Russians who will repatriate her to Czechoslovakia if they discover that her passport is a forgery). She seems to like him, but also obviously sees him as a substitute for Harry (often she does call him Harry, a fact which does not go unnoticed by him). While Holly’s opinion of Lime changes with each new discovery about his business, Anna remains loyal in her love for him (“A person doesn’t change just because you find out more”), even after it becomes apparent that Lime is willing to let her take a fall with the authorities provided that his cover remains intact. Anna’s feelings for Harry never change, but her feelings for Holly are in constant flux until finally, with Harry’s death, Holly, too, is dead to her and the film ends with her walking right past him in the cemetery as if he doesn’t even exist.

Cotton and Valli both turn in good performances, but it’s Welles who looms large over the film. I don’t think any actor has ever had a presence quite like his. When he appears on screen, no matter how big the part, you just know it’s about to get so good, even if the film itself is not. This is a film that is equal to his talent and, in the relatively small amount of screen time that he has, gives him a lot to play with and supplies him with a lot of lines of the type that he knows exactly what to do with. “Victims?” Lime asks Holly as they take a sinister ride in a Ferris wheel, “Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?” And then, upon disembarking, he utters his famous line about the Swiss inventing the cuckoo clock. Once lines like these are said by Orson Welles, you really can’t imagine them being effectively uttered by anyone else.

The Third Man is an intricately constructed film. If you see something once (Kurtz’s dog, the little boy, the cat), it will show up again later in the film as part of an important plot turn. The story itself is constructed on repetitions. Lime is buried twice in the film, Anna is constantly being escorted away from Holly by the police, Holly twice returns to the spot where Lime died to stage a recreation. It’s as if the characters are attempting to go back in time and rewrite history. Holly himself is a writer who is, more or less, attempting to impose his will on the story and change it, only to find that he is at the story’s mercy instead of the other way around.

While the film would be perfectly good based solely on it’s writing and performances, the direction by Reed is what elevates it to the realm of masterpiece. We are keyed immediately to the fact that all is not what it seems by the way that the film is shot, with the camera tilted so that images come to us at an angle. This isn’t a straight forward, up-and-down world. It’s a world seen largely in shadow, shadows which both reveal and distort reality. The way that the film plays with light and shadow contribute in no small part to it’s atmosphere and it's success as a film, as do the surroundings on which the shadows are cast. The Vienna we see here is a decaying city, with large portions still in ruins – like Harry, the city itself is both dead and living.

The final chase through the labyrinthine sewers under Vienna is the highlight of the film. We see Lime desperate, trapped, surrounded and finally killed, more or less requesting death than succumbing to it. The way this sequence is controlled and executed demonstrates the power of Reed’s direction. It is a chase fraught with tension for both Lime and the audience, and it's directed and photographed magnificently. When Oscar time rolled around, this film was nominated for three: Director, Editing and Cinematography (which it won), and it’s easy to see why – the film is like a master class in technical perfection.