Best Orson Welles film (as director)

I'm also controversially putting It's All True in the "unfinished" category.

I've never seen Mr. Arkadin, The Fountain of Youth or The Immortal Story

I saw Arkadin and The Immortal Story on BBC2 back in the seventies. Liked the latter (well, you know, Jeanne Moreau...) and thought the former was a bit flip.

Don't think I've ever seen The Fountain Of Youth but apparently it was a short that he did in 1958, straight after Touch Of Evil.

Oh and Hearts of Age, don't know that that is.

I like all of these films!

lady from shanghai just to choose

Hearts Of Age was from 1934, and pretty much a home movie; I think he and his first wife play everybody in it.

well, i havent seen all of them, but 'lady from shanghai' is such a monster i may as well go for it.

Never seen any of them!

f for fake, for sure. it's a masterpiece, like a calvino novel in cinema, welles back in the editing room with a vengeance.

Citizen Kane. No apologies.

This is pretty hard, though I'd actually be pretty floored if Touch of Evil doesn't win in the end.

My vote's either going to be Ambersons or Chimes.

It's either Citizen Kane or Touch of Evil. But I think Xanadu clinches it.

the trial is pimp

I watch Touch of Evil most often these days, but what survives of Ambersons shames every period piece filmed in the 1940's (David Thomson: while most filmmakers turn Henry James into Booth Tarkington, Welles makes Tarkington look like James).

Ambersons almost got my vote, too late now tho

I've only seen a few of these, but I think I have to agree with Schlump.

The most sheerly entertaining of the bunch is still Citizen Kane, though.

Oh, I think I'd give that title to Touch of Evil.

Yeah I haven't seen enough to vote but I love love love F for Fake.

"Touch of Evil" for sure.

Never seen what remains of "Magnificent Ambersons", I was always put off by the story behind it getting cut to pieces, really depressing.

Lovely film. I cried. Always.

The chat between Joseph Cotten and Anne Baxter about Indians is as deeply weird as the Janet Leigh-Frank Sinatra train exchange in The Manchurian Candidate.

The latter being perhaps the greatest het exchange in Hollywood history.

What, no "garden fragment" from The Dreamers??? J/K

You can watch The Fountain of Youth here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKYw6aImTmA

And k*r*g*rg* has The Other Side Of The Wind.

I'm going with Ambersons today. I prefer my films broken anyway.

Actually, all these films are broken save for the first two.

ambersons!

I want to say 'The Trial', but 'Touch of Evil' just can't be beat.

Othello

easiest POO ever -- chimes at midnight, my fav film ever.

anyone who pleads ignorance can see it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOhq0AyRNjY&feature=related

'filming othello' is a real film and shd be on the list.

Actually, all these films are broken save for the first two.

not true -- 'othello,' 'trial,' 'chimes,' and 'immortal story' all came out exactly the way welles wanted them.

ambersons by a wide margin
cool site: http://www.ambersons.com/

Chimes. At. Midnight. = because it's all Welles, untampered-with, at his peak.

Then Ambersons a close second.

there was an article in 'vanity fair' a while back about the search for the missing 'ambersons' footage, and there was an interview with a guy welles hired to look through the complete RKO archives about a year before his death -- no luck. heartbreaking.

Actually, all these films are broken save for the first two.

not true -- 'othello,' 'trial,' 'chimes,' and 'immortal story' all came out exactly the way welles wanted them.

By "broken," I didn't necessarily mean "not as Welles wanted them." I'm using it more to denote a kind of "inorganic" quality, e.g. the crummy soundtrack of Chimes which suits the film thematically and makes it all the greater.

But I don't see how you can say that Othello "came out exactly the way welles wanted (it)." For one thing, Welles clearly "wanted" it several different ways as he edited at least two different versions of it in the 1950s. For another, the various 1990s "restorations" created different artifacts, ones that most likely do not conform to how Welles would have wanted it.

All of which only augments the vertiginous pleasures of Welles fandom.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

you know, in retrospect, Kane is the best, and you're all being contrarians.

contrarian, zing thyself

You voted for Othello, Morbs! It isn't even his best Shakespeare film.

Well I voted for Kane, so I win

Alfred likes Macbeth, easily his worst Shakes film!

I haven't seen either his Othello or his Macbeth, but they'd have to be serious best-of-all-time material to be any better than Chimes.

Macbeth is definitely not better than CAM.

the greatest het exchange in Hollywood history

which begs the question ...

You're up at bat, Eric.

ambersons is sooo close, but I have to go with f for fake.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

dude wtf with the low Touch of Evil showing! guess I should've voted but I refrained cuz I haven't seen a bunch of these

Answer: it's not that good.

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/8894/kaneklapqo6.gif

Oh ILX, will your surprise poll results never cease?

I request that from now on all ILX instances of the Welles slow clap be replaced with Heath Ledger Joker slow clap

lol I was going to post both of them

Never seen The Immortal Story. Is this available?

no, but it gets an occasional late-night showing on TCM.

how the hell did i note vote in this

would have voted touch of evil ftw

ilx

Ambersons Ambersons Ambersons. Even what survives of it dwarves most filmmakers entire oeuvres

Touch of Evil = extremely overrated tho

ppl who voted for Arkadin or F for Fake: banned from filmwatching

I'm under the impression both are perfectly respectable choices. In fact, I'm under the impression anything short of The Fountain of Youth or The Hearts of Age is a respectable choice.

no way! The Stranger?!

ppl who voted for Arkadin or F for Fake: banned from filmwatching

I can see maybe saying that re: Arkadin (although I adore the shit out of it) but F for Fake? Please to explain.

it's a cute stunt. Doesn't operate on anywhere the number of levels that Kane, Ambersons, ToE, Othello etc do. Unless you fall for, OHHHH, MAGIC / HOAXES / REALITY, AH'M SOOO KONFUZED...

Touch of Evil doesn't really work on "the number of levels" either, but then again, I partially buy into Kael's pronouncement of Kane as a "shallow masterpiece" and don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

What people often miss when they get het up over Kael's remark is that she italicized "shallow." She wasn't at all denying that CK was a great film deserving all the kudos.

Yeah, me neither. The deeper I think you get into Kane, the less rewarding, but if you just hang out at the surface, yeah, it's one of the greatest movies evah, obv.

ToE is the one I'd call the shallow masterpiece; brilliantly executed, and still "just" a tarted-up dirty-cop grinder. At least Welles never made a horror film. ;)

Kane's biggest weaknesses are in the parts of the dialogue where the Poor Little Rich Man theme is made overexplicit (more OW than Mankiewicz? I'll have to reread that Callow bio to check).

also, Simon Callow points out in his vol 2 that if Ambersons had been released acc to OW's wishes, there still would've been imperfect things about it, starting with the curious casting of Tim Holt.

Yeah, no perfection in this filmography, thankfully.

I don't mind Holt much anymore. His awkwardness helps the character, and he does look chastened at the end.

Other Kane weaknesses: the chronology of the first marriage and meeting Suzie is muddled; "What would you like to have been?" "Everything you hate!"; and Thompson's last speech.

Tim Holt is fine

but he's the wrong kind of (cowboy) actor! Not a persuasive silver-spoon Hoosier brat.

He persuaded me. I wanted to smack the shit out of him.

Seth Rogen for the remake, then.

I bet Holt could have pulled off Mozart in Amadeus.

He's much more in his element in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, sure.

I don't know if F For Fake is all that great a film, but the section with Welles's monologue on Chartres cathedral is one of my favourite things in all cinema.

i've decided to celebrate the new year by rewatching all of OW's films in order. anyone with me?

I don't know if F For Fake is all that great a film, but the section with Welles's monologue on Chartres cathedral is one of my favourite things in all cinema.

― Alba, Thursday, 7 August 2008 16:21 (1 year ago)

pretty much came here to post this

F For Fake is an awesome and compelling mindfuck and OW is like some sort of sly jovial God lumbering with Iberian aspect throughout a maze of artistic deflections

before Morbs leaps on me though I gotta say I need to see more Welles - only seen Othello aside from this

Why on earth are Chimes and Ambersons not available on DVD??? Very frustrating.

in the case of Chimes, rights disputes I'm sure.

it'd be sad to watch these on youtube but i guess that's what i'll have to do.

My copy of Ambersons is a PBS showing in the mid nineties. Good condition too.

Other Kane weaknesses: ... What would you like to have been?" "Everything you hate!"

of course alfred had to go and pick on my favorite line!

'ambersons' gets showed on TCM pretty often, i think. no idea why it isn't out on dvd, unless they're holding out for a 'metropolis'-style miracle. more and more i think it's his best film -- so many shots in there are like nothing else i've ever seen in a movie.

there was some shitty dvd of ambersons in spain or mexico or somewhere and it was rlsed on xvid years ago, only copy i've seen of it but still my favourite film of his

Saw Othello a few months ago in a theater — some audio sync problems but it's Welles at his sensory-overload baroquely excessive best.

Just watched "Black Magic" (aka "Cagliostro"). What a hoot. Probably the most 'fun' Welles prior to "F For Fake". Also, so obviously directed by him for the majority of the film that I'm surprised it's not considered his.

Didn't mean to put fun in quotes there.

i saw The Trial the other day. Great effort but kind of a mess. one of those things they shouldn't have tried to do in the first place

Nah, I love Anthony Perkins in the role, and the extra dialogue Welles wrote.

it's fine on its own

Poor Peter Bogdanovich couldn't understand how Kafka could be funny -- yet another example of the illiteracy of film directors.

feel bad saying this since OW is my favorite film guy for life but 'the trial' doesn't really work for me, the 'before the law' opening aside.

Certainly love the fact that Perkins was cast in the role, but it doesn't turn out to be as good as you think.

ppl who voted for Arkadin or F for Fake: banned from filmwatching
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, August 7, 2008 8:11 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Awarded a long-overdue SB for this comment.

oh, cmon

and remember, Starman is John Carpenter's best.

And there's another one.

I really don't think it works that way, Pope Eric

Rest assured: I SB'd you both.

I'd like to re-poll this one. Also S&S '12 if Kane takes that one.

wau, ya woulda made a "great dictator"

(based on an idea by Orson Welles)

And you would've made a great court jester.

(based on a genre of film by untalented hacks)

the vessel in yer pestle

I really think I may have been wrong about Jerry Lewis.

Rent/dl/steal and watch "Black Magic", fellow film geeks. Have fun!

havent seen The Trial since i was a kid, but i thot it was amazing then

yeah the trial is good. saw it first while stoned out of my head and really dug it: the soviet bloc style tower blocks, the weird frisson with the chix, the running around latticed mazes casting crazy shadows, the play on the psycho persona with the nervous repressed nice young man free of crime this time if still moved to temper, the bizarre variation on the kafka ending

Dennis Perrin on growing old w/ Ambersons:

http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2012/05/lost-in-amber.html

well and beautifully said.

Yeah, Macbeth definitely not on the same playing field as Chimes at Midnight.

But still much better than I expected from a movie shot in 3 weeks in salt mines.

and much better than Othello.

fond memories of his Macbeth. I guess I should get around to seeing the Magnificent Ambersons one of these days

Didn't realize DVD was now available as a standalone.

I remember Roddy McDowall being kinda terrible in Macbeth... Othello all the way among Shakespeares.

Yeah, Roddy isn't going to make a great king.

Will get back to you to call you totally insane, Morbs, when I finally get around to Othello.

tsk tsk, you have become what I was merely rumored to be....

That's a throne you will never vacate.

Not only does Macbeth boast one of Welles' few good performances, the one by Jeanette Nolan is almost as good.

no, I do what's necessary and leave. xp

oh, you go envision Cary Grant as Titus Andronicus!

"one of Welles' few good performances"

Hah, OK, so that's what it looks like when I do that.

I get my jollies envisioning Archie as Rosalind.

Hah, OK, so that's what it looks like when I do that.

insightful?

i maintain that OW never made any bad films, but 'macbeth' is better than 'othello'

I, too, haven't seen a "bad" Orson Welles movie yet.

The Stranger probably.

Bad performances he's got, er, tons of.

If performances like his are bad, I don't really give a care about good ones.

He's hopeless playing a straightforward love scene (e.g. Tomorrow is Forever).

Well, yeah, who wants to see that? (Tho I was surprised at how rowr he was -- by his standards -- early on in Macbeth.)

I rewatched Ambersons last night; I always forget that's Anne Baxter as Cotten's daughter. She was allegedly 18 or 19. That scene where she faints in the drugstore AFTER Welles swings the lens away from her... who did THAT, ever, in Hollywood?

Tim Holt's fine as Georgie, as written at least. Love the way he says "Umph, strawberry shortcake" in the kitchen with Aunt Fanny.

The George-Mom relationship really isn't that compelling for an Oedipal drama tho. A near-great amputee of a movie, still.

Cotten is magisterial in a quiet sad way that's always killed me.

and that's after he's introduced slapstickily, exhibiting male fashion habits of 1900, then taking a pratfall.

the Baxter-Cotten chat about Indians is one of my favorite throwaway surreal bits in movies.

well, it's pretty thematically relevant, tho I'm not sure if the chief who gets set adrift is Morgan or George...

(I wonder if it's in Booth Tarkington)

there's a bit in the Thomson bio where he observes that Welles make Tarkington as deep as Henry James whereas most screen adaptations of James look like...Tarkington.

btw I still own this on VHS recorded from the local PBS station twenty years ago

The most beautiful (and most nostalgic) shot in the film has to be the iris at the end of the snow ride:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJxgrxl5BRM

The George-Mom relationship really isn't that compelling for an Oedipal drama tho.

one of the most fucked-up things about what RKO did to 'ambersons' is that they didn't just cut stuff, they actually RESHOT a couple of scenes to make tim holt more 'sympathetic' and less of a dick. so it was probably more intense in the original cut.

sabotage and all, this feels like welles's...deepest and most resonant movie, somehow. so many little bits of it just stick with me.

Then he fades in on the wake of George's father. xp

Is there a list somewhere of the post-Welles changes that are in the film?

The Callow bio reviews them.

i probably woulda voted for amberson or chimes, but as pure entertainment, c.k. has never stopped being a hoot.

Yes--I couldn't remember exactly what it was, but I knew the iris shot got some of its power from the contrast with whatever directly followed.

Essentially saw The Lady from Shanghai for the first time the other night (part of the Godard series). I did see it once years ago, but it was one of those nights I was really tired and shouldn't have gone to a movie. I knew the finale very well--it used to be part of the opening montage for TVO's Saturday Night at the Movies, and I've also shown it in class.

Anyway, fantastic. I'd have to watch them back-to-back, but I think I'd take it over Touch of Evil. Probably just as strange, too, primarily thanks to Glenn Anders. His first appearance has to rank up there with Welles in The Third Man and Hopper in Blue Velvet for spectacular entrances. (Possibly a thread there.) At first I didn't think Hayworth was as beautiful as in Gilda, but once she started wearing those sailor suits, wow. And the big finale is show-offy genius. Can't disagree with my friend: you can imagine Welles working on the script, sitting there with the last scene written and trying to figure out a movie to attach to it. Loved Everett Sloane, too. Hayworth gets a little too talkative and philosophical in her death scene, but that'd be my only minor quibble.

Apparently it was cut by at least an hour too. At least as much of a pity as Ambersons' mutilation imho.

Digital restoration of Othello showing soon.

Glenn Anders' film career was almost non-existent--he doesn't even get a little thumbnail photo on IMDB. Seems he was much more of a theatre guy.

You always want to have access to the director's original film, especially Welles, but it's hard for me to imagine where he would have gone with the extra hour--it really did seem close to perfect as is.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4aduA-eWwAg/UKWOli6MGXI/AAAAAAAAvAM/RibsFQ9JpfA/s400/a+Orson+Welles+The+Lady+from+Shanghai+Rita+Hayworth+DVD+Review+PDVD_014.jpg

well, sure it's hard for US to imagine...

http://www.filmcomment.com/article/a-face-in-the-crowd-glenn-anders

I've tried LFS several times, each time bored. I dunno if it's Welles' performance or the movie itself that's attenuated.

it's very funny!

Someone take Alfred out for a little tarrrrr-get practice.

(Kidding. I'm often on here expressing ambivalence about famous films. I must have been in exactly the right frame of mind this time.)

Essentially saw The Lady from Shanghai for the first time the other night

Me too! If, over the past several decades, you had asked me if I had seen it, I was certain I had. But I really only knew the hall of mirrors finale; everything else was new to me. What a crazy movie.

The Lady from Shanghai would be vastly improved if he didn't have that shit Irish accent, but still it is brilliant. The opening sequence of The Stranger is awesome, I quite love it but it is a failure of sorts. Both CK and the Ambersons are movies I will continually re-watch until I die.

Just noticed that The Lady From Shanghai soundtrack has a quote from "Amado Mio," one of Rita's big numbers from Gilda.

This tune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2czNzWnkOcI

trying to go through all the ones I haven't seen yet and if there's a worst one I think Alfred is right, it's the Stranger

love everything else to varying degrees. still need to see Othello, the Immortal Story and the Fountain of Youth

The Stranger is the most nakedly commercial, and i always found it totally fine. Mr Arkadin and The Trial, while more ambitious and... stranger, take some getting used to.

it's not that The Stranger is bad, it's just that everything else is better! Or at least has more interesting things going on. Welles' performance isn't remotely convincing, and the rest seems fairly standard.

Mr. Arkadin is bonkers and a lot of the cast is appropriately scenery-chewing (my favorite being Welles drunkenly staggering around on the swaying boat) so although it is a mess in terms of narrative and pacing I give it points for being fitfully engaging instead of just boring.

Visually the Trial is fantastic. The constant jabbery overdubbed Welles' dialogue gets soporific though.

just saw lady from shanghai (part of a double feature — touch of evil is next). as I’m sure everyone agrees, the ending is fantastic. welles’ accent didn’t bother me nearly as much as the sound editing (unless it was just the theater?). I thought the courtroom scenes were probably the weakest part of the movie, and while she is very easy to look at, all the closeups of hayworth were a little distracting, but overall a really good film. agree with clemenza about grisby’s entrance

imo, F for Fake is hugely overrated. The idea was clever, but not enough to carry a full length film, and certainly not a full length film as poorly executed as that one was.

alright touch of evil fucking ruled

the opening long shot, wow, I need to find that and watch it again

some incredible performances in this — welles especially, heston, andthat fortune-teller lady

a really unnervingly charming blend of camp and menace

andthat fortune-teller lady

touch of evil gets better every time i see it, there isn't really another movie that's anything like it

otm

the opening long shot, wow, I need to find that and watch it again

some incredible performances in this — welles especially, heston, andthat fortune-teller lady

a really unnervingly charming blend of camp and menace

― k3vin k., Sunday, June 23, 2019

I had the pleasure of showing it in my film class last Thursday, and I was delighted that half the class rode the groove even when it unnerved them. The idea of Heston playing a Mexican amused them; the quasi-rape scene did not.

I was a little more nagged-at by The Lady from Shanghai's filler when I watched it last night: the courtroom stuff (although Everett Sloane's soliloquy about Welles's fate is memorable), and, if I'm honest, just a lot of the film when they're not in the aquarium and not in the funhouse. The story is convoluted and absurd (hardly an anomaly in the world of noir). But those two scenes and Glenn Anders as Grisby make up for everything (Rita Hayworth in a sailor suit, too). Grisby is like Timothy Carey in The Killing, or Joseph Wiseman in Detective Story (or Dennis Weaver in Touch of Evil)--it's hard to say if Anders is even trying to remain in sync with the film you're watching, or if he's simply off doing some other movie known only to him, and if the two happen to intersect, all the better. Visually, the aquarium scene is somewhat of a practice run for the funhouse later on, and the funhouse sequence was the clip I showed my last few primary classes in trying to demonstrate what a film director did. The original trailer for the film is on YouTube--there is conspicuously nothing from the funhouse sequence, suggesting that Welles wanted to extract every last iota of astonishment from anyone who went to see the film. (There's a fan trailer that uses the funhouse liberally.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3lW5UKsbP4

k*r*g*rg* has The Other Side Of The Wind

Strange way to spell "Netflix".

Tbf that post was made 10 years before it was on Netflix.

Saw the Orson Welles arena doc on YouTube. He is so often funny and insightful, with a good dose of bullshit thrown in, but fine, that's part of him (you realize how baked in this is in his acting).

Bogdanovic was a real weakness as a talking head.

Loved the bits on Toland, politics (and why he didn't run for office), on his commercials/acting work (imagine him in The Godfather lol), on not watching other people's films as a way to keep an innocence, his disdain for long takes/tracking shots, and how he loved making films.

at what age and film would you introduce your kid to welles? i was thinking about "chimes of midnight" but it's been several years.

He is an adult filmmaker but...it has to be Kane. I was introduced while watching all the Simpsons parodies of it so maybe via that.

Back when TV used to show old films I probably saw it on a Saturday afternoon on BBC2 while the other two channels were showing the racing.

Has your kid been exposed to much classic Hollywood? My dad raised me on Bogart flicks and screwball comedies, Welles seems a bit Advanced Studies in comparison.

Chimes definitely feels like jumping into the deep end, I feel like it would have mostly gone over my head as a kid (but then again I'm dumb so idk.)

Macbeth is pretty fun & accessible imo, especially if the kid has covered it in school. When we read Macbeth in 10th grade my teacher showed us the Polanski version and I found it a slog, I feel like I would have loved the Welles version if I'd seen it then.

As always - but with Welles more than most - I think you need to have a decent print on a big screen to really convert the young ppl. And Kane is obviously a pretty 'teachable' film, even now - as good an introduction as any to ideas about deep focus photography, Freudian symbolism, metanarrativity etc.

at what age and film would you introduce your kid to welles?

I can't remember the context, but I saw an inteview once with Graham Yost (the screenwriter of Speed), and he recalled his dad--Elwy Yost, who hosted a longtime program on public television in Toronto, Saturday Night at the Movies--writing a absentee note to one of Graham's high school teachers, explaining that his father had given him permission to stay up late the previous night so he could watch Citizen Kane. Yost broke down as he recounted the story--very moving.

My experience with Citizen Kane: saw it as a #teen, was very indifferent to it. Came back to it after seeing dozens of films from that era and had my mind opened to what it was doing formally, how audacious it was, loved it on those terms. Subsequent viewings have permitted the emotional connection to surface alongside the technical admiration.

We show Shakespeare film adaptations to ours, that’s why I was thinking his going big Falstaff performance wouldn’t be too far out of their wheelhouse.

Don’t forget Othello! (You may have to talk to your kids about how blackface was once considered acceptable)

I think if you approach CK as a fun melodrama with twists and turns and acerbic lines you'll get a better response with students (as I have) than if you're like OMIGOD BEST FILM EVER WHOA NELLY.

I can't imagine starting anywhere else with Welles other than TOE.

I was gonna say, the other Welles film I saw as a teen was Touch of Evil and unlike Kane it clicked with me right away, I loved it, just good old fashioned fun.

Yeah, thirded.

But frankly if the kid is already Shakespearepilled, sure, Chimes should go down well.

Ambersons?

I was going to suggest The Magnificent Ambersons if your kid is over 60--beautiful film.

Touch of Evil unless he’s already seen a lot of old Hollywood films in which case go for Kane.