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"orson welles has the biggest dick of them all. it's insaen" —Willow Catelyn Maclay

Seriously underrated this on my first watch a couple of years ago. Welles' performance as Falstaff is fucking unreal—he's great in a lot of other movies, but even his best performances tend to be "Orson Welles with [x] veneer." Not so here—he is Falstaff, the Platonic ideal of the character. And the central Battle of Shrewsbury remains breathtaking over fifty years later—the editorial feat of making less than 200 extras appear to be armies of thousands is just . . . God, what do you even say?

Also, I feel like this film is probably definitive evidence that no movie should be longer than two hours (I say as someone who loves quite a few three-hour movies). Orson Welles folded both parts of Henry IV and bits and pieces of three other plays into one two-hour movie and in doing so made one of the best Shakespeare films ever. Bad Times at the El Royale had to be 140 minutes why, exactly?

Damn.

Fucking revelatory in the context of the period—if this had been released in 1976 as Welles intended, it would have broken people's brains. The documentary/found-footage conceit is already like nothing else from that time, but throw in an editing style that's most accurately described as F for Fake on steroids and it becomes unreal. The film-within-a-film, even though it's designed to poke fun at the New Wave, is unbelievably pretty—for someone who insisted on shooting on black-and-white for the majority of his career, Welles is a master of color.

In terms of content, I want to take time (and rewatches) to digest, but it's far and away Welles' funniest movie. He's taking shots at everyone, including himself, and refuses to let up for nearly two hours. Huston is, of course, fantastic, but Bogdanovich is maybe even better, and the two characters' relationship is even more poignant if you're familiar with the relationship Bogdanovich and Welles shared.

Of course, we'll never truly know what Welles' definitive version of the film would have been, and the bits and pieces that remind us of this are a bit jarring—Bogdanovich had to rewrite the opening narration, as Welles never recorded it, and its casual mention of cell phone cameras is so fucking weird. But in a way that's the perfect capstone to the man's career—his filmography is a collection of ghosts, movies that were robbed of their definitive versions or made on shoestring budgets or simply thrown away. In any case, I'm comfortable with calling it one of my favorites of his, and I suspect my appreciation will only grow upon further viewings.

Got to fly out to San Francisco and see it on a theatre screen, which I'll be eternally grateful for. It just felt right (she said, the pretentious ass). Pairs very well with the bummer of a companion documentary They'll Love Me When I'm Dead, which is also on Netflix and examines all the rotten luck that prevented Welles from finishing the film while he was alive.

Touch of Evil is excellent--since you have the Blu, make sure you do the cut that was reconstructed according to his wishes (restores a lot of stuff the studio trimmed for very arbitrary reasons). Kane is, of course, Kane, and Chimes at Midnight and F for Fake are masterpieces too.

Basically every single one of his movies is worth seeing--even Mr. Arkadin and The Immortal Story, which are my least favorites, have some gorgeous cinematography, and The Magnificent Ambersons, while it was savaged within an inch of its life by RKO, still has remnants of greatness.

Last edited by Abbie (2018-11-05 17:47:33)

looks around

whispers

kinda didn't love it

It's good, of course! In my top 20 of the year, no question. The photography and sound mix are legitimately breathtaking. I swear to god this will be the last movie for a while where I mention I'm glad Netflix put it in theatres, but seriously, this demands to be seen big—Cuaron shot on the Alexa 65 and the clarity and depth of field are fucking insane.

But it left me cold emotionally, which I feel guilty even typing because God knows Cuaron is one of my favorite directors and everyone else seems to be head over heels for it. Were it a first-time feature I'd probably be knocked on my ass, and the photography, again because I can't emphasize it enough, is stunning. Just didn't do it for me feelings-wise in the way Children of Men, Y Tu Mama Tambien, or Gravity have.