| Classic Orson
Welles
This series is an Aero Theatre Exclusive!
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Where do you begin with Orson Welles, a man with a talent and
imagination so prodigious that he spanned radio, films, television, books, theater and
excelled in them all? From his first film masterpiece CITIZEN KANE - more often
than not described as one of the best movies ever made - to his checkered career fighting
for funding to realize his directorial vision, Welles stands alone, holding a special
place in the pantheon of cinematic greats. Welles himself (in F FOR FAKE) made the
self-deprecating remark, "I began at the top and have been working my way down
ever since," – referring to the popular misconception that his post-KANE
career somehow never delivered on his initial promise. In reality, Welles delivered again
and again on that promise, in such dazzling and unexpected ways that audiences, critics
and other filmmakers are still trying to catch up. How else can one describe a career that
encompasses such films as THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI,
OTHELLO, TOUCH OF EVIL, THE TRIAL, MACBETH, an astonishingly rich legacy of
television (including "The Fountain Of Youth"), as well as legendary
"unfinished" films such as THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND and DON QUIXOTE? Although
he had to jump through bigger and bigger hoops to secure financing for his movies, dealing
with an industry used to mediocrity, somehow he managed to create and put his art in the
public eye for over four decades. A brilliantly dramatic actor, always delivering a droll
performance with seemingly little effort, he was a genius director, capable of creating
works that were simultaneously tragic, elegiac, lyrical, satirical, playfully surreal and
pulpy, miraculously managing to integrate all these traits into a style that is
immediately recognizable as "Wellesian."
Wednesday, January 4 – 7:30 PM
CITIZEN KANE, 1941, Warner Bros., 119
min. Orson Welles was only 25 when he directed this masterpiece, and it remains one
of the most phenomenal motion pictures ever made. Trailblazing in so many aspects, from
Gregg Toland’s complex camera and lighting to Bernard Herrmann’s score to one of
the finest ensemble casts (including Welles, Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane and
Agnes Moorehead) ever assembled. With an Academy Award-winning script by Welles and
Herman Mankiewicz.
Saturday, January 7 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature!
TOUCH OF EVIL, 1958,
Universal, 111 min. Orson Welles’ hallucinatory, off-kilter masterwork stars Charlton
Heston in one of his finest roles as a Mexican policeman trapped on the wrong side of
the border, where a corpulent, corrupt cop (Welles) tries to stop him from digging into
the past. Janet Leigh co-stars as Heston’s newlywed wife, menaced by
leather-clad Mercedes McCambridge and her gang of juvenile delinquents. Co-starring Akim
Tamiroff, Marlene Dietrich, Joseph Calleia. We’re screening the restored
version, reconstructed in 1998 according to Welles’ original notes.
THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, 1948,
Columbia, 87 min. The camera is the star in one of director Orson Welles’ most
phantasmagorical films, a dazzling noir thriller about a seaman, a crippled lawyer and his
homicidal wife pursuing each other through a "bright, guilty world" of
infidelity, deception and murder. The hall of mirrors climax is riveting. With Orson
Welles, Rita Hayworth and Everett Sloane.
Sunday, January 8 – 6:00 PM
New 35 mm print! MACBETH, 1948, Paramount, 107 min. Dir. Orson
Welles. We’re very pleased to present this painstakingly
restored (to its original form) version, led by the UCLA Film & TV Archives
preservation officer Robert Gitt. The film had been cut by 21 minutes, re-recorded to
"Americanize" the dialogue, and then rarely shown. Gitt tracked down the missing
footage and original, Scottish-accented soundtrack, plus the Jacques Ibert overture and
exit music. Critic Stanley Kauffman wrote about the restoration: "Whatever the
details of Gitt’s job, Welles’ MACBETH is now a bold, exciting, innovative
film." The innovations cannot be overstated. Longtime Welles collaborator Richard
Wilson considered MACBETH "the greatest experimental American film ever made under
the Hollywood studio system," and the restored footage includes a reel-long take.
The studio was driven mad by the many retakes the ten-minute sequence required. Eight
parts Welles to two parts Shakespeare, MACBETH was shot around Salt Lake City and features
low-budget grandiosity, plus Welles in an intense, towering performance as the tormented
Scots king, "one of the best elements of the film, thrilling and a bit poignant
… In every one of the big moments, Welles rises to the heroic." (Kauffman)
(Program notes courtesy James Quandt/Cinematheque Ontario.) |
