I recently wrote that I am not a worshiper of artists. But when I looked at how Orson Welles’ films have been rated over at Rotten Tomatoes, I was shocked. Here they are in chronological order, followed by their rating in parentheses:

Some of these ratings I quite agree with. One can hardly argue with Citizen Kane, a movie that is quite good on so many levels. But The Stranger gets 95%?! It is by far the worst film Welles ever directed—his attempt to make nice with the studio system. It is a good example of what happens to artists who get too political (e.g. Picasso’s WWII posters): it is a perfectly workmanlike film. Sure, it’s about as good as anyone else’s work at that time. And that’s the problem.

I will put them in the order I think they deserve. I reserve the right to change my mind at any time.

Yes, F for Fake is my favorite of Welles’ films. It is not only a great film, it was a totally new kind of film that no one has picked up on to this day. It is not a documentary. It is a filmed personal essay. In a time when the written personal essay is coming back in a big way, I don’t see why filmmakers haven’t picked up on it. Unless it is like Mozart’s music: it’s a lot harder than Welles makes it look.

The Trial is quite simply a perfect film. I cannot imagine how anyone will ever be able to better translate Kafka’s nightmare to the screen. It is disturbing, of course. What do you expect? Welles said that it was his favorite movie, not that it matters. He also said this about Chimes at Midnight.

Most Welles fans will find it surprising, my placement of Mr. Arkadin so high on the list. But unless you have seen the Corith or Comprehensive versions, you really haven’t seen the film. Every time I watch it, I perceive it differently. It is always and forever an exciting experience.

Ah, Touch of Evil. “You wanna go check it out? Watch Charlton Heston play a Mexican?” What could be better? Perhaps, Marlene Dietrich saying, “He was some kind of a man… What does it matter what you say about people?” Or Welles telling her, “It’s either the candy or the hooch. I must say, I wish it was your chili I was getting fat on. Anyway, you’re sure looking good.” And there’s that whole business of the three and a half minute tracking shot that takes us from the US across the border to Mexico. And there’s just about everything in the film. Yeah, it is totally genre. Totally great.

Yeah, yeah. Citizen Kane. The greatest film of all time. Whatever. It is a great film. I’ve seen it 20 times. It does not age as well as Mr. Arkadin.

I’ve already talked about Chimes at Midnight. Welles was the first director to figure out how to do Shakespeare on screen. Step one, cut That Bard savagely… Note, this film is badly in need of restoration, so if anyone has a million dollars lying around…

The Magnificent Ambersons is a stunning movie. But imagine if someone took a razor and cut the face out of the Mona Lisa. Now you have an idea of what’s going on in this film. The studio took it away from Welles, cut the hell out of the last act, and pasted a happy ending on it that looks like it comes from another film. It is painful to watch. I haven’t been able to face it for years.

Othello is great for reasons I discussed previously. I watched again last night, and it is so good. Most of Shakespeare moves very slowly, but this moves right along. It shows how easy it is to make a great film if you are a great filmmaker.

Macbeth is quite good, helped in large part by being what I consider to be Shakespeare’s best play as well as Welles’ expanded use of the witches. The film is clearly shot on a budget. The sets are limited and it has a claustrophobic feel that is absent from just about everything else he ever did. But it is good and consistent.

The Lady from Shanghai is what most people think of when they think of Welles: flashes of brilliance in a film you just can’t follow. But really, in 1948, who ever did anything close to this great:

Which brings us back The Stranger, which is not a bad film, just nothing I ever want to see again. That in itself is a testament to Welles: his worst film is a totally professional, studio picture. Frankly, until I got this list and started working on it, I didn’t realize just how much I respected this great artist. It’s too bad all those millions are being used to restore his films now rather than being used to fund them then.

Update (7 August 2013 7:15 pm)

I am getting so tired of film clips being removed from YouTube. Before, I had the whole hall of mirrors scene from The Lady from Shanghai. Now all I can find is the meat of it above. I think film owners are making a big mistake by clamping down on this stuff. Articles like this make people rent and buy the films. Regardless, any film from 1948 should now be in the public domain. This is all out of hand.

When I was a teenager, it was fun to take potshots at great artists and thinkers I knew little about. This is part of growing up. But I wonder why it is that many people never outgrow this urge? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for iconoclasts. But in order to be against something, you have to know it pretty well. For example, I would love to rage about how much Stephen King sucks these days, but I’m not willing to read all his novels even once to get to a place where I could begin to make such claims. (I thought The Shining was very good 30 years ago; I take no responsibility for that opinion today.)

Dissing Cassavetes

A few months ago, I came upon Andre Soares over at the Alt Film Guide. I know what you’re thinking, “Isn’t André Soares Ribeiro da Silva, more commonly known as André Soares, the 18th century Portuguese sculptor and architect dead?” Yes, he is. This is a different Andre Soares. He is a film ombudsman. And as such, he is hardly bad or unusual. But I’ve only read one of his reviews. He might normally be great. I don’t know. I don’t care. But let me tell you how I discovered him.

I came upon a copy of John Cassavetes’ Faces. It was very exciting, because I quite like Cassavetes and I had never seen any of his early films. To me, his reputation depended upon A Woman Under the Influence and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. And Gloria, because I’m an ol’ softy. I have long thought that America over-values foreign film to the detriment of truly independent film[1]. So I was glad that Faces had got the Criterion Collection treatment.

I grabbed the DVD, took it home and watched it. It was so powerful, I watched it again to get a better look at the technique. Then I watched all of stuff on the extras disc. Really: I couldn’t get enough. I went online to see what people where saying and that’s how I landed on Alt Film Guide.

Soares’ review is very well written, and if I hadn’t seen the movie, I would have found it compelling. Having just watched the film, however, I noticed something: the review was a hatchet job. I’m sure going in he had decided to savage the film. There were many problems. First, he made a few mistakes about the plot of the film. Second, he made some other mistakes. Third, it was clear he had watched the film only once. Fourth, he clearly didn’t look at the extras disc, which seems critical to me if you are, you know, doing a DVD review instead of just a movie review. When you get right down to it, the review was just a pretext for claiming that Cassavetes is over-rated.

Here is what passes for argument from Mr. Soares:

So let’s deconstruct this argument: Cassavetes uses cinematic tricks (Handheld camera! Wow!) to get in the way of the story he wrote. Despite all these tricks, Cassavetes only presents us with talking heads. In other words: the film is too stylish except that it isn’t. The tired comparison to Bergman (usually) is priceless. I love the 5-hour Scenes from a Marriage, but it is all talking heads and it doesn’t transport the viewer anywhere—and that’s the point!

Just to finish up: any time an ombudsman says something like “the film didn’t move me” or “I didn’t think it was funny” I know why I no longer write (or usually even read) reviews. If you base your judgement of a film on a single viewing, your opinion is as much an indication of where you are emotionally as it is of anything in the film. If your lover just left you and you lost your job, you probably aren’t going to find the best film in the world very good. Art takes time. And so does its appreciation.

Dissing Welles

I went to the library the other day in search of a reference that contained a rough estimate of the percentage of any particular Shakespeare play that was written in verse. I know I’ve seen such a thing. I did not find it, but I did happen upon one of my old nemesis: Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor’s Reduced Shakespeare. I browsed through the book and came to a review of Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight:

They gave it one out of five “bards.”

I suppose that Soares can be forgiven, because it has yet to become a cliche to hate on Cassavetes. But it has become a cliche to hate on Welles. Let’s face it, he’s an easy target: he’s fat. Forget what Falstaff said, “If to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh’s lean kine are to be loved.” In America, to be fat is to be hated. Martin and Tichenor pile on here with glee.

But there’s a problem: they are wrong from top to bottom. To begin, how was Welles born to play this part? Because he was fat? That’s all I can guess. The truth is, I don’t particularly like him in the part because his conception is very much mine: Falstaff is a frightened and beaten man. There isn’t a great deal of humor in his playing of the part. As I’ve said before, I much prefer Robbie Coltrane.

Despite this, I quite like Chimes at Midnight. It works better than Shakespeare on film ever did before that.[4] And this is due primarily to Welles the director. The film is visually stunning. Yes, Welles did like low camera angles, but this film is quite subdued in this regard. And their take on the laughter is totally wrong. People are laughing in the tavern because they are laughing at Falstaff. There is no “laugh track” element here and the only way one would think this is if one were intent on making that point.

The film is all the more remarkable in that it does not look like the usual Welles guerrilla film-making. But to think that Welles could have got this shot with any other director through ordinary channels is madness. Just look at Welles! He actually slimmed down in the 70s. In the 60s, he looked his worst. No studio would have invested in Shakespeare with Welles in a star role. He did what he had to do to get the film made. And he succeeded. Brilliantly.

I am not a worshiper of artists. Both Cassavetes and Welles were far from perfect. But they were both artists who managed to do exceptional work under difficult circumstances. To me, the greatest thing you can say against both men is that they didn’t leave enough work. Why do people take aim at these men when there are extremely well-paid men creating garbage everyday who are far more deserving of such venom?

[1] I often hear of $5 million films referred to as independent, hence the “truly” qualifier.

[2] There is a little mix-up about Henry VI with Henry IV. It could happen to anyone.

[3] Falstaff is only mentioned in Henry V, he isn’t in it. What’s more, he isn’t even mentioned in Richard II. I think these guys get their Shakespeare entirely from movies (e.g. Falstaff is in Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V).

[4] Welles’ Othello is of a similar quality for the same reason. And it would be worth watching just for the unusual film appearance of Micheál Mac Liammóir as Iago. You can also hear him doing the narration for the wonderfully fun Tom Jones. (BTW: Martin and Tichenor gave this great version of Othello one bard as well.)