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Orson Welles

Plissken1138

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Here's a treat for Welles aficionados - 52 half-hour radio adventures of a certain scoundrel by the name of Harry Lime.

Lives of Harry Lime - Single Episodes
 
The Lives of Harry Lime was a British radio series that was produced in London by Harry Alan Towers. Called The Adventures of Harry Lime when first broadcast in Great Britain, the program featured Orson Welles as the title character, reprising his role from the 1949 cult movie, The Third Man.

The radio series was set before that classic film, and depicted Harry Lime's many misadventures as a con-artist. Most of the programs opened with haunting "The Third Man Theme" by Anton Karas being played, followed by a gunshot. Welles would then intone "That was the shot that killed Harry Lime. He died in a sewer beneath Vienna, as those of you know who saw the movie The Third Man. Yes, that was the end of Hary Lime. But it was not the beginning. Harry Lime had many lives... and I can recount all of them. How do I know? Very simple. Because my name is Harry Lime."
 

TM2YC

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Hopper-Welles-Poster-713x1024.jpg


Filip Jan Rymsza, the guy who put together Orson Welles' 'The Other Side of the Wind', had 5-hours of out-takes of Orson in conversation with Dennis Hopper discussing movies and stuff, so he's turned it into a 2-hour movie called simply 'Hopper/Welles'. This 3-minute extract looks fascinating:


Hopefully it hits Netflix with the other Welles stuff Rymsza did... or perhaps as a bonus feature on the Other Side blu-ray which he's still not delivered to fans ;) . That poster is to die for.
 

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Two trailers for David Fincher's 'Mank' have finally dropped together and Netflix have kindly uploaded it in lovely 4K:



I'm primed and ready to hate it but I admit it does look great, on a purely visual level and I love the retro styling of the trailer.

The project is making me cross because Fincher is working from a left over 90s script written by his late father (1930 - 2003), who in turn based it on the utter bullsh*t that contrarian/trolling film-critic Pauline Kael made up for her infamous 1971 New Yorker article 'Raising Kane', a Welles character assassination. Her assertion that Herman J. Mankiewicz (the subject of Fincher's film) was the true and only author of 'Citizen Kane' and that "evil" Orson Welles tried to steal all the credit for CK's screenplay, has been widely debunked, with evidence by just about every other critic.  So given that I imagine Fincher D. is not going to want to throw away his dead father's misleading work, I'm not looking forward to Kael lies being repeated for a new generation. However, the trailer does suggest that Mankiewicz's life is going to be presented in a mysterious 'Citizen Kane' style way, so maybe he will be an unreliable narrator of his own story. I might even love it?

Apparently 'Mank' was shot on the new RED "Monstrochrome" 8K camera (and mastered in 6K), which has a sensor specially made to capture only black & white, in detail not possible on lenses that have to capture the full colour spectrum. I don't understand it but the results look gorgeous in that trailer.
 

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Mank and the Ghost of Christmas Future | by Joseph McBride

shots. fired.
 
Jean-Luc Godard once said, “All of us, always, will owe [Welles] everything.” But Godard has a stronger ego and doesn’t suffer from being an American like Robbins or Fincher. Fincher is not worthy of carrying Welles’s viewfinder, yet he has denigrated him as having been “immature” at the time he made Kane and as someone who spoiled the rest of his career with “the disastrous impact of his own fits of delusional hubris.” It’s easy to see “delusional hubris” as projection on the part of a filmmaker so insecure about his own talent that, as we used to say, he has developed a swelled head.
 

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^ Wow, that was a fascinating, comprehensive read. Thanks for that link.
 

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Mank (2020)
I went into David Fincher's 'Mank' with a large dose of scepticism because the script was originally based on a pack of lies (Pauline Kael's infamous 1971 New Yorker article 'Raising Kane') suggesting that Orson Welles was responsible for 0% of 'Citizen Kane' and Herman J. "Mank" Mankiewicz for 100%.  Where as it was more or less a 50-50 collaboration (as stated in the CK titles).  The recently completed 'The Other Side of the Wind' aside, none of Welles' 15 or so movies were based on original concepts entirely of his own invention.  He was always a bold re-shaper and re-interpreter of other people's work, books, plays, a lot of Shakespeare and even his famous 'F for Fake' documentary is a radical reworking of an existing documentary.  I don't think he was guy that could start with a blank page but when he was handed what is described in 'Mank' as "300+ pages of drunken ramblings", Welles could leap on it and see all the opportunities for improvements and revisions and start cutting away.  Welles said many times that cutting things up and cutting them down was his favourite part of the process of movie making.  The fait-accompli script as presented towards the end of 'Mank' was in fact only one of the two first drafts and was re-written by Welles, by Mankiewicz and by Welles again.

Thankfully, up to a point, little of the 'Raising Kane' controversy is reproduced by Fincher.  So, up to a point, I thoroughly enjoyed 'Mank'.  Gary Oldman is terrific in the lead role (although 20-years too old to play Mankiewicz) and Tom Burke has a note-perfect Welles voice.  Amanda Seyfried as Marion Davies is excellent and sympathetic to the real person behind the CK character assassination.  Seyfried and Oldman's scenes together were the best ones.  As much time is devoted to the politics of late 30s Hollywood and the crazy studio system, as it is to Mank writing the script and his encounters with William Randolph Hearst.  Fincher structures the film and orchestrates the look to evoke scenes and story telling techniques from 'Citizen Kane'.  Both goals are only partly successful.  Sometimes the black & white visuals look genuinely "Noir" but other times they just look "black".  Or worse he has lights shining in your eyes, obscuring the actors faces (see below), which is almost eye strain inducing.  There is also this weird blur filter he's put over some shots and digitally manipulated others to extremes for reasons I'm unsure of.  Fincher very unusually (for today) mixed the movie in Mono, shot it in B&W and adds "cigarette burns" all the way through (very distracting) as nods to old fashioned analogue movie presentation.  Plus Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross do a nice pastiche of Bernard Herrmann's CK score.  So with all that effort to look oldskool, why the heavy digitally graded, CGI look?  'Mank' replicates CK's revolutionary decades-spanning non-linear structure but where as in CK it felt so smooth flowing and clearly defined by superb age makeup, it just feels jumbled here, when applied to the events of a few short years, with no such makeup and costuming to anchor the viewer in time.  Like the visuals, it comes across as an affectation.

Sadly, right at the end, when the film proper has finished, Fincher decides to dump a big bag of anti-Welles lies.  In rapid succession he shows Mankiewicz receiving his Oscar as Welles' name is drowned out by applause (I can find no evidence for this), then a snarky fake Radio interview with Welles presented over black as if it's a real historical recording (I can find no evidence for this), then a newsreel of Mank claiming all the glory (I can find no evidence for this) and lastly a little on screen text to put the final knife in.  Why did he feel the need to do it when he had wisely resisted until that point?  It leaves a bad taste in the mouth after a generally excellent and engaging movie.


A highly recommended and concise video essay to watch with 'Mank':


RKO 281 (1999)
After watching 'Mank', for balance I decided to rewatch the BBC/HBO's 1999 'Citzen Kane' making of drama 'RKO 281'.  It can't compete for filmic glamour, visual daring and juicy dialogue but it's definitely more accurate and earnest.  It's a TV film and occasionally looks it in places but the cast is quality and the British country house locations add realism and scale.  Liev Schreiber makes a fine Orson Welles, having enough of the look, the youthful vigour and the voice to convince, few actors manage all three.  Another advantage it has over 'Mank' is that it attempts to tell the overall story of how CK came to be and captures the fun and excitement of a group of artists creating something that truly nobody had seen before.  Both films are kind and sympathetic toward Marion Davies and 'RKO 281's portrayal of William Randolph Hearst (played by James Cromwell) is measured and compassionate too.

 

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A new blisteringly paced 8.5 minute youtube essay highlighting some of Welles methods:

 

Dr. Chim Richalds

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According to the bits, Touch of Evil on the way:

“Here’s a nice surprise on the catalog 4K Ultra HD front: Our friends at Kino Lorber Studio Classics have revealed that they’re working on a physical 4K release of all three cuts of Orson Welles’ film noir classic Touch of Evil (1958)!”
 

Last Impressions

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Black Magic will also be released in the States at the end of October which already has a French release.
 

TM2YC

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^ Neat. The 2012 blu-ray looked okay:

6587_1_large.jpg


But it could definitely benefit from an upgrade. Hopefully a little cleaning up of the audio too.

Amazing to think that just 7+ years ago the best transfers of some of Welles' films looked like a VHS tape that had been found in a ditch, now it's "HD isn't good enough any more, time for 4K!"
 
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