I have Welles as one of the three filmmakers who invented the grammar of film. Of the three, he is the most elusive in characterizing because he was determined to try so many fundamentally different approaches. I think the differences elude people partly because many superficial elements are constant: the roiling voice, the upward looking camera, the timing of the edits tied to phrase fragments distributed throughout the orchestra.
But this film is entirely different from the others. "Citizen Kane" is an experiment in multiple narratives, "Othello" in architectural characters, "Shanghai" in architectural cosmologies. Each of these or course exploits multiple skills, but they have their own souls.
The soul of this project is the words themselves. Sure, the story, the events, the characters, the staging all have power, but that power is envisioned first in the words. The words, their very shapes, are the storyboards. Welles is not a great Shakespearean, but he is a great radio actor and he understood that these words have the power to drive vision... and of course he did have one or two very fine Shakespeareans on board.
As a non-Wellesian aside: Gielgud worked with two masters of cinema doing Shakespeare's words, Welles here and Greenaway in "Prospero's Books." Who else can claim the same?
So watch as certain phrases turn into animated space, and that space turns into the specific view we are allowed. It is not us that looks into that world to see a bit of it. it is that world creating itself from the flavors of sounds and leaping into our eye.
That's why these two men are important.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
But this film is entirely different from the others. "Citizen Kane" is an experiment in multiple narratives, "Othello" in architectural characters, "Shanghai" in architectural cosmologies. Each of these or course exploits multiple skills, but they have their own souls.
The soul of this project is the words themselves. Sure, the story, the events, the characters, the staging all have power, but that power is envisioned first in the words. The words, their very shapes, are the storyboards. Welles is not a great Shakespearean, but he is a great radio actor and he understood that these words have the power to drive vision... and of course he did have one or two very fine Shakespeareans on board.
As a non-Wellesian aside: Gielgud worked with two masters of cinema doing Shakespeare's words, Welles here and Greenaway in "Prospero's Books." Who else can claim the same?
So watch as certain phrases turn into animated space, and that space turns into the specific view we are allowed. It is not us that looks into that world to see a bit of it. it is that world creating itself from the flavors of sounds and leaping into our eye.
That's why these two men are important.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.