Orson Welles

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Well, swung by Amoeba last night and there it was, F for Fake on Critierion and used, even. I am a happy Ned!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 18 March 2006 15:15 (eighteen years ago) link

used!! lucky guy!!

the stuff on the second disc is rad.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 18 March 2006 15:16 (eighteen years ago) link

used!! lucky guy!!

Amoeba is good for that. There's a whole section of nothing but Critierion discs (they know their crowd) and many discs turn up used.

Yeah, all the bonus features look a treat. :-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 18 March 2006 15:17 (eighteen years ago) link

Coincidences! My girlfriend works in a used bookstore and ended up grabbing The Stranger for me this week and I had already picked up F for Fake a month or so back. So very good.

― mike h. (mike h.), Saturday, 18 March 2006 20:23 (eighteen years ago) link

this video store near me has their own criterion section, and i think they have every single criterion disc. i almost rented wajda's kanal last night, but went with domino for reasons i now regret.

― gear (gear), Saturday, 18 March 2006 20:30 (eighteen years ago) link

if you found domino in the criterion section your video store is definitely trying to pull something on you

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 18 March 2006 20:37 (eighteen years ago) link

there's a criterion edition of armageddon

― latebloomer is a belly with a guy pierce in it (latebloomer), Saturday, 18 March 2006 21:02 (eighteen years ago) link

:-O

― pixel farmer (Rock Hardy), Saturday, 18 March 2006 21:05 (eighteen years ago) link

Please don't remind me.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 18 March 2006 21:07 (eighteen years ago) link

kanal sorta sucks

well, no, it doesn't suck, but it hasn't dated well

i am teaching "f for fake" on monday!

― amateurist0, Saturday, 18 March 2006 21:57 (eighteen years ago) link

well see i was thinking to myself (though in the end maybe i wasn't thinking at all) that i should go with a movie that would be good for a night in which i stumbled home drunk. something a little loud and a little stupid, and wajda films are typically somewhat quiet and not that stupid at all. so i staggered over to the new releases section and came away with domino, which was filled with the promise of violence and tits and tony scott camera angles. not enough violence, boring tits, and what in the end resembled not a tony scott film but a dj skribble remix of a tony scott film.

― gear (gear), Saturday, 18 March 2006 22:01 (eighteen years ago) link

i haven't seen F is for Fake in a while but my main memory of it is welles sitting in some cramped editing room and babbling, interspersed with intermittent interludes of diaphonously-clad nymphs traipsing around in a forest?? there must be more to it than that but i swear that's all i remember.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Sunday, 19 March 2006 03:29 (eighteen years ago) link

So went right ahead and watched F for Fake tonight -- marvellous. 'Kinetic' surely is the only word, but that made the pauses/slower moments all the more effective. At points I laughed out loud in delight at the sheer immediacy and turn-on-a-dime touch of the editing -- the performance, if you like -- and the last time something did that for me was hearing Mr. Bungle's California. What a pleasure of a film.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 19 March 2006 06:23 (eighteen years ago) link

Oh yes, Tracer, to answer your own question upthread:

F is for Fake -- great mindfuck, partly because it appears that he's hellbent on deconstructing his own cinematic authority when in fact he's doing the OPPOSITE (viz. his locating himself in the editing room) - his capricious excursions and tangents from whatever loose plot there is only underline his ultimate control. especially vis-a-vis the half-naked girls who show up from time to time.

-- Tracer Hand (tracerhan...), February 10th, 2002.

So there you go. ;-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 19 March 2006 06:25 (eighteen years ago) link

haha see exactly! the only two things i remember!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Sunday, 19 March 2006 09:01 (eighteen years ago) link

f is for fake i first found out from robert anton wilsons book on conspiracies, oddly enough...

its one of my favourite movies of all time, formally and it moves me emotionally too

― anthony easton (anthony), Sunday, 19 March 2006 09:22 (eighteen years ago) link

he lived with cybil shepherd for a while and almost burnt her place down by accident. He also wore a silky women's kimono.

― Mr Jones (Mr Jones), Sunday, 19 March 2006 10:35 (eighteen years ago) link

it'd be more accurate to say he was living with peter bogdanovich, and cybill just sort of put up with it.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Sunday, 19 March 2006 11:15 (eighteen years ago) link

That lying bitch! I bet she didn't pork Elvis either! I wasted my time reading her autobiography! I think we can reliably say she rimmed Bruce Willis though.

― Mr Jones (Mr Jones), Sunday, 19 March 2006 11:19 (eighteen years ago) link

Two of the things I liked most about the movie were mentioned upthread -- the Chatres speech and the wordless intercutting between Elmyr and Irving about signatures on the paintings. Both serve as the most extended 'pauses' in the film, and so very deftly handled at that.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 19 March 2006 14:45 (eighteen years ago) link

ahh that wordless intercutting was ace, one of the greatest proofs i've seen of eisenstein's montage theory

― gear (gear), Sunday, 19 March 2006 18:28 (eighteen years ago) link

I can see why Welles spent a year editing the damn thing -- pre-Avid, what a total nightmare that must have been technically, I admire his patience. Legrand's score is the perfect icing, but its absence at moments like said montage is equally wondrous. I do like Marcello's comment upthread about it being 'film as blog,' that's quite observant.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 19 March 2006 18:31 (eighteen years ago) link

(I also enjoyed on the technical side how the Critierion restoration as such was not 'perfect' but I'm willing to bet Welles would have never intended it to be so. Makes me think about how now the graininess, scratches, etc. are when included in recent films as much a signifier of authenticity as vinyl noise on CDs, a fetishization of a medium's nature/failings as essential for 'truth.')

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 19 March 2006 18:33 (eighteen years ago) link

I can't believe this thread has gone on this long without anyone mentioning how COOL Welles looks in that hat and black cape. Darth Welles.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 19 March 2006 18:37 (eighteen years ago) link

I admit at this point it makes me think of Michael Palin's parody of that look in Ripping Yarns:

http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:xnmm9TyWYm49dM:images.amazon.com/images/G/01/books/ripping-yarns/palin-intro-tomkinsons-roje.jpg

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 19 March 2006 18:41 (eighteen years ago) link

(But yeah, striking and perfect self-dramatization. But I think my favorite moment of him in it is when he's chilling out in the countryside with the kids and the dog just having a drink.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 19 March 2006 18:42 (eighteen years ago) link

harry lime crossed with harry houdini

― gear (gear), Sunday, 19 March 2006 18:50 (eighteen years ago) link

I saw F for Fake the first time not long after watching one of the Mondo Cane films. There's something shared, but I'm not sure how to quantify what.

― mike h. (mike h.), Sunday, 19 March 2006 23:13 (eighteen years ago) link

mondo kane!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 19 March 2006 23:14 (eighteen years ago) link

Hahaha

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 19 March 2006 23:16 (eighteen years ago) link

I admit at this point it makes me think of Michael Palin's parody of that look in Ripping Yarns:

Wait, isn't that a photo from the back cover of Music From Big Pink?

― The Day The World Turned Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Monday, 20 March 2006 01:45 (eighteen years ago) link

two months pass...

everyone in confidential report/mr. arkadin has the most fascinating eyebrows

(and the movie itself is marvelous needneedneed that 3xdvd set...)

― joseph (joseph), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 03:06 (seventeen years ago) link

I used to get Orson Welles, George Orwell and H.G. Wells confused. They're the intellectualized version of the Bill Paxton/Bill Pullman confusion.

― Cunga (Cunga), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 04:32 (seventeen years ago) link

Has anyone proclaimed Arkadin a lost masterpiece yet? That'll be even funnier than those who said same for F for Fake.

(jos, the one time I saw it seemed an amusing footnote)

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 12:50 (seventeen years ago) link

My university library has a copy of the novel – credited to Welles!

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 13:04 (seventeen years ago) link

F for Fake is pretty damn great.

― p@reene (Pareene), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 13:09 (seventeen years ago) link

It's a nicely executed minor film. Or maybe I'm underestimating OW's appearances on The Merv Griffin Show too.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 13:22 (seventeen years ago) link

i'll take a nicely executed minor film over a poorly executed "major" one. like, say, his "Othello."

― p@reene (Pareene), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 13:39 (seventeen years ago) link

The extras dvd that comes with F for Fake has some footage of Welles talking to Muppets, but unfortunately no Merv Griffin.

― mike h. (mike h.), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 13:42 (seventeen years ago) link

(this is where i mutter something under my breath about CR/MA being the only orson welles movie i've seen yet, point at something else in the room as a diversion and then quietly slip out)

― joseph (joseph), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 13:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Othello's unwatchable. I'll take the second grade talent-school costumes of Macbeth and its moody photography. It's also his best self-directed performance.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 13:45 (seventeen years ago) link

joseph, you have time.

On some days, Othello is my favorite film of his. Kane or Lady from Shanghai on others.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 13:48 (seventeen years ago) link

btw, I don't think anyone's mentioned the second volume of Simon Callow's OW biography comes out in the fall. Maybe I'll finally read Road to Xanadu now.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 13:49 (seventeen years ago) link

f for fake is an amazing movie, but i dunno, i've never been able to get into the mindset of worrying about which films are "major" and which are "minor"

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 14:25 (seventeen years ago) link

has anyone really never known when he starts lying in FFF? I can understand if it wasn't that important, but he seemed to think it was.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 14:34 (seventeen years ago) link

If anyone's interested, Compulsion (the film based on the Leopold and Loeb case with Welles playing the Clarence Darrow part) just came out on DVD yesterday for, as far as I know, the very first time. Haven't seen it yet but I'll be checking it out shortly.

― Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (Plastic Gas Booby Trap), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 14:38 (seventeen years ago) link

I've been waiting for Netflix to add it to their collection; I've never seen it. All three leads won the Best Actor prize at Cannes.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 14:42 (seventeen years ago) link

Has anyone proclaimed Citizen Kane a lost masterpiece yet?

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 15:41 (seventeen years ago) link

"Tonight on Lost Masterpiece Theatre"

http://www.deanesmay.com/files/deanesmay-250px-TV_cookie_monster_monsterpiece_theatre-small.jpg

Er, wait.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 24 May 2006 15:43 (seventeen years ago) link

one month passes...

Review of Callow's bio vol 2, Hello Americans:

"Callow appreciates Welles’s post-Kane film work without neglecting its flaws or denying Welles’s own share of responsibility for the shambles in which studios tended to release what he had shot. The culprit was not inevitably crass commercialism but often an absent Welles, who had already sped off towards his next project, leaving editing and sound, for which radio had sharpened his ear, to underinstructed colleagues."

http://tls.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25352-2277138,00.html

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 20 July 2006 13:34 (seventeen years ago) link

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