Abbott, you are talking silly nonsense or something.
Have you guys seen other films w/ Welles around that time? He wasn't THAT fat -- had to have been padded for Quinlan. Even the "I Love Lucy" he did wa sfrom maybe the year before, I think, and he was not mega-corpulent, just jowly.
The Ambersons Welles made might have been better than Kane, but the one that survives? No way.
(I think I like The Lady from Shanghai and Othello better than either.)
― Dr Morbius, Saturday, 15 December 2007 22:11 (sixteen years ago) link
abbott see them in this order:
1) kane (really entertaining; really, honest - there's a reason it's been parodied ad infinitum on the simpsons, and there's a reason pauline kael - much as i hate quoting her - called it "the most fun of any great movie ever") 2) f for fake (crazy fun, and gives a good sense of welles's sense of humor) 3) touch of evil (crazy, baroque) 4) chimes at midnight/falstaff (best movie ever) 5) macbeth (funniest shakespeare ever - othello is better objectively but i still prefer this one)
ambersons is wonderful but a very frustrating watch. it's still better than almost any movie ever even in its current form but maybe hold off on that til you see these.
― J.D., Saturday, 15 December 2007 23:10 (sixteen years ago) link
this film has a lot more going on than most top-ten all-time classic snoozefests.
OTM, i think kane is a way deeper film than, say, the bicycle thief or potemkin or city lights or the seventh seal or the godfather, not to mention funner to watch (tho i like all those).
― J.D., Saturday, 15 December 2007 23:15 (sixteen years ago) link
I saw CK for the first time just a few years ago, with all the attendant baggage, and it rocked me.
― wanko ergo sum, Saturday, 15 December 2007 23:18 (sixteen years ago) link
he was hot back then, Abbott.
OTM! the picture james naremore uses on the cover of "the magic world of orson welles" is quite fetching
JD's list is pretty solid except 1) falstaff/CoM is very hard to find (tho it rules), and 2) i'm not crazy about his othello
― impudent harlot, Saturday, 15 December 2007 23:56 (sixteen years ago) link
also, the third man, for some more great welles/joseph cotten fun, even tho it ain't a welles film as such
― kingfish, Sunday, 16 December 2007 00:07 (sixteen years ago) link
Why do I feel that
the bicycle thief or potemkin or city lights or the seventh seal or the godfather
weren't the "top-ten all-time classic snoozefests" enrique was referring to?
― Eric H., Sunday, 16 December 2007 00:18 (sixteen years ago) link
funny, that's exactly what i thought he had in mind.
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Sunday, 16 December 2007 00:21 (sixteen years ago) link
Maybe Potemkin, but I figured he was talking about Bresson and Antonioni and Godard.
― Eric H., Sunday, 16 December 2007 00:22 (sixteen years ago) link
D. W. Griffith's "Birth of a Soporific"
― Abbott, Sunday, 16 December 2007 00:24 (sixteen years ago) link
yeah it basically is, except 'the godfather'.
not bresson/antonioni/godard. well, maybe bresson -- but the pre-1960 canon. maybe early antonioni.
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Sunday, 16 December 2007 00:24 (sixteen years ago) link
ie griffith, chaplin, stroheim, lubitsch, murnau, lang, pabst, eisenstein, pudovkin, dreyer, carne, rossellini, de sica, bergman, fellini.
'kane' was like the one american sound film permissible back then -- a couple of fords, maybe, but not the westerns, that kind of thing.
changed end of the 50s -- discovery of 'regle du jeu', french new wave, rediscovery of hollywood genre cinema, blah blah.
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Sunday, 16 December 2007 00:27 (sixteen years ago) link
'ambersons' would be the best if done right, and it's still yoga flame as is, but the more you see it, the more the ending just betrays the whole thing, and i say that without being able to remember how it 'should' end.
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Sunday, 16 December 2007 00:29 (sixteen years ago) link
I think I like The Lady from Shanghai
Madness! I saw it again recently and it gets my vote as his worst: mannered, coy.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Sunday, 16 December 2007 00:38 (sixteen years ago) link
the stranger's kinda weak i think, at the very least it's a waste of edward g. robinson in a boring part
― impudent harlot, Sunday, 16 December 2007 01:14 (sixteen years ago) link
-- Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Sunday, December 16, 2007 12:38 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link
look who's talking!
― s1ocki, Sunday, 16 December 2007 02:04 (sixteen years ago) link
ANyone seen this?
― Crêpe, Sunday, 16 December 2007 03:05 (sixteen years ago) link
Ouch!
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 16 December 2007 04:32 (sixteen years ago) link
Don't forget The Trial!
― C0L1N B..., Sunday, 16 December 2007 06:24 (sixteen years ago) link
I wish I could forget the Jess Franco edit of the Don Quixote material though.
This film actually lives up to its reputation!
― Tape Store, Sunday, 16 December 2007 07:36 (sixteen years ago) link
-- s1ocki, Sunday, 16 December 2007 02:04 (7 hours ago) Link
Now!
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Sunday, 16 December 2007 09:24 (sixteen years ago) link
Shanghai is, um, FUNNY.
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 17 December 2007 14:26 (sixteen years ago) link
http://movie.yesky.com/movie/cover/353/5853_001.jpg Is is the animals that talk in this movie? Must rescreen this.
― wanko ergo sum, Monday, 17 December 2007 14:30 (sixteen years ago) link
I saw <i>Journey Into Fear</i> the other night - 40s noir, starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Wells, how could it be bad? But it was bad. Or at least pretty uncompelling.
― Zelda Zonk, Monday, 17 December 2007 14:38 (sixteen years ago) link
Wells = Welles
― Zelda Zonk, Monday, 17 December 2007 14:39 (sixteen years ago) link
you didn't like Welles' fez?
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, 17 December 2007 14:40 (sixteen years ago) link
Welles was a pretty silly caricature in the movie, even by the standards of the times I think... For a noirish movie, there was something fundamentally wrong with the plot, there just wasn't any tension.
― Zelda Zonk, Monday, 17 December 2007 15:03 (sixteen years ago) link
don't think much of his shakepeares (except 'chimes') or noirs (except 'touch of evil').
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Monday, 17 December 2007 17:15 (sixteen years ago) link
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/7161/youneedamorticianmx4.jpg
― mookieproof, Monday, 17 December 2007 17:22 (sixteen years ago) link
YOU NEED A MORTICIAN! YOU NEED A MORTICIAN!
― impudent harlot, Monday, 17 December 2007 17:35 (sixteen years ago) link
I love how great Welles looks as an old man, and how he nails how old people move and think -- their habit of sharing curdled witticisms and phony insights -- without condescension. The newsreel section, for example, where a young reporter interviews Kane after he returns from speaking to "the great powers of Europe."
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, 26 March 2008 02:23 (sixteen years ago) link
Malpertuis
― remy bean, Wednesday, 26 March 2008 02:28 (sixteen years ago) link
I read his credit as "Orson Welles (cassava)"
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, 26 March 2008 02:29 (sixteen years ago) link
youtube of worst thing welles ever did
― remy bean, Wednesday, 26 March 2008 02:29 (sixteen years ago) link
You sure about that?
― Dingbod Kesterson, Wednesday, 26 March 2008 10:34 (sixteen years ago) link
Well that video didn't last for long.
― Eric H., Wednesday, 26 March 2008 11:03 (sixteen years ago) link
Well, you all know how it goes, crumb crisp coating, IN July, I'll go down on you &c.
― Dingbod Kesterson, Wednesday, 26 March 2008 12:18 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3qg4i22x9M
― deeznuts, Wednesday, 26 March 2008 12:20 (sixteen years ago) link
is bogdanovich's commentary on the 2-disc edition worth hearing?
― dan138zig (Durrr Durrr Durrrrrr), Wednesday, 12 May 2010 03:46 (thirteen years ago) link
no iirc
― sir gaga (s1ocki), Wednesday, 12 May 2010 14:07 (thirteen years ago) link
I thought it was pretty silly.
That's staring you in the face when you open up this thread--it's way, way up at the top (Sept. 28, 2001--within three weeks of 9/11). I got into a big back-and-forth on Kane once with a friend; can't remember if he said exactly the same, but he was dismissive in any event. I can see where someone would come away from a first viewing thinking it's slightly overrated--I don't think so, but with so much advance build-up, such a reaction seems more than reasonable--but it's hard for me to understand not thinking it's pretty great anyway. Even if you don't think it's profound (I do), I would still think you'd love the humour, the performances, and/or the whirlwind technique. I saw an interview a few years ago with Graham Yost (the guy who wrote Speed), and he recalled the time in high school when his dad, Elwy Yost (long-time host of a classic-movie show in Toronto), wrote a letter explaining that his son would be absent tomorrow because he wanted him to stay up and watch a midnight airing of Citizen Kane. I generally cringe when people well up on camera, but that time it seemed very spontaneous and genuine.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 12 May 2010 15:05 (thirteen years ago) link
I still haven't gone back to finish this, and I'm not usually put off by hype about the 'classics'. Just feel no compunction to go through with the rest of it on what I've seen so far (Young dude gets old and crusty at a dinner table montage)
― Black IP's (darraghmac), Wednesday, 12 May 2010 15:07 (thirteen years ago) link
rolling my damn eyes
― Greatest contributor: (history mayne), Wednesday, 12 May 2010 15:08 (thirteen years ago) link
don't bother Black IP's
― conrad, Wednesday, 12 May 2010 15:12 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah am aware of that reaction, but i felt it was important my voice was unstifled by your entrenched luvviness
― Black IP's (darraghmac), Wednesday, 12 May 2010 15:17 (thirteen years ago) link
― conrad, Wednesday, 12 May 2010 15:22 (thirteen years ago) link
Young dude gets old and crusty at a dinner table montage
You can do this with any film:Vertigo -- Old nervous dude stalks blonde babe around San FranciscoChinatown -- Detective dude gets bloodied up by short foreign dudePersona -- Actress babe pulls silent treatment on chatty nurse
― clemenza, Wednesday, 12 May 2010 16:32 (thirteen years ago) link
Retitle:Dude, Where's My Snowglobe?
― Generation Blecch (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 12 May 2010 17:29 (thirteen years ago) link
Moby-Dick: Nut chases a big fish
[sic]
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 12 May 2010 17:36 (thirteen years ago) link
WHEN WILL TED TURNER'S DREAM BE REAL
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 16 August 2021 17:25 (two years ago) link
From beyond the grave: "What is it you WANT? In the depths of your ignorance?"
will we see a colorized version at last
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 16 August 2021 17:27 (two years ago) link
I think the dream is now a 3D version.
― Halfway there but for you, Monday, 16 August 2021 17:32 (two years ago) link