Touch of Evil

Watched this for the first time today and had a ball. Some things:

- Obviously, the opening scene is just spectacular. I found myself thinking 'Renoir!' in quite a few places.
- Welles has something of Renoir about him - particularly Renoir-as-Octave?
- The Janet Leigh character does consistently confusing things but she eats up the screen when she's on it. She should definitely stay away from motels.
- Heston is kinda bad to be honest. Acting like he's being pulled along by his teeth. And the blackface is just, jeez (the entire portrayal of Mexicans is quietly astonishing).
- That final scene in the graveyard of industry absolutely made me think it was a deliberate reference to the wheel in The Third Man.
- Honestly had no idea it was Dietrich! She was the best thing in it?

Loved this: "I could work forever on the editing of a film. For me, the strip of celluloid is put together like a musical score, and this execution is determined by the editing; just like a conductor interprets a piece of music in rubato, another will play it in a very dry and academic manner and a third will be very romantic, and so on. The images themselves are not sufficient: they are very important, but are only images. The essential is the length of each image, what follows each image: it is the very eloquence of the cinema that is constructed in the editing room."

Is there a particular Welles/Welles-adjacent book I could or should go to?

I didn't cope too well with the Dennis Weaver character. It was like he'd been dropped in from a different film? He definitely added to the overall sense of fear and nightmarishness I guess. Similarly with 'jittery guy' who must have been told to 'bob up and down', and again 'keep bobbing!'.

Is there a particular Welles/Welles-adjacent book I could or should go to?

― Vanishing Point (Chinaski),

For sure his booklength interview with Bogdanovich -- such a literate man, our Orson.

I read Clifton Heylin's critical bio last month. The last two volumes of Simon Callow's bio also terrific for insights.

Nice one, cheers. My university library has the Bogdanovich. Got myself a copy of the Renoir autobiography as well - cheap hardback.

Renoir's memoir of his old man also worth a read.

how is thomson? I picked it up for cheap a while ago but haven’t really opened it yet