|
everyone itt should watch its all true as well
|
#
¿
Nov 2, 2018 16:44
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 22, 2024 14:16 |
|
|
I watched this on Friday and I posted it elsewhere but I'll clean it up for here. I guess I feel... conflicted. I've been anticipating it for almost half my life at this point, Welles was pivotal in my understanding of film and along with Hitchcock, Chaplin, and Ford the one of the first directors I was able to recognize by name. Part of me is glad that it's finally completed and is out in the world but part of me wishes that it could have stayed buried. Despite the fact that Welles said people could basically do whatever they wanted with the footage, it's hard for me to really see it as being what he envisioned... but that's always the case with reconstructed films, I always find them more interesting in theory than in practice. Bob Murawski tries his best to give it a similar rhythm to F For Fake, but I think he went overboard... maybe too dense. Some other stray thoughts: - Despite Welles' protestations that the Hannaford character isn't meant to be a self-insert (and is meant to be modeled on directors like Ford, Walsh, and yes, Huston himself (and Huston like Welles (and Hitchcock and Ford)) is never not himself) it 's almost impossible for me to not see him that way... and the casting of Huston was an incredibly canny choice, especially considering the similar fates of Red Badge of Courage and Ambersons. - Murnau is invoked in the dialogue, but it also feels like the Hannaford character is meant to be a Murnau like figure too... killed in a car accident on his 70th birthday before completing his last film... Murnau died in a car accident a week before the opening of Tabu... plus the repeated insinuations of Hannaford's homosexuality and the pedophilic undertones of the character... - The film within the film is completely egregious, and I'm completely unaware of whether it's meant to be parody / satire, pastiche, or homage because it so closely resembles the real McCoy (Zabriskie Point) but some of the sequences are to die for and it's a shame Welles didn't work in color more. - Bogdanovich and Susan Strasberg are hilarious, and I loved seeing Claude Chabrol show up. Anyway, it's another deeply personal and radical film in a career full of them and one of the most lacerating directorial self-portraits I've seen, up there with Vertigo, Every Man For Himself, and White Hunter Black Heart
|
|
#
¿
Nov 5, 2018 01:12
|
|
|
right, let me rephrase: i think that it is so accurate in its critique / satire / appraisal of those cinematic forms that it loses that element for me and becomes essentially indistinguishable from the real thing
|
|
#
¿
Nov 5, 2018 04:01
|
|
|
Solid list. Other movies it variously reminded me of include The Red Badge of Courage, Monsieur Verdoux / Limelight / A King In New York, The Bad And The Beautiful / Two Weeks In Another Town, La Dolce Vita, Contempt, Muriel, Passion, and JLG/JLG Self Portrait In December
|
|
#
¿
Nov 5, 2018 20:05
|
|