A non-film student's philistine opinions on some of the Greatest Films of All Time® after a single watch-through (in most cases), based on fickle whims rather than years of research and contemplation.
Here are my The Top 13 Orson Welles Films. Does not include co-directions, unfinished films, trailers, narrations to camera or amateur home movies of student plays, I'm not obsessed.
Key:
Original story
Adaptation
Shakespeare
Posthumous
13. Mr. Arkadin (a.k.a. Confidential Report, 1955)
I evidently watched the maligned public domain version of this film, but I don't see how a slightly restructured narrative and cleaner print would turn this into a great movie. Welles is palpably striving for a new Citizen Kane via The Third Man, but the permanently skewed camera and trite symbolism (the eponymous enigma is introduced wearing a mask; do you see what he did there?) make it more something a film class could poke fun at than learn from.
With its shorter length and low-budget minimalism, this would be more at home in an anthology of moody adult fairy tales à la Neil Gaiman's Likely Stories than a forgettable standalone oddity. Add a couple of supplementary tales linked by Orson sitting in a chair and you'd have something more worthwhile.
Welles' documentary on hoaxers may be rambling, self-indulgent and deliberately dishonest, but it's still thought-provoking in places. Audiences today and in the future may need to read up on these scandals and their perpetrators that didn't prove as timelessly legendary as the film presumes, and the concerns of elite art collectors may fail to be relatable.
With that title, I'd always taken this for a horror film, but it's much more unpleasant. Even tamed by the Production Code, its grim tale of crime, corruption and simmering prejudice still packs a punch. Charlton Heston blacking up does undermine the progressive civil rights message somewhat.
Shot on location in Europe over three years rather than 27 days, Welles' second Shakespeare is a prettier and more polished picture than his Macbeth. Unfortunately, besides blacked-up Orson himself, the cast is unremarkable. Was he concerned about being upstaged by a decent Iago or something?
This straightforward literary adaptation is a step backwards after the experimental Kane. Welles gets good performances out of his cast, and there's some nice moody cinematography going on, but I'm not seeing what else is so impressive that you couldn't credit to the book. Is this really better than Back to the Future and stuff?
7. The Stranger (1946)
Dramas don't get much more timely than this – Welles' variation on Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt, but with escaped Nazis and inappropriately real and recent concentration camp footage. Add a naive female lead even by 1940s standards and it's understandable why this is considered a bit of a step down. Tense though.
A toxic dynasty self-destructs while Welles' Irish sailor looks on appalled. He doesn't get credit for Sherwood King's endlessly rug-yanking story, but the performances are convincingly despicable and the exotic location filming and multicultural flourishes enriching before we arrive at a crazy ending set in a funhouse for art's sake, good man.
5. The Other Side of the Wind (2018)
The late director's unfinished film about a late director's unfinished film has more going for it than ironic context alone. It's an indulgent film about filmmaking for filmmakers, but the rest of us can get something out of it too. The pre-Spinal Tap mockumentary may not be convincing, but the "spoof" arthouse porn is enjoyable on whatever level you want to take it.
A palpably low budget, rushed and unpolished production and whole scenes done in a single take make Welles' first Shakespeare adaptation feel exactly halfway between stage and screen, and I really like that. The gothic horror touches helped too. Having successfully and blasphemously avoided Shakespeare for the most part during my literary degree, I wasn't familiar with the Scottish play before. It's a bit grim, isn't it?
3. Chimes at Midnight (a.k.a. Falstaff (Chimes at Midnight), 1965)
Welles' fan edit of the Henry plays and other bits and bobs to foreground his favourite character is his most personal and passionate adaptation. Learning the crafty backstory to the film's financing, his method acting evidently involved more than simply bulking out. Every frame's picturesque as usual, you can take that as read. What's more surprising is the really intense battle scene in the middle.
2. The Trial (1962)
I found Kafka's Kafkaesque novel more of a downer than anything, an unpleasant reminder of the pointless bureaucracy and useless departments I have to deal with to get anything done here. I enjoyed Welles' Expressionist nightmare interpretation more, even if its increasing incomprehensibility made me feel like I was watching the last episode of The Prisoner again.
So it's not got the rewatch appeal of a Hitchcock or It's a Wonderful Life, but I still enjoy this certified classic for more than its cinematography. It's a convincing character study that credits its audience with intelligence and has a message I resoundingly dig... even if I still prefer Red Dwarf's version, admittedly.
