Synopsis
Real life screened more daringly than it’s ever been before!
The spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.
The Magnificent Ambersons
1942 Directed by Orson Welles
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Alternative Title
위대한 앰버슨가
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*SOME SPOILERS. ALSO, IF YOU AREN'T INTERESTED IN ORSON WELLES, YOU WILL FIND THIS BORING. EVEN IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN ORSON WELLES, YOU MAY FIND THIS BORING*
"Something had happened. A thing which years ago had been the eagerest hope of many, many good citizens of the town. And now it came at last: George Amberson Minafer had got his comeuppance. He got it three times filled and running over. But those who had so longed for it were not there to see it, they never knew it. Those who were still living had forgotten all about it and all about him."
But when George Orson Welles, the infuriating, profligate wunderkind of American cinema got his comeuppance - three…
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"I wrote the script and directed it. My name is Orson Welles. This is a Mercury Production."
--the most heartbreaking line in the film.
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93/100
"Rosebud" in motion. Within its artificial snowflakes are the rampaging feelings of jealousy and the crumbling foundations of success, and in that sense, it's the film that is inseparably Orson Welles. The Magnificent Ambersons is flawed in a truly fascinating way, and while Welles' original cut could've been, as he claimed, better than Citizen Kane, we will never know. And yet, the tattered vision of The Magnificent Ambersons glows with unrestrained darkness and distinct beauty.
Above all, It proves that the soul of true art can be lessened, but never removed. Family is everything, even if demons roam the shadows.
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"J'aime le souvenir de ces époques nues" (Baudelaire). There's no nostalgia like a modernist's nostalgia, Orson Welles on the "disappearing miasma" of Midwestern aristocracy is an ornate procession of engravings. The whirlwind of changing fashions (a Cocteau joke given a Keaton spark) launches the preamble, an introduction to 19th-century Indianapolis where a smashed bass viol halts a courtship. (Minnelli picks up on its musicality in Meet Me in St. Louis.) The poet-inventor (Joseph Cotten) and the fragile doyenne (Dolores Costello), separating them is the Oedipal grip of her son (Tim Holt), a willful scion, "princely terror," aspiring yachtsman. The pinched frenzies of the spinster aunt (Agnes Moorehead) and the coquettish serenity of the debutante (Anne Baxter) are vital to the…
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84/100
Third viewing, last seen 1996. Tried to pretend this time that it's exactly the film Welles intended, rather than get sucked into a useless vortex of speculation. I failed miserably. And I'm not even convinced that it's wrong to mentally compensate for known studio interference. No living soul* knows how the original ending played, for example, but I'm inclined to just ignore the blatantly terrible scene with which Wise replaced it—to treat the fadeout following the comeuppance narration ("Those who were still living had forgotten all about it, and all about him") as The End. Frankly, I don't understand why Welles didn't end the film there in the first place—it couldn't possibly be more perfect. Though I suppose that…
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*Was a 93, now a 100*
"George Amberson-Minafer walked home through the strange streets of what seemed to be a strange city. For the town was growing... changing... it was heaving up in the middle, incredibly; it was spreading incredibly. And as it heaved and spread, it befouled itself and darkened its skies. This was the last walk home he was ever to take up National Avenue, to Amberson Edition, and the big old house at the foot of Amberson Boulevard. Tomorrow they were to move out. Tomorrow everything would be gone."
A nostalgia for the living. My favorite of Welles' films, which puts it right at the top of almost everything, really. Its cracks and fissures of space, structure (both familial and societal), and movement convey a deep-focus eruption of decay, one which observes like a ghost on its first day, curious and forever yearning.
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First of all, have closing credits ever got any better than here? So classy, so democratic and such a joy.
Welles’ follow-up to Kane is a holy object among cinephiles. This is because of its innately unfinished nature: an over two hour film cut down to a lean sub-ninety minutes by a studio, against the director’s will. The extra footage was allegedly destroyed, in a spiteful move to make sure Welles never got his cut, and the edits were justified by manipulative reasons that are well worth looking into.
Is the longer version better? Probably. This is already pretty special but does feel constrained and diluted. The reality of the characters is established so well through script and performance but is…
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I find there to be a mild bemusement when thinking of Orson Welles expecting mass audiences to empathize with George Amberson Minafer
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Honestly, if only the original ending could have survived I think this would be untouchable even in its mangled, rushed-second-half form. The confluence of Welles' interests in radio, theatre and cinema makes this arguably more revealing of its maker's mindset than the touted (auto)biography of KANE.
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The Magnificent Ambersons is an evaluation of a bygone era, together with being an impressive and creative analysis of a family circle. It's the second film produced and directed by Orson Welles and is an adaption from Booth Tarkington's 1918 novel which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, a distinction that the author obtained more than once, and populated with characters both unusual yet strangely authentic. A significant amount of the effectiveness of the film resides with the dialogue which the cast, especially Joseph Cotten and Dolores Costello, deliver impressively.
The screenplay investigating the dynamics of the family from the early twentieth century features occasional narration to give a few moments of explanation to set up who the characters are…
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Film #8 of Project 40
”I wrote the script and I directed it. My name is Orson Welles.”
What happened to Orson Welles’ original version of The Magnificent Ambersons is one of the most disgraceful behind the scene stories of the entire history of cinema without a shadow of a doubt. RKO cut almost an hour of Welles’ version,destroyed the excised footage, replaced the original melancholic ending with Disney propaganda, heavily edited Bernard Herrmann’s score and even more shamefully ran this untouchable classic along with vulgar comedies as part of double bill programs. If you’re looking for a story of folly, ignorance and narrow-mindedness you’ll find it here. As a result of RKO’s annoying decision The Magnificent Ambersons has become…
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"Why, I expect to lead an honorable life, I expect to contribute my fair share to charities, and take part in...well in movements" - George w/o a job,
- Orson Welles Ranked: boxd.it/3KWHC
- 5X5 Director's Challenge ( boxd.it/3IUJC ) Orson Welles (2/5)The Ambersons could kick the shit out of the Kardashians.
Rich people are crazy. In The Magnificent Ambersons, a piece of shit rich boy gets in the way of his mom remarrying because he is a piece of shit rich boy... it's great. Orson Welles can direct the shit of actors and Anne Baxter is fucking great as Lucy Morgan. The star here though is Tim Holt as George, one of the most annoying persons who needs…