Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Thiruvananthapuram
All's Well(es)
|
Gary Graver, Orson Welles' cinematographer, has compiled a package of the master's best for IFFK
|
In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. -- Orson Welles (Harry Lime's speech in `The Third Man')
THIS WAS the stuff that movie legend Orson Welles was made of. A retrospective of the actor-director is being screened at the IFFK- 2002, beginning here tomorrow.
Put together by Gary Graver, Welles' cinematographer during his last years, the package showcases seven movies of the director that give a peep into his talent. Welles revolutionised the art of storytelling and filmmaking techniques, stretching forms much beyond established limits.
His movies were inconsistent -- some were brilliant, others mediocre and a few downright failures. But all bore the unmistakable Orson Welles stamp.
His cinema was imaginative and technically daring. His baroque cinematic style created a dense moral universe in which every action had tangled and usually tragic repercussions.
The following are some of the Welles films being screened at IFFK:
Citizen Kane
(1940)
Recounts the rise and corruption of the American tycoon, Charles Foster Kane. The last word he utters before his death is `Rosebud' and a news reporter assigned to find out the identity of Rosebud uncovers Kane's life through interviews with those who knew him.
The in-depth composition, use of extreme deep focus, low-angle shots, long takes and sound used as a transition device for the first time became trademarks of Welles.
The film faced distribution and exhibition problems, and they were compounded by negative campaigning by William Randolph Hearst on whose life it was modelled.
The Magnificent Ambersons
(1942)
Based on Booth Tarkngton's novel, it takes a deep look at the nature of wealth, class and progress in turn-of-the century America.
Isabel Amberson, recently widowed, wants to marry car manufacturer Eugene Morgan, but her son George opposes it. After her death, alone and ruined, George is forced to accept menial work, but is injured in an accident, hit by an automobile made by Eugene's firm. He and Eugene are later reconciled.
Touch of Evil
(1958)
A narcotics investigator, Mike Vargas, witnesses a car bomb explosion. Local detective Hank Quinlan suspects a Mexican named Sanchez of planting the bomb.
Vargas feels Sanchez is being falsely incriminated.
Quinlan's partner Menzies agrees to help Vargas expose Quinlan and record his drunken confession. Quinlan, realising he has been framed, shoots at Menzies and is in turn shot by him. The Vargas couple learn that it was Sanchez, after all, who had planted the bomb.
Othello
(1951)
Based on Shakespeare's drama, it tells of how his subordinate's treachery brings him to ruin, while fostering a mad jealousy that rapidly makes him murder his wife Desdemona. Part of the Shakespeare trilogy, adapted by Welles for movies.
R. K. ROSHNI
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Thiruvananthapuram
|
