I saw this twice, on Netflix and in the cinema, to get my film buff points. Random thoughts:
* big screen better than small because there's so much detail and visual/sound stuff to take in that you can appreciate it better on the big screen but...
* on both big and small screens the story problems remain
* the central idea is rich with drama - the last day (or night, really) of a director's life... he's fighting with the head of the studio, he's going bankrupt, his former acolyte is now far more successful than he is and he needs to borrow money off the guy, he's got a girlfriend young enough to be his granddaughter, he's got a bunch of cronies, his leading man has quit the film he's making and the director may be in love with him - all fantastic stuff but...
* Welles was never as good a writer as he was a director - he was okay if he had help from say Shakespeare or Herman Mankiewicz or Booth Tarkington or the life of William Randolph Hearst... but either on his own or with Oja Kodar he struggled... plenty of good ideas and moment but he/they struggled to shape scenes and exploit the drama. Opportunities are missed wholesale - the character of Jake Hannaford's girlfriend is thrown away, the male lead never comes to the party except at the end and he just stands there and it's not resolved or developed in any way. And Welles fans will probably argue "oh he's subverting expectations" but I think it was just beyond his abilities as a writer, and would point to the similarly flawed script for The Big Brass Ring to back this up
* the character of Hannaford is clearly autobiographical but there was also a hell of a lot of John Ford in it, perhaps more than Welles - the group of cronies, the Irish history, the hard drinking, the fact one of his acolytes was a filmmaker as well who seems to have been inspired by John Milius, the fact Bogdanovich wrote books on Ford as well, the guns
* no critic seems to be commenting the climax includes a moment where Hannaford punches a female critic for suggesting he's gay
* interesting to see Susan Strasberg, whose career so did not live up to its early promise, pop up as the Kael type figure - she's not too bad, though I admit I would have loved to have seen Polly Platt doing it (she was originally cast)
* fascinating to see Peter Bogdanovich, so cocky at that stage in his career, doing his annoying impressions, with a handsome yet slightly pudgy face, his acting not really up to the role but it's compensated for the fact he's playing himself and so much of it is based on their relationship - the fact he was a critic turned filmmaker, his very quick success, the deal he has with a Robert Evans type head of studio (similar to the one the Directors Company had at Paramount)
* Cybil Shepherd can be glimpsed super briefly - there's also super quick appearances from people like Curtis Harrington, Henry Jaglom and Dennis Hopper and apparently Cameron Crowe is there too - and Les Moonves!
* I get the film within a film is meant to be a spoof on Antonioni but Welles spends an awful lot of time on it - I mean we see a lot of this film, way after its satirical point has been made, and get the impression it was also there to show off his girlfriend's hot body (she walks around nude a LOT) -also the opening boobs and bums in the sauna seem really not needed
* the blankness of the actors in the film within in a film makes sense but it makes no sense, to me at any rate, that the actor characters played by Kodar and Bob Random, are similar dull blank slates - I think this is a major problem with the film especially as a crucial plot is that Random has betrayed Hannaford by leaving the film, but he's given no character, nothing... and I get the feeling Welles realised these actors simply weren't up to it... I could be wrong, but I don't think I am because...
* there's a fair few actors in the film who aren't up to it - some get away with it because they're cast so beautifully, eg Bogdanovich and Joseph McBride - but Geoffrey Land, the guy who plays the head of the studio isn't up to it (I wish they'd cast someone like Edmond O'Brien or Cameron Mitchell who are in the film but feel under-used... but I guess they were too old and Welles wanted to have someone do Robert Evans, not that the exec is presented unreasonably... Hannafort doesn't attend the screening) - neither is Cathy Lucas who plays the girlfriend
* the old dudes and dudettes like Norman Crane, and Mercedes McCambridge and Lili Palmer are magnificent (though you can sense Palmer was meant to be Marlene Dietrich)
* I love that there was a rival acolyte for Hannaford based on John Milius but Gregory Sierra is super miscast - too skinny and not faux-macho enough
*Technically its stunning - the editors and team at Netflix did a marvellous job - it has a magic about it - I did start to zone out around the two thirds mark
* parts of it felt weird, the people standing around having philosophical chats in front of a big crowd and going off to the drive in at the end.
Had this come out I feel it would've flopped - the story isn't up to it. But I'm so glad it was finally released and I hope Welles, Gary Graver and the editor get Oscar noms.
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