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Feb 9, 2010, 11:18am

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Topic: Orson Welles (Read 400 times)

things-and-other-stuff
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Orson Welles
« Thread Started on Jul 21, 2005, 1:12am »

Welles is a favorite of mine, so many classics, besides Kane, Touch of Evil and The Third Man jump out in my mind as favorites. (I'd say The Third Man is my personal winner of that trio, I love that movie!) I just received a 2-DVD edition of The Stranger and The Trial. I think these are public domain films, as I've owned the lousy Madacy 2-VHS set of them for 10-12 years, and while I always enjoyed both films it was tough because of the grainy pictures and horrible sound quality. This DVD set I picked up ran me about $15 new on eBay, was put out by FOCUSfilm, and are remastered versions. The audio is now Dolby 5.1, and though I watched it on a regular set it was much much better than what I remembered my old VHS's sounding like, and the picture quality was better as well, at least on The Trial. Mind you the quality is still not that great, but in comparison to previous editions it is spectacular.

The Trial is based on Kafka's novel of the same name. It is one of my all-time favorite movies, totally surreal and filled with disturbing images. Anthony Perkins stars as Joseph K, while Welles shows up in three scenes as his Advocate. It comes in at nearly 2 hours, but it will keep you on the edge of your seat most of the way through. Wish I could compare it to the book, as I've read some Kafka and do have The Trial on my shelf, however I've seen the movie so many times that it's what's ingrained in my mind at this point and I can't remember whether or not I actually read Kafka's book (perhaps this means I did not!).

Overall a very interesting 2-disc set which in The Stranger includes Welles' most commercial film (and it's still very entertaining with Edward G. Robinson & Loretta Young) and in The Trial possibly his most artistic. I'll reserve judgement on FOCUSfilms treatment of The Stranger as I've yet to watch it, but on The Trial disc there was also a 20-minute extra with a short history of each film and interviews with the technicians who reparied them. Usually the techies would bore me, but since I like both films so much, and can appreciate how much they've done to better them, I found it all pretty interesting.

Definitely worth the upgrade from the VHS for me!

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Re: Orson Welles
« Reply #1 on Aug 9, 2005, 4:11pm »

Just think. This man managed to convince America we were at war with martians. However if he hadn't given Ed Wood a pep talk we wouldn't have had to suffer Plan 9 from outer space.

Praise and criticism in the same paragraph. Excellent.

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Re: Orson Welles
« Reply #2 on Aug 11, 2005, 5:30pm »

So much to be said for Orson Wells. It would take pages to describe it all. My favorite was Citizen Cane. / Jeff :-*

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