"That's a nice-a donut."

Saturday, April 23, 2005


The Magnificent Ambersons

Orson Welles followed up his masterpiece directorial debut, Citizen Kane, with The Magnificent Ambersons. The Ambersons are a well-to-do family in the late-19th century, and the story (adapted from an award-winning novel by Booth Tarkington) follows their slow and steady decline. The main character is George, a young man who doesn't want to do any real work and who believes that his family is better than your family. After his father dies, his mother Isabella is wooed by a successful inventor and automaker. George, being a spoiled brat, resents this and helps uses his aunt Fanny to stop the romance. Things continue to go down hill from there.

While the film techniques perhaps weren't as groundbreaking as those in Citizen Kane, Welles still managed to inject his style throughout the film. Clever voice-over is used at the beginning, as well as impressive use of lighting and some fun cuts and dissolves. The end "credits" are also quite neat (you'll have to see for yourself). Further, the actors all do a fine job (though not to take anything away from Tim Holt as George, I do wish Welles himself had starred in it). That being said, this is a good but not great work. First of all, due to the editing, some things are not clear at all and other scenes feel rather incoherent. The pacing is awkward, and sometimes too slow. Also, personally I found the story to be too bland and not quite my taste.

It should be noted that The Magnificent Ambersons is a pretty famous example of disagreement between the director and the movie studio. A nice discussion of this is given at this website. Basically Welles' original cut was edited and then, after very negative previews, was edited even further with little input from the director. Among other things, the ending was radically changed, including adding on the obligatory "happy ending." Welles was more or less fired from RKO and never quite attained the same level of critical success as he did with Kane. Apparently the original footage no longer exists and so it may always be a mystery as to how magnificent the Ambersons could have been.

The Verdict: B+.

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