The Hollywood Reporter gave a thumbs down to Orson Welles: Shadows & Light (Orson Welles, Autopsie d’une legende), one of two Welles documentaries debuting at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.
Co-produced by Franco-German broadcaster Arte, the 56-minute documentary from director Elisabeth Kapnist was dismissed by the trade as a primer suitable for those who have next to no knowledge of Welles — “a Wikipedia page with some interview material and clips of movies.”
The documentary relies on insight from film historians David Thomson and Joseph McBride, and director Henry Jaglom. It also utilizes archival interviews with Welles associates including Jeanne Moreau and Charlton Heston.
“The largely chronological approach, the tendency to briefly mention rather than actually develop interesting details and the somewhat dry academic experts that provide commentary between clips and archive interviews give the documentary an overly didactic and not very dynamic feel, despite the often jaw-dropping clips from Welles’ impressive filmography,” The Hollywood Reporter’s Boyd van Hoeij wrote. “The director somewhat tries to counter the flatness with some newly shot footage of random landscapes and a rambling voiceover (by Celine Salette in the French version, Sharon Mann Vallet in the English-language version), though neither of these elements are directly tied into the main narrative of this skin-deep “autopsy,” to quote the French title.”
The extended trailer below provides a look at the film, which appears at first blush to be better than The Hollywood Reporter would lead readers to believe.
Up next at Cannes is This Is Orson Welles, an hour-long documentary from Clara and Julia Kuperberg and produced by TCM Wichita Cinema and Films.
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