Mr. Arkadin on DVD soon

[Tashman]

Perhaps we could buy a box that turned Music for Airports into something more interesting.

Ha. Understood, Ste. The interviewer even quips back to him: "Some people listening to your music might think that it is already being written by one of your black boxes."

[Tony]

I remember Frank Zappa saying (in 1968!) that all of his music was one long piece- and you could chop it up and put it back together in an infinite variety of ways, and it would still work; sometimes I think that Welles accidentally discovered this notion...as he often said, he could go on editing forever. :;):

[Tony]

addendum: I just recalled that Welles did this himself to another artists work: as we all know, much of F for Fake is Reichenbach's documentary of D'Hory re-edited by Welles.

[Ste]

addendum: I just recalled that Welles did this himself to another artists work: as we all know, much of F for Fake is Reichenbach's documentary of D'Hory re-edited by Welles.

I was just about to make that very point! Of course, there is a big difference between manipulating another's work with their full authority (as with Welles and Reichenbach) and being frozen out of the editing process entirely (as with much of Welles's early career).

Apart from a few of the more inventive documentaries, of which F for Fake is a prime example, this idea of collage filmmaking remains largely unexplored in mainstream cinema. Too many legal issues and a lot of auteurist thinking, I suppose. It's funny because collage, in the loosest sense of the word, has blossomed in almost every other modern artform - music, literature, dance, painting - since the 1960s.

Since Brian Eno reared his chrome dome earlier in the thread, I must take this opportunity to recommend Nonesuch's recent expanded edition of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, the record he made with David Byrne in 1981. A pioneering work of 'found' sounds (African and Middle Eastern rhythms, American radio evangelists), its influence can still be felt today. Like him or lump him, Moby would be unthinkable without it. And like F for Fake, it's highly entertaining.

[Terry]

I love Eno's ambient albums, and many of the ones with vocals too (including Bush of Ghosts.) There's a good freeware program called Ambiloop. If you have any musical ability, it lets you record tracks of different lengths with motifs which drift in and out of phase with each other and cluster randomly and unpredictably. Instant Thursday Afternoon.

[Terry]

Just watched the Comprehensive Version. Absolutely brilliant job, and it looks fantastic. I think if Welles had found this version playing on tv one night, he would have loved it. Thanks, Stefan!

[Kevin Loy]

The Comprehensive Version is extremely well done (I watched that one first), though I won't quite go as far as saying that Welles would have loved it (I think the only version he could have loved is one that he edited). Still, Criterion has done an excellent job on this set, especially regarding the sonic aspects of this film.

One interesting curio, though....after watching the film and then going through the rushes, I have to wonder just how much of it was dubbed. Most revealing was the rush of Paola Mori in the hotel room...I had always thought that all of her dialogue was dubbed after the fact by another actress, but I can't help wondering about this. Of course, there are many points where it is obvious that the dialogue was dubbed (the outdoor scenes, probably, as well as the points where the dialogue is out of synch with the actors), but I wonder if this film is as extensively dubbed as I'd always thought.

[Harvey Chartrand]

Click here -- http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/dvdcompare/arkadin.htm -- for DVD Beaver's confidential report of the new Criterion release of Mr. Arkadin.
Splendid before-and-after image comparisons show that the quality of the footage has gone from muddy and faded to razor sharp and clear, like it was shot last week instead of 52 years ago.
Until now, I felt that Mr. Arkadin was a rather mediocre effort in the Welles canon. No wonder. I've seen it, but never really seen it, if you know what I mean. I ordered the Criterion DVD of Mr. Arkadin and can't wait for it to arrive.
DVD Beaver also gives us a comprehensive look at the DVD's packaging and extra features.

[Terry]

A very handsome DVD set indeed.

The included radio shows:

I noticed that the three included radio shows only play in the left channel. So, they are still a stereo file, but the right channel is silent. Odd way to do it. Does that make them half the size of a mono file? The sound quality is very poor, often unintelligable. They are the same copies you get if you order those mp3 sets off ebay with 250 shows on 2 CDs. There are much better, even mint, copies of those shows available, but maybe there was a licensing issue. (Criterion should have asked some of us here for better copies.)

Stefan's cut:

I like starting the film with the corpse on the beach. In the spoken intro, Welles mentions "the murder and the appearance of the empty plane." It makes more sense if you know to which murder he is referring.

It's a surprise that the actor credits are placed at the end of the film. In Welles' credit, he has the mask on, which makes sense if you're hiding Welles' face until later in the film. I miss the longer version of the theme music you get when the credits are at the beginning (because the credit music joins with the title music.) However, the film ends very abruptly with just "The End." Having them at the end works too. How did the decision to put them at the end come about? Are they at the end in the Mark Sharpe version? (That's the early and longer Spanish version.)

The opening with no narration, no credits, just Guy walking to see Zouk, with Silent night playing, is fantastic. Then we cut to Zouk in the attic. Very elegant way to open, considering how much dizzy, drunken noise is in the film. Maybe having the credits before that would be too much noise. Maybe having the credits before Silent Night would make that section even more still and effective.

Mily opening the telephone booth door on the Marquis was a surprise. I like all the extra establishing shots. There are some silent deleted scenes clips which could have been used as well, when the Corinth version had narration over a bit for which Confidential Report had dialogue - you could put the narration over one of the silent bits and cut to the dialogue.

Some of the scene extensions are a little jumpy, which makes them exactly like most of Othello, which means it's even more Wellesian than Dolivet's versions.

I'm not sure the shot with Arkadin dumping money all over the table works without Guy's line "I'll need dough for expenses." Without the line, it would seem that Guy has just been paid the $15,000 he requested, yet later in the film we find that he hasn't received it yet and is still hoping to.

The extended ending is great. I like that the damned plane is still flying around up there. Much better ending with that and the credits at the end.

In Marzolese, this is the version with two story scenes and bats at end.

I'm not sure what to make of this business in the booklet and commentary about "my version's best." Okay, whatever.

[Terry]

Excellent Quality Paperback edition of the novel. Identical Font and Font Size as the 1956 Crowell hardcover.

[Le Chiffre]

Until now, I felt that Mr. Arkadin was a rather mediocre effort in the Welles canon. No wonder. I've seen it, but never really seen it, if you know what I mean.

In the new DVD set, you not only see the film like you haven't seen it before, but you can HEAR it like you haven't heard it before as well. The sound is excellent throughout, especially on the new comprehensive version.

I think Jeff Wilson's review raised a valid point, that some people will wonder whether MR. ARKADIN was really deserving of such glorious treatment as it's been given here. I've always considered it probably Orson Welles's worst film, but then to me, Orson Welles's worst films are more enjoyable then most directors' BEST films. And the comprehensive version, which I think is the best version I've seen, may cause me to rank the film higher in the future. I think this is the Arkadin set to end all Arkadin sets, and hopefully all those crummy PubDomain cheapo discs. Congrats to Munich, Criterion and all involved on a spectacular job. It's well worth getting- in fact, a must-have for Welles fans, I would say. The essays in the booklet are all great too.

You're right, Hadji. The whole set is wonderful so far except for the three radio programs which have disappointing sound quality.

What's so cool about most of the other extras though, is that you don't really need to have the TV on at all. You can just play them through the stereo and listen to them. Some great info from Callow's presentation, as well as the Rosenbaum/Naremore commentary. They sound like they're having a blast doing it.

[Tony]

Here's a nice review from today's Toronto Star; the print version has a nice picture of Arkadin in his sailor outfit:

Postcards from Prodigals
by Geoff Pevere

(First Pevere discusses the dvd release of "Three Films by Louis Malle")

If Malle was able to enjoy his final years feeling at least partly vindicated, Welles went to his grave convinced that no movie of his had been more shabbily treated than Mr. Arkadin. (And considering Welles' track record, that's some claim.)

Made in less than two months in 1955, shot in various studios and European locations on a shoestring budget, this thrift-shop noir, starring Welles as a mysterious international financier who hires an American ne'er do well (Robert Arden) to investigate his own past, Mr. Arkadin was taken from Welles' control and re-edited into more versions than there are mirrors in the funhouse climax of The Lady From Shanghai.

Perhaps aptly then, Arkadin has the most wildly splintered reputation of all Welles movies. While some have called it, with its pulpy espionage plot, outrageously out-of-synch dialogue and paper-clip production values, an unmitigated disaster, others have rated the movie — or what remained of it — one of the director's most personal and endlessly watchable creative works.

(As a hardcore Welles nut, I find it mesmerizing.)

While none of the three Criterion versions — two radically different European releases and a posthumously assembled "Comprehensive Version" — are likely to settle that debate, they do provide a fascinating account of the tortured fate of a movie everyone seemed to get a crack at finishing except Welles himself.

Even the Comprehensive Version comes with a proviso: while it may come the closest to fulfilling Welles' intentions, that's only an educated guess. Like many of the characters in his movies, Welles died with more secrets than he was ever free to reveal.

[catbuglah]

This just in - It's a review from the Kokonino Kourrier:

Criterion just released Mr. Arkadin - The comprehensive version is nice - smooth - holds together well - I dare say the editing feels more Wellesian - a lot of the jagged inconsistencies have been rectified rather well - As for the movie itself - it's one of my favorites of Welles' - Visually and style-wise, his 50's work is my favorite and this one strikes me as some of his most fluid, stylish, original, flamboyant work - It has been criticized as a clumsy pastiche of Kane and the Third Man and frankly, I agree, there is that. I see many echoes of Kane, LFS, and TOE. Welles always makes the same movie over again anyway - not a problem - he always manages to do original variations on his pet themes, motifs, and situations. As a standard thriller with a believable, logical, suspensful plot and believable characters, forget about it... Welcome to WellesWorld ... where people and events function according to their own uniquely baroque inner logic. Left to his own devices story-wise, this is Welles at his most raw, primal, surreal. Although that's not to say that the film is lacking in depth, sensitivity, insight, and eloquence. To be sure, there are moments that are crude, puerile, brutal, and awkward; Welles lets it all hang out. As an aesthetic and psychological reflection of a particularly labyrinthic dream, this is a vital Welles film, done at an interesting junction of his career.

[Tony]

Here's another great review from among the many: this is from Reel.com:

http://www.reel.com/movie.a....18#tabs

[Glenn Anders]

Tony: Isn't it a shame Ms. Grady could not be more positive!

I tend to agree with her about Welles' performance, but perhaps that is only because critics of the poorer versions of MR. ARKADIN have tugged away at Welles' false beards and hair pieces so much. It would have been a master touch, almost suggested in Sophie's remark about Gregori Arkadin's beard, to have had a a shot of him actually applying the beard or wig. After all, MR. ARKADIN is a film about, among several themes, the recognition of true identity. Such a quixotic character as Arkadin might well indulge himself in disguises. He does not want to be seen, or to see in the mirror, the Van Stratten he once was.

I like Robert Arden as Van Stratten more than Ms. Grady does. Wellesnet correspondents have thrown out speculations about what Welles was thinking of in casting him. Drossler or Naremore posit that he was projecting the model of Fred McMurray in DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944), that kind of gruff anti-hero with the voice-over regretful narration Welles pioneered in radio and earlier films. Another model possibility would have been John Garfield in THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE. Let me suggest a third one: Stanley Baker.

He was, as David Wishart describes him in his IMDb mini-biography, ". . . unusual star material to emerge during the Fifties – when impossibly handsome and engagingly romantic leading men were almost de rigour. Baker was forged from a rougher mould. His was good-looking, but his features were angular, taut, austere and unwelcoming. His screen persona was taciturn, even surly, and the young actor displayed a predilection for introspection and blunt speaking, and was almost wilfully unromantic. For the times a potential leading actor cast heavily against the grain. Baker immediately proved a unique screen presence - tough, gritty, combustible – and possessing an aura of dark, even menacing power."

Here was a young Welsh actor who for the early 1950's had considerable range, displaying the same kind of brutish attractiveness McMurray and Garfield had shown: Bosun Harris in CAPTAIN HORATIO HORNBLOWER R.N. (1951); Modred in KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE (1953); Bennet in THE CRUEL SEA (1953); Edgar Alan Poe in THE TELL TALE HEART (1953); Mike Morgan in THE GOOD DIE YOUNG (1954); Erik Bland in HELL BELOW ZERO (1954); Louis Galt in TWIST OF FATE (1954); and Henry, Earl of Richmond in Olivier's RICHARD III (1955).

[I remember how my Army pals (the ones who accompanied me to MR. ARKADIN in London, that Summer of 1955) raved about Baker in THE GOOD DIE YOUNG, a "bloke" picture, they called it, that I didn't go to at the Base theater, earlier that year. That they would have had praise for a British film with an unknown star was evidence of his potential appeal to American audiences.]

Not many Stateside heard of THE GOOD DIE YOUNG, but, indeed, Baker later hit the American market in films like ZULU, which he helped produce, and pleased in little gems like PERFECT FRIDAY. He was even knighted, but was dead of lung cancer at 49, before he could kneel before Queen Elizabeth II.

Had the history of MR. ARKADIN been different, Robert Arden's career might have resembled that of another "obscure radio actor," Joseph Cotten, who after CITIZEN KANE went on to play a deadly gigolo in Hitchcock's SHADOW OF A DOUBT -- and then, in middle age, become a rather unlikely romantic leading man.

Glenn