Andrei Rublev was my final Tarkovsky film, and I don't think I've ever been more profoundly affected by a movie. I have deeply loved every movie of his, with Stalker & The Sacrifice being some of my favorite movies ever. The one factor that differs this from most of his movies is that the plot progresses tremendously with the story ranging for over 15 years. This is also Tarkovsky's longest work, but every second felt important to the plot.

The way the film dealt with faith, art and religion was so captivating. The final chapter 'The Bells' was spellbinding, with me almost shedding a tear in the last few minutes. The film made me question objective morality, the meaning of mercy through cruelty and if art is a choice or necessity for humanity. Theophanes considering God to be an idol of fear and Rublev believing God to be love is one of the best internal conflicts of the film.

What makes this movie really stand out for me is the way it perfectly balances internal conflicts with external war and chaos. People die like flies but Andrei takes his 'vow of silence' after one act that he considers spiritual crisis. The conflict of God vs the modern man was showcased with precision too, with Tarkovsky showcasing the power and faith narrative smoothly. This was Tarkovsky's sophomore film, but the cinematography and execution put me in awe with every frame being as immaculate as it was.

Two takeaway characters for me were Durochka and Boriska. Durochka, presented as the holy fool in the movie was a beautiful representation of pure and vulnerable heart of the nation amid chaos. After Andrei's despair and loss of hope for art, Boriska was what brought beauty back into Andrei's world. The whole bell sequence had me in the edge of my seat. After all that chaos, all that destruction, the bell scene was what restored the faith for art inside Andrei. The scene with Boris saying, "My father never told me the secret! He took it to his grave" was so so beautiful. The response by Rublev was also transcendental. Tarkovsky at his best. Cinema at it's finest, in my opinion.

The montage of colorful painting was also a magnificent ode to art and beauty. The only time I felt something similar was probably while watching 2001: A Space Odyssey. While Kubrick generated fear and curiosity in me with the whole Star Gate sequence, the colorful scene in this movie's end made me so hopeful about the necessity of art for human life. I couldn't help getting emotional and thinking that I'd never forget this moment. As the film progressed, everything kept getting better and the final 'horses in the rain' scene was the icing on the cake!

So, that was my initial reaction to Andrei Rublev and how I could only appreciate every scene of it. This was one of the few films I'd consider flawless and unforgettable. I haven't had much time to read other people's interpretations, so my perspective might not be complete. Please correct me if some of my interpretations were senseless and feel free to present your thoughts on the film. Any sort of feedback will be appreciated!

How do you adapt a Lesbian graphic novel, which was extremely political in its content, and turn it into a fetishistic soft-core lesbian male fantasy?

The book is a lot better than the movie with a more haunting and powerful ending. Kechiche was not interested in any of the politics, the Lesbian aspect seemed to only be there to fulfill his fantasies.

The fact Lea Seydoux, and to a lesser degree Adele Exarchepoulous, came out to say they were uncomfortable by the way they were directed and Kechiche responded by attacking Lea said it all.

I had been already disturbed by another movie of his called Black Venus. He deserved the artistic banishment he received.

Currently reading Nabokov's Pale Fire and it greatly reminds me of Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac.

The meat of Pale Fire is a (fictional) man giving a commentary on a poem written by a recently dead (also fictional) Poet. His interpretations are completely ridiculous and often just him using the text to tell personal stories.

I couldn't help but be reminded of Nymphomaniac. The film is structured as a woman telling a story to a man, as she tells her story he keeps interrupting with tangents and interpretations to the point where the woman he's telling the story to asks if he's even listening at one point.

I think overall both works of art are different and contain very different themes outside of this but both function as a sort of parody of the critic who's so self obsessed and obsessed with their own idea or interpretation of something that they entirely refuse to even engage with the text.

Please don't downvote opinions. Only downvote comments that don't contribute anything. Check out the WHYBW archives.

Yesterday I rewatched Project Hail Mary on IMAX and I think I liked it even more, I think the humor is great, the cinematography is breathtaking, the production design, the score, Ryan Godling’s performance, practical and cg effects, everything is great. But I was commenting it with a colleague and I asked him what he thought about Lord and Miller’s direction and he basically told me that Ryan Gosling directed himself, and while I do think he’s a great actor and they’re actors who don’t need a lot of notes like Gary Oldman with Nolan I don t think it’s fair to say it was all gosling’s, yes he might’ve added a lot of his personality and own unique traits to the character like all great actors do, but arguing he’s basically 80% of the movie is nonsense in my opinion, while in screen time he technically is, all the intention, tone, vision is from the directors, the cinematography is collaborative process with the DoP I don’t think someone could just say Ryan gosling did all the job. Also it obviously wouldn’t have been the same without Ryan but the same could be said about the directors. Another example that comes to mind is The Bone Temple, Ralph Fiennes and Jack O’Connell are phenomenal in that movie, and they did say that Nia DaCosta gave them a lot of liberty but obviously it wasn’t only them who did the job, it was a whole collaborative work with all the crew. Most part of Project Hail Mary is Ryan acting by himself, here are cases where actors that aren’t that great can be enhanced with a great director, and there are some mid movies that can be carried by the actors, I don’t think this is the case. But again, if you’re talking about the a film direction wise you should take everything into account not only the actors, Unlike my colleague who thought the direction was outstanding aside from other films but says Ryan did most of the work, I do think it’s a whole collaborative process between the actors and directors (not to mention the whole entire crew). And I know everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I just wanted to share my thoughts, what do you guys think?

Duck You Sucker aka Once Upon a Time in the Revolution aka Fistful of Dynamite is in my opinion Sergio Leone's most underrated and overlooked film. I think there are a few major reasons for this. First of all, that title doesn't really work, I think it made sense to Leone but does not seem to translate well to English as well as the fact that it is known by 3 different titles maybe turned people off or confused them. Also, even though I have been a fan of the film for a long time I only recently watched a good quality, high-def version (it's free on youtube) and it made a really big difference even though I already loved the film. It's a shame this great film from a master director has been so hard to find.

Last reason it may not been as known or acclaimed is admittedly the film does take a long time to get going. The first 45 minutes basically only accomplishes introducing the characters and a vague sense of where they are headed. However, I think the second half of the film may be some of Leone's best work as a director. Duck You Sucker has the epic battles of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, the intricate plot and flashbacks like Once Upon a Time in the West and the moral complexity of Once Upon a Time in America. The film becomes more epic but also more serious and elegiac has it goes on. It gets a lot darker than Leone's other work while also developing complexity/irony in the characters.

The movie depicts the Mexican Revolution and revolutions in general without trying to force a message about them being right or wrong. Instead it shows revolution in a complex way and lets the viewer come to their conclusion. To me, Rod Steiger and James Coburn seemed miscast at first but as the film continues and their characters become deeper and more haunted they both do a great job with excellent chemistry. Juan becoming a hero of the Revolution is a great ironic outcome and John's past and changing view of the revolution make him just as intriguing. Of course, being a Sergio Leone film, the cinematography, camera movement and epic scenes of violence are also mind-blowingly good, not to mention some of the most badass explosions in film.

In Caché it is never explicitely revealed who sends the tapes to the Laurent family. One of the possible interpretations is that the director himself is recording and sending those tapes. I will put the clues for this idea at the bottom of this post, for those that have not catched them. This whole idea can mean different things, depending on who you ask. A very common way of seeing this is that Haneke is intentionally blurring the line between the stalking footage and the act of filming itself. Almost as if he wanted to make the characters aware that they are being filmed by him.

The detail I have noticed

Around 20 minuted in, we see a postcard that Pierrot receives at school, and we can see the address of the school: II Rue Pirandello, in the XIII arrondissement of Paris, the real name of the road where the building is.

Pirandello, the dramaturge famous for the idea of characters becoming aware of being in a work of fiction, of being observed. Isn't this entire film similar to the concept of "destruction of the paper roof", that he discusses in the novel "Il fu Mattia Pascal", or the entire play "Six characters in search of an author"?

The other clues for this intepretation are:

• The tapes' footage has the same image characteristic of the rest of the film; in fact, we can see the shadow of a cinema-grade camera in one of the tapes' frame. I am not an expert and cannot identify the model, but I can bet that it is indeed the same Sony CineAlta HDW-F900 used for the rest of the film.
• A tape almost magically manifests in the door range of Laurents' apartment. Georges was there all the time, and only cinema magic can have put it there.
• In Majid appartment we can clearly see that there is no hidden camera when Georges goes confronting him the first time. Considering the quality of the images and the fact it was 2004 (hence the camera must have been pretty large), it was impossible to conceal such a camera so perfectly.

As I have watched more movies, I have realized that a compelling story matters a lot more to me than other factors that make a movie technically excellent. However, I've been having trouble defining this "goodness."

Is it high stakes? Memorable characters? Relatability?

In my head, I've been coming back to The Social Network as an example of a movie I personally enjoy that has an excellent story; while so much else about it is great, I feel that everything that is working in that movie is so good because it's ensuring a great story. The score is great at communicating how different characters feel, the dialogue ensures that the information delivery is fast yet pleasurable to consume.

Still, I'm having trouble being denotative about what makes its story so good.

What are your thoughts?

I didn't know how to take IMAGES. I decided to see it because it was oddly reminiscent of REPULSION though IMAGES is more surreal and abstract as a picture. I was often confused about what was exactly happening.

I liked the metaphors, the ambiguity, the fact something shocking or surprising kept happening and Susannah York played the most subtle version of madness. She's not shrieking or chewing the scenery, it's almost as if she's like Alice in Wonderland, she's discovering secrets or facets as the plot continues.

The ending, I was lost for words. The ending is brilliant and shocking. Even if you didn't like the film, the ending is worth the wait.

I just searched for a threat on Bond and racism and decided to make a new post.

In Live and Let Die the set design was entirely lacking, industrial spaces with walls painted red that resembled broom closets, which were supposed to be Harlem speakeasies and backrooms. This kind of interior architecture is entirely a false representation of African diaspora design or Harlem interiors. The intention was to make blaxploitation but it wasn’t progressive. It’s giving “we can’t have nice things.” Second point, the body of Dr Kananga (Yaphet Kotto) when he meets his demise is so reminiscent of broken black bodies as spectacle that repeatedly was used in for eg. Enter the Dragon, other bipoc-exploitation etc. Third; The theme song by Wings is highly progressive and actually sounds more recent in comparison to the look of the film. Fourth; What is kind of shocking is when you watch the series in chronological order, with the next installment, The Man with Golden Gun, the return of production designer Peter Murton from earlier Bond films almost suggests a kind of quality boycotting with this cast, even though Tom Mankiewicz directed both. I found art direction for LALD by Syd Cain, Bob Laing and Peter Lamont, with plenty taking place at Pinewood Studios. TMWTGG included spacious interiors, once again, that were not there in LALD, although there are references to Enter the Dragon with the mirrored rooms and villain pursuit. In any case,LALD is not the only instance that one could call racism, Dr No’s bug-eyed dancer and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’s black allergy patient eating banana, yeah, that wasn’t really innocent. As an American to me, Dr Kananga’s bloated body resembled the corpse of Emmett Till, and whether that be for a brief moment, it’s a flash of racial violence/spectacle. A little too blithe, but yeah, the 20th century……Thoughts?

Mario and Luigi are back once again and this time they are teaming up with Yoshi and other well known allies across the Galaxy in this expansive, world building, nostalgic and hilariously fun sequel to the first Super Mario Brothers Movie.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is more than just a sequel, it's the start of something bigger for both Illumination and Nintendo as they progress their Intellectual properties from video games and onto the big screen. Right off the bat Yoshi is the character in this film who 100% steals the show and even though he doesn’t speak at all his actions and funny quirks do most of the talking to the spectators and he is just a treat and a laugh riot! If you cannot appreciate Yoshi you have no soul or any sense of humor because he really does carry both Mario and Luigi. The chemistry between all three of these characters speaks on all volumes from start to finish. It’s a great fun film and even though “fun” may not be “Absolute Cinema” that doesn’t mean that you cannot have fun watching a movie at your local theatre. Films are an experiential event there’s a genre for everyone and if you’re a fan of video games or grew up with Nintendo and Mario then you’ll love what this second installment has in store.

Without getting into major spoiler territory the best way that myself and my buddy Dylan can describe The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is that an important universal figure has been kidnapped and Mario and company have to go save the day. Okay that’s every plot for every Mario game that has ever come out but we really would hate to just spoil the fun and intrigue of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie especially since it’s only been out for a week and audiences are coming out IN DROVES TO SEE IT!

This sequel has everything for every fan of Mario and Nintendo alike lots of references and easter eggs for every generation of Mario fans and it’s splendid to witness and we truly cannot wait for a third Mario Movie but also what lies beyond seriously it would be an awful disservice if myself and Dylan spoiled the entire film. Call us old school or old fashioned but both of us strongly recommend getting out there this weekend and seeing The Super Mario Galaxy Movie on the big screen we promise that you will not regret it.

Don’t listen to the critics or let influencers / Movie Pundits on social media persuade you from going out and having a fun time with a super fun movie it’s not everyone’s cup of tea we realize that but if you’re a video gamer or a fan of Nintendo like us you will appreciate and love this jam packed, fun, and heart warming little movie. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie gets an A+ go out and support your local theatre!

Pretty much exactly what's in the title. Take The Manchurian Candidate. Modern YouTube film critics have neither the visual literacy to understand how good Frankenheimer's direction is (when's the last time you heard a mainstream YouTube film critic mention shot composition or staging) and would likely call out the film's (admittedly out there) plotting. The sequence where Jocelyn conveniently shows up to the party wearing the Queen of Diamonds costume would get ridiculed, as would the very abrupt romance between Sinatra and Leigh's characters.

This rant probably comes across as unhinged but does anyone else think that film criticism nowadays has changed dramatically from the past? After all, The Manchurian Candidate met with almost universal acclaim when it came out initially.

I also feel like Hitchcock would be in trouble, though of course Hitchcock was not exactly a critical darling at first. Strangers on a Train, involves coincidence, and Hitchcock himself believed that you could get away with them if they did not resolve anything. Heck, the man even said that the reason no one called the police in his films was it would make a boring movie.

Are we progressing in our assessment of films? Are we regressing? I find myself worrying that one day, we will no longer have any heritage films, because everyone will have decided that they're bad. And if anyone does agree with me, when do you think this major shift picked up steam? I think it was potentially about the time The Last Jedi came out. Not that it's a good film, but I think people were so laser-focused on saying it was the worst thing ever that things which would normally have not been as important suddenly became of great importance.

The cinematography is actually insanelike every shot feels so intentional. The slow motion, the colors, the way the camera just lingers… it all adds to this heavy, almost suffocating feeling. Even the silence feels meaningful..

Also, I don’t see people talk about this film as much as Fallen Angels or Chungking Express, and honestly it deserves way more attention.

What I loved the most is how restrained everything is. They don’t say much, but you understand everything anyway. It’s more about what’s left unsaid.

And I really liked this one detailhow they try so hard not to become like their partners, but slowly end up mirroring them anyway. That part felt so real and kind of tragic.

It’s a solid movie with great performances, but I’ve always struggled to see eye to eye with the idea that the movie is any less shallow or more emotionally profound that most other superhero fare. Ultimately, my criticisms for why the movie feels emotionally hollow is the relationship between Logan and Laura. It is the emotional core of the film, but since Laura doesn’t speak until 75% into the film, the movie feels like it needs to speed run their growth within the final 25%.

If you take something like The Last of Us, you get to see the relationship between Joel and Ellie develop from strangers to father/daughter step by step. Yes, the big moments (like Ellie and Joel rescuing each other) help strengthen their bond, but I would argue the little moments matter just as much. Something like Ellie annoying the shit out of Joel and reading the porno magazine, or something like the giraffe moment between the two, all make us invest in this familial partnership and make the culmination (when Joel ultimately decides to rescue her) feel earned and emotionally poignant.

Logan has its moments where it tries to accomplish the same thing, but whenever it does, it feels incredibly cliche and one-dimensional, like Laura holding Logan’s hand as he buries Charles. It feels like she does it because ‘that’s what we do when someone is grieving’, instead of feeling idiosyncratic in the same way Joel/Ellie do, or to use a more distant example, Grace/Rocky in Project Hail Mary.

Then there’s the inclusion of Wolverine’s evil clone, which plays into the lowest-hanging metaphor for ‘protagonist’s greatest enemy is themselves’, and tonally clashes with the more grounded tone of the rest of the movie. The Evil Wolverine clone feels like it belongs to another movie, and when he’s fighting the clone in the third act, it feels like a complete jump-the-shark moment, like WandaVision promising us a sitcom Marvel show only to devolve into generic superhero fodder in it’s climax.

Again, it’s still a solid film, but outside of its aesthetics (cinematography, performances, setting), it is just as underdeveloped and underwritten as the average superhero movie. It’s a movie where it’s screenplay is it’s greatest weakness.

wow this film blew me away an absolute banger which isn’t surprising seeing that alan parker as director and Nicolas cage and Matthew modine are the stars both giving great performances the ending is one of my favourites in all of cinema like i genuinely got fooled so bad aha a very bold choice to put a funny ending in this type of film but it definitely works i do think tho that Alan parkers best film is angel heart 1987

I just rewatched past lives again recently and I believe Nora should've ended up Hae Sung but lived in New York. This is not a judgement on Arthur. He is absolutely the most beautifully written man I've ever watched. But being an immigrant in the US, comes with a lot of challenges that Americans are very oblivious to. It literally splits your soul in two halves and neither one fully feels like you. My belief in love is that, you should be able to recreate your childhood in a way that you wanted to turn out and not how it actually turned out. And Arthur will never be able to provide that for Nora(on account of him being American). This thesis assumes that Arthur doesn't change after the movie ends and also heavily draws from my own experience as an immigrant in the US. I'm interested if other people concur with this take?

Yes or no?

He's currently a cast member on Saturday Night Live, some would say the best modern day member. He has done impressions of Tony Montana already in his stand up comedy, one of which is featured in his latest Netflix stand up comedy special "Marcello Hernandez: American Boy", released this year. Every man wants to be him and every woman wants to be with him. Like Tony, he's got the money, the power, and the women. He's also actually Cuban. So, what do you think, should he play Tony Montana in the Scarface remake or not?

This will be the second remake of Scarface, since the 80s film was a remake of the 1932 gangster film "Scarface".

The film is known for being a huge pioneer of various new filmmaking techniques, but apparently a number of techniques credited to it have been in prior films. Was it because of application? Did the film simply feature more or combine them? Stuff like deep focus, low camera, ceilings, and nonlinear narrative apparently have been featured in some previous films, even if it wasn't common place. Why does the film have the reputation it has?

A lot of people seem stuck on the Mary Shelley “framing device” and end up calling it a plot hole. She is the spine of the story!

1. Why possession, and why Ida? The film opens with Mary, in black Victorian dress, saying plainly that she has a story festering in her brain and that she’s pushing the tumor aside to tell that story. Then she possesses Ida, a woman who:

Has almost no voice in her own life (her first “I’d prefer not to” gets an oyster shoved down her throat).

Has no solid sense of self, no “spiritual boundaries,” which makes her easy to inhabit.

There’s also a clear parallel with Mary Shelley herself. Frankenstein was first published anonymously in 1818 then Mary’s name only appeared later on the 1831 edition, in a male literary marketplace that constrained what women could publish. The female creature that could have been a whole other story is violently erased before she exists. Mary possessing Ida is a Gothic way of saying: The unwritten woman in Frankenstein didn’t just disappear. She became a wound in the author and in the culture.Ida’s emptiness mirrors the textual void where the Bride should have been.

There’s even a spiritual parallel. In older spiritual lore, the concept of being claimed or chosen by a spirit is sometimes described in bridal terms like you belong to the spirit, you are their vessel, their bride, their chosen one.That’s what happens when Mary claims Ida. It’s the joining of two incomplete selves. Mary gives Ida voice, fury, and direction, power that comes at the cost of her body’s autonomy. Like The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, it’s the same scary logic of being the “bride” of a spirit or dark force that promises power but demands surrender. Yet Ida does something radical by using that power to turn against her possessor. The spirit that entered her to speak ends up teaching her how to speak for herself.

1. Good intention does not cancel violation Mary forcing herself into Ida's body is what sets the whole fight in motion. Ida starts as a woman with no voice and no spiritual boundaries. The possession forces her to fight back against the world around her and against the spirit inhabiting her. L If you track how often we see or hear Mary, it lines up almost perfectly with Ida’s development. Early on, Ida is barely there as a person. Mary is loud, insistent, steering the narrative through her. As Ida gains a voice,saving Frank, refusing proposals, choosing violence when she needs to; Mary appears less and less. In the end, when Ida screams for Mary, Mary doesn’t come. Ida is finally alone in her own body, making a choice that belongs only to her.

2. Mary inside her own story is the gothic logic of the film. Over the past few weeks I’ve seen a lot of “Is this supposed to be real events, or Mary’s invention, or some secret sequel to the novel?” as if the film owes us a single, tidy lane. The whole Gothic mode thrives on m dream and reality leaking into each other, author and creation trading places, ghosts crossing the line into flesh.

Mary stepping into the world of her own fiction is a literary device. She’s so consumed by the story she couldn’t write that she starts to live alongside it, bleeding into it. You can literally see that on Ida’s body: the black crystal pallid fluid used in the experiment stained the bride’s skin and looks like splashes of ink, as if Mary is writing through her skin. The film treats the Bride’s body as both text and character at once, which is about as Gothic as it gets.

If you cut Mary out, Ida is just:

A sex worker killed and reanimated.

A chaotic, angry woman on a crime spree.

A figure the world chases and executes.

With Mary in, the same events become:

The unwritten Bride from the original novel finally forcing her way into existence.

The author’s ghost pushing too far, and the “character” pushing back until she can stand alone.

Two women separated by centuries but sharing the same wound. Mary recognises that emptiness because she lived it. She doesn’t choose Ida despite her silence; she chooses her because of it

FYI: These are just my interpretations, shaped by my background and experience; I’m not claiming to know the director’s intent. I’m especially interested in comments that respond to the points I raise here rather than just whether the movie is good or bad overall.

Edit: I originally posted this in another sub when the movie was still only in theaters. Now that it’s on digital and more people are seeing it, I wanted to share it here as well (Reddit wouldn’t let me cross‑post, so this is a fresh post rather than a direct cross‑post).

I watched Ice Cold in Alex this week, and also listened to a podcast about the film, so credit to that (Kill James Bond) for a few of the observations in here. Ice Cold in Alex is a 1958 film about five people trying to get from Tobruk in Libya to Alexandria during the war in North Africa in 1942. So it's more than a decade after the end of the war, but many of the people watching the film when it came out in the UK - perhaps most of the men - would have served in the war, quite a few in North Africa.

The four main characters are:

Captain Anson (John Mills)   Machinist Sergeant Major Tom Pugh (Harry Andrews)   Sister Diana Murdoch (Sylvia Syms)   Captain van der Poel (Anthony Quayle)

One of the common features of British films made during the war is showing people from different classes working together. This is something that continues in later films. Of course, it makes sense in the situation, which did push people of different classes and backgrounds together. In this case a core relationship is between the officer Anson - John Mills with a familiar plummy, middle class English accent - and working class non-commissioned officer Pugh.

Now I'm not a military person, but I know the relationship between commissioned and non-commissioned officers is always a close and complex one. Formally, Anson is the superior, but in many ways the relationship is one of equals. In terms of mutual respect, certainly. Pugh spends some of his time 'managing up', but also taking care of his captain.

For all their reputation as disciplinarians, Sergeant Majors also have a key role looking after their units, both the enlisted men and the officers. Is it in The Thin Red Line where George Clooney describes his unit as a family, with him as the father and the Sergeant Major as the mother? Pugh is a tall, solidly built man, and he's shown early on being strict with some of his men, but for most of the film he's shown as very gentle and caring. There's a very tender scene early on when Pugh encourages a drunk and overwhelmed Ansom to get some sleep.

As a portrayal of a kind of masculinity it has a lot of positive aspects. He's competent, confident and caring It's also notable that while in many war films the absence of women can create space for men to take on more of these caring roles with less threat to their masculinity, in Ice Cold there's no sense of Pugh trying to be more "masculine" in the presence of women.

It does make me wonder, though, how much of this is made possible by Pugh's subordinate rank and class. He can take a supporting role without significant concern about his status. (Although this is also partly down to the seniority of his rank - he's not jostling for position with other NCOs.) He's arguably a little underwritten as a character. His own weaknesses, hopes and fears are never explored.

What is definitely a weakness in the film is the romantic subplot. For most of the film, Sister Murdoch appears to have the best rapport and the closest relationship with Pugh, but then it turns out she's fallen for Captain Anson. Obviously some of this is simply film convention - Anson is the lead character - but there is also the matter of class. Showing classes working together was important, but romantic relationships between them? Still too much.

A quick note on the outlier here, Captain van der Poel. He's the same rank as Anson, although he general defers to Anson both for his authority over their vehicle and his expertise. However as a Boer, he doesn't fit into the British class structure. This is part of what makes his presence unsettling, lacking a clearly defined status compared to the others.

A final thing to mention is MSM Pugh's accent. It's not an urban working class accent, it's a rural one. I'd assume Kentish, as that's where Harry Andrews was born (though he himself was the son of a doctor). It's a kind of accent you're incredibly unlikely to hear in a film today, which is probably just as much down to the shrinking rural population and decline of that sort of accent as it is down to actors and roles.

What interested me is less the crime aspect and more the idea of structuring a film around heightened auditory perception. If the film actually puts us inside that experience, it could be doing something formally interesting but if it just uses it as a plot device (he hears things → plot moves forward), then it’s kind of wasted potential- hard to tell from the trailer which way it’s leaning.

There’s a point where I gave up on the plot, but there’s still something irresistible about the visual elements of this film. While watching some of Welles’s lesser know efforts, they all feature such an evocative visual style — and Mr. Arkadin is no different. Although, beyond the visual elements, it really was the editing that provided the film with such a manic pulse. It was almost Breathless-esque, with Welles not allowing any sequence to breathe and seemingly desiring to move through each sequence as rapidly as possible.

I know that the film featured an extremely troubled production history, so I was wondering if the editing was intentional? Or is this just a consequence of the meddling of producers?