The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)- Orson Welles' Cinematic Anomaly

As this blog has already illustrated, I am a big fan of classical cinema. Nothing (except Inception) can beat it in my eyes. So when I was in need of a quick 90 minute film last night I turned to Mr reliable Orson Welles and his follow up to Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons. To say I was disappointed was an understatement, so much so that I thought I would have a little vent about it.

This film follows the wealthy Amberson family as inner turmoil within the family threatens their relationships as well as their wealth. It is well documented that Welles lost control of the edit of this film. The studio took over which resulted in an hour of footage being cut and a more lighthearted ending being added instead of Welles’ darker vision. This is where the problems begin. For example, scenes cut to black seemingly in the middle of conversations and even during lines of dialogue. This is particularly evident at the beginning of the film in which two scenes, the opening long shot of the Amberson mansion and young George Minifer getting into a fight, cut to black prior to the non-diegetic narrator or diegetic dialogue coming to a conclusion. These sudden conclusions to these respective scenes appear disjointed and jarring resulting in a narrative cohesion that is lacking in comparison to the rest of Welles’ filmography such as the aforementioned Citizen Kane and the weird but wonderful Lady from Shanghai.

As George Minifer grows up, it is evident that the audience is meant to hate him. His rudeness towards his family, dismissal of Eugene and treatment of his girlfriend Lucy leaves him with no redeeming qualities. While this in itself isn’t a crime that negatively impacts the film, the performance of George, the central character, is. Tim Holt offers a weak and monotonous performance that leaves each scene he’s present in falling flat with me feeling desperate for more interesting characters (Eugene or Auntie Fanny) to take center stage. The acting all round feels fairly lackluster in my opinion. The absence of Welles in a physical role feels particularly relevant due to his starring roles in both Citizen Kane and Lady from Shanghai. The notable exception to this for me is Joseph Cotton as Eugene. His presence offers nuance and maturity that is lacking from the majority of the rest of the cast. On top of this, the performances aren’t helped by another poor use of editing. Many dubbed lines aren’t synced properly while also being delivered at a much higher volume than other lines in the scene. This results in the cinematic experience being tarnished and therefore removes me from the narrative all together.

My final comment to make on this film is the occurence of simple mistakes. For example, a tracking shot follows George and Eugene as they have a heated discussion in Eugene’s motor car. In the bottom left hand corner of the screen, the dolly which the camera is mounted upon is clearly visible. This simple overlook once again destroys the illusion of cinema and takes my focus away from the central narrative I should be paying attention to. While this isn’t a catastrophe, it once again feels like a simple issue and could easily be avoided and suggests an element of laziness when it comes to filmmaking in this studio system era.

I think that’ll do it for my rant today. I would like to reiterate that this is a very subjective opinion and you’re more than welcome to disagree with it. I just feel that this is a bit of an anomaly within this era of cinema. In the meantime, I need to prepare myself for Tarkovsky’s next film, Solaris.