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Many of us want so desperately to find Welles' later work important that we'll do almost anything to trick ourselves into thinking it is. See "The Grand Illusion" or "Rules of the Game" by Renoir if you'd like to see truly great films. Touch of Evil is moribund, tired, wheezing for breath. But almost all of his later work isn't good, almost all of it is terrible. But it isn't. Hank Quinlan isn't a very compelling character. The actual films, after Kane, are really just pretty lousy.
Every scene is a visual, bombastic overreach. Heston as the hero doesn't really behave in a believable fashion, he looks like someone playing a character in a film. The pacing is deadening, it's hard to follow. Welles best work was him talking about his career. Some scenes do need to be visually loud and impressive, but they need to be contrasted with quieter scenes. Why is Quinlan blubbering over all the time, and for what reason. The movie is still awful.
And overly long and trying - like the entire picture. It may be more true to Welle's vision, but it's still awful. No one cares. (who cares. Some scenes are just there for information - like the car bomb. We don't care much for him at the start, and could care less at the end when he falls backward into the water. I discovered that in our youth we often know what's right, but often doubt ourselves.
A big "Citizen Kane" fan in my youth, I saw Touch of Evil in 1981 and thought it was simply awful. This movie is hard to watch, not credible, the writing is unnatural and stilted, the premise preposterous. Any Perry Mason TV episode is heads and shoulders above this, because the craft of storytelling is done well. It was a mess when he was alive and it's still a mess.
women know it may quack like a duck but it ain't no duck. In Touch of Evil, there is no thought to that at all. It was written apparently for Welles to impress us with his filmmaking, not to tell us a story. The Italians say the best way to get praise is to die. The film has no balance - each scene is trying to be a mini-epic, rather than an element to tell the story.
That's why it's so enjoyable, it does a very good job of telling the story. Most often men do this. His talent had gone, quite obviously, by this time. Well, this film was almost immediately recognized as a classic once Orson Welles died. A movie, after all, exists to communicate a story.
And it's poorly crafted. Welles was a hot fire who had burned into a smoking dead heap by the time he made this, and the movie is much like him at this time: overly indulgent, self centered, ineffective. This movie is really Welles doing an impersonation of himself. Get it. Not this. It's as though Welles is trying to tell us, "This is art. The end quote: "He was some kind of man, etc." Ridiculous.
Then recently I heard of this reissue, and thought I'd buy it and watch it again. This is art." Meanwhile the film leaves us angry, like we've been cheated. But a bit unnecessary. And we have been. Even "Swamp Water" is a wonderful film.
We all want Welles work after Kane to be good, and important because we want his accomplishments to fit this image we have of him: the grand, all-knowing, gregarious, misunderstood genius filmmaker. Like all his later films, this is like an overwritten book that is hard to read, rather than lucid storytelling. All of you, if you're objective, will agree that there is nothing to care about in this film. That's the form - now the content.
There is no regard for the audience here. For "Kane", those self centered qualities had meshed well with the story; Kane was fresh, bold storytelling. Get it. Yes, the opening crane shot is elaborate and done in one take.
Lots of work to show a car bombing. - what the hell is going on with the story). Who is the Marlene Dietrich character, and why is Quinlan sitting there at her house. Much like Hemingway's "Islands in the Stream", Touch of Evil gives us a sad reminder of what once shone as a great talent.
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