Every American film made since Citizen Kane
has, to a certain extent, lived in the shadow of this acclaimed
production. Widely and frequently heralded as the greatest film ever
made, Orson Welles' 1941 feature looms large in the annals of motion picture history. Now, imagine you are Welles himself, and Citizen Kane
is your first film. What's more, you are only 26 when the movie is
released. What could you possibly do next? How do you meet such lofty
expectations?
This
was the dilemma faced by Welles when he embarked on his second feature,
the 1942 adaptation of Booth Tarkington's award-winner novel, The Magnificent Ambersons,
a source he had previously had success with on the radio. The
production is unquestionably ambitious. It's grandly staged, expertly
shot, finely written and terrifically acted. But upon its initial
preview, it was deemed too much, too somber and too serious, and the
studio, RKO, began cutting away. Without Welles' cooperation, nearly an
hour was excised from the film, the cut footage never to be seen again.
Even the film's score was not spared. Famed composer Bernard Herrmann, who had done the score for Citizen Kane
and would be most recognized as the sound behind so many Hitchcock
films, asked to have his credit on the picture removed after he heard
how the studio had tampered with arrangements.
As
Welles himself put it, "For five or six reels things weren't so bad. I
thought, 'Well, that isn't so bad. They didn't do too many things – only
a few stupid little cuts.' And then all hell broke loose…It was a much
better picture than Kane – if they'd just left it as it was."
What we do have runs about 88 minutes, 88 fabulous minutes. Ultimately,
the troubled production history of The Magnificent Ambersons is exemplary of one of cinema's greatest "what could have beens." With the original, almost mythical 10-hour cut of Erich Von Stroheim's Greed,
the lost sequences from Welles' picture are some of film history's most
tantalizing lost treasures. Thankfully, we can at least get a sense of
what we're missing here with the inclusion of a detailed summary of cuts
and alterations included in Peter Bogdanovich's invaluable "This is Orson Welles."
But now to the film at hand, and let none of this belittle the extant version of the movie. By any standard, The Magnificent Ambersons
is a great film, and fortunately, enough of Welles' imprint remains.
First, we have Welles as the narrator. A captivating voice before he was
ever an on-screen personality, the filmmaker's instantly recognizable
delivery is enchanting from syllable one. Is there any director, save
for perhaps Werner Herzog, whom one could so pleasantly listen to for hours on end? He then sets the stage in a fashion not unlike Kane;
we are abruptly thrust into the world of the picture via a barrage of
visual and narrative techniques: fast-cutting, direct to camera
comments, flashbacks, deep-focus cinematography, an assortment of camera
placements and maneuvers, and on and on. Welles was nothing if not a
masterful purveyor of uniquely filmic devices.
Unlike Citizen Kane
though, which traces the rapid rise and fall of a man as he bursts
head-first into the modern world, there is automatically something
solemn and much more ominous with Ambersons. Here is a film that features characters reluctant to enter the modern age. Ambersons
is, on the contrary, an elegy for days gone by, for ways and manners of
the past, for lives that once were and are never to be again. We feel
bad for those in the film, yes. But there is one whom we never fully get
behind, one character who causes the audience to never quite become
totally sympathetic for the frivolity of the old-world Ambersons. That
would be the son of Isabel Amberson and Wilbur Minafer (Dolores Costello
and Don Dillaway), the arrogant George, played by Tim Holt. Welles'
narrator tells us of how the townsfolk express their distain for young
George (and older George for that matter). They eagerly await the day he
"gets his comeuppance." Truth be told, so do we. And yet he is our
protagonist.
The character we do like though is Eugene, played by Joseph Cotton (co-star of Citizen Kane
and one of the most endearingly likable screen presences in Hollywood
history). In an unusual case where the older stands for the new and the
young embodies the old, it's Eugene who seems confident and comfortable
with the forward movement of time, as opposed to George who, in
Bogdanovich's words, "represents the dying plutocracy." Eugene's
optimism about modernity is explicitly conveyed in his profession: he's
an automobile inventor (Welles' father tried his hand at the burgeoning
business at one point). Post-locomotive, the automobile is the
preeminent symbol for a faster, more mechanized and possibly more
dangerous - physically, socially, politically - result of modern
ingenuity and desire. It's clear which side history is on here. After
deaths in the family and the awareness of a mismanagement of money, the
Ambersons are in a perpetual state of decline throughout the film, while
Eugene, on the other hand, continues to prosper.
There is more to The Magnificent Ambersons
than this metaphoric contest between eras, ideologies and sociocultural
implications though. "One shouldn't ever be conscious of the author as
lecturer," said Welles. "When social or moral points are too heavily
stressed, I always get uncomfortable." At the heart of the film are its
relationships: George and Lucy (Eugene's daughter, played by Anne
Baxter) and Eugene and Isabel. But these are rocky at best. George is
rude and conceited and continually insults Eugene … not the best way to
win over his daughter. And Eugene and Isabel, concealing a love that
bloomed in their teenage years, have to overcome, first, her marriage
(which, in a twisted but nonetheless realistic way, they do when Wilbur
dies), and then the impediment of George's disapproval. Throw into the
mix George's aunt Fanny, who also harbors a love for Eugene. Agnes
Moorehead's performance as the peripheral aunt would be the film's only
acting Oscar nomination. (Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration,
Black-and-White - Albert S. D'Agostino, A. Roland Fields, Darrell
Silvera; Best Cinematography, Black-and-White - Stanley Cortez; and Best
Picture would round out the film's other nominations.)
In
the end though, it's perhaps Major Anderson (Richard Bennett), the
grand patriarch of the family, whom we feel most sorry for. Outliving
his wife and a daughter, he survives just long enough to also see his
empire crumble. Shot in the dark in medium close-up, with only the
flicker of a fire illuminating his aged and weary face, Major Anderson, by the conclusion of the film,
is a shell of a man. He speaks of nonsensical trivialities and seems
unaware (willingly, by mental instability, possibly both) of the drama
that unfolds around him.
As
for Orson Welles, to those who managed to see the film before it was
relegated to the bottom of a double bill, it should have been clear that
Citizen Kane was no fluke. This kid was for real. But things
would never quite be the same for this wunderkind filmmaker; more
struggles and, amazingly and against all odds, more astonishing films
would follow. Here though, visually and aurally, the same noteworthy
trademarks are present: the deep focus staging, the endlessly fluid
camera movements, baroque lighting designs, expressive editing and
overlapping dialogue. The entire Welles arsenal of cinematic devices are
fully on display. Welles doesn't even do end credits like other people.
Here, he reads the roles and the respective names
("Stanley Cortez was the photographer … Robert Wise was the film editor
… Here's the cast…."). Then he concludes: "I wrote the script and
directed it. My name is Orson Welles. … This is a Mercury Production."
It's chilling, in the best possible way.
The
character of Jesse James, at least as he is commonly personified in the
mythical terms of Robin Hood-esque anti-heroism, seems to be ideal
fodder for the thematic proclivities of director Nicholas Ray (They Live By Night (1949), In a Lonely Place (1950), Johnny Guitar (1954), Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Bigger Than Life
(1956)). Though not of the same caliber of quality as most of Ray’s
greatest works — but closer behind than perhaps it gets credit for — The True Story of Jesse James,
made in 1957 starring Robert Wagner in the title role, nevertheless
stands as a solid representation of the auteurist notions commonly
attributed to Ray. In this film, despite being a remake of (and actually
briefly using footage from) Henry King’s Jesse James (1939), we get – stylistically, narratively, and thematically – a bringing together of much that makes Ray’s cinema so special.
The
film begins with the bank robbery that would, we find out, be the nail
in the coffin of the James brothers’ increasingly reckless and risky
crime spree. But it doesn’t take long for the film to move from the
ensuing pursuit as primary focus to instead begin the telling of this
tale through flashbacks, striving more for a depiction of what brought
Jesse, his brother Frank (Jeffrey Hunter), and the rest of his family
and cohorts to this point. This goal of rationalization and explication
is overtly proclaimed by the repeated comments made throughout the film
by characters seeking to define, understand, and clarify Jesse’s
actions. Who is Jesse James, they ask, what made him? Why does he do
what he does? This is what Ray’s picture seeks to uncover.
It
certainly doesn’t take the poetic, self-consciously stylish approach to
Jesse’s life as Andrew Dominik did in the immensely underrated and
magnificent The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), nor does it reach for the psychological depths (at least not consistently) as Samuel Fulller’s I Shot Jesse James
(1949), which actually focuses more considerably on Ford. However, what
it does do is find a comfortable middle ground amid these two other
great films dealing with the same topic. We get at once an almost
journalistic recalling of Jesse’s life – as the opening titles tell us, a
factual narrative of what really occurred is the picture’s aim – yet a
majority of what we see is subjectively told through flashbacks, how the
characters remember things happening. So, like Jesse James the legend,
Ray’s film too falls between what supposedly really happened and what
others personally said happened.
As
noted, a considerable portion of the film is devoted to uncovering what
made Jesse do what he did. It seems that this particular take on his
life finds three main motivations: pure and simple badness, the Civil
War, and authority, specifically older authoritative figures. Not only
does this again fall in line with much of Ray’s work in the way it seeks
to explain its characters (see James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, James Mason in Bigger Than Life, and Farley Granger and Cathy O’Donnell in They Live By Night as examples), but it also looks back to these and other previous films in some of its very explanations.
Beginning
with the idea of the war as catalyst, Jesse’s mother, played by Agnes
Moorehead, blames the battle and the “yankees.” She points to the
northern, oppressive domination over their southern lifestyle as a
reason behind Jesse’s actions and mentality. This is echoed later in the
film when Jesse and Frank round up their posse and discuss how the
intimidating northerners have made them all suffer and how robbing the
banks wouldn’t be too bad anyway since they would only be full off
northern money. The war waged on their territory threatened not only
their land and way of life, but also their “southern pride.” Like Joan
Crawford’s Vienna in Johnny Guitar, this sense of pride is
enough of a justification for resistance, for taking a stand against the
imposing forces. Jesse and the others feel threatened and abused and
aggressively act out accordingly. In addition, this sense of
disillusionment and bewilderment with the world they gradually find
themselves in harks back to Ray’s noirs and their post-war opportunists,
schemers, and lost souls.
The
town pastor, Rev. Jethro Bailey (John Carradine), looks to the
influences of evil, of the devil himself, as the origin of Jesse’s
deeds. Perhaps, he seems to suggest, Jesse has simply become a bad man.
In one of the most dazzling sections of the film, Bailey recalls how,
just hours after Jesse and wife Zee’s baptism, James begins his life of
crime. We see though, as Zee and Jesse’s mother combat, that this
conversion was actually instigated by northern sympathizers attacking
the James home and killing a friend and less by Satan. This nighttime
attack sequence is one of the film’s finest, using its primary technical
features (color, sound, the mobile camera, and Cinemascope) to produce a
gorgeously shot, haunting assault on the James household. The intense
use of color (something Ray was certainly a master of) and sound in
particular (here actually, it’s the lack of sound – sharp gunfire
puncturing the otherwise silent scene: no score, no natural sounds, no
voices) create a vivid moment of confusion, panic, and action, all
dramatized by a play with light and shadow.
The
third main suggestion for Jesse’s exploits comes from sequences and
dialogue that point towards a general dislike and distrust for
authority: commanding northern soldiers, adults, law officers, etc. Of
course, Rebel Without a Cause springs instantly to mind here,
and the comparison is not at all far off. Jesse is very much a youthful
character, and given the close production proximity of Ray’s most famous
picture (though most think of it as Dean’s most famous picture), its
clear that he still has something to say on the matter of the older,
authoritarian impact on the freewheeling, young. Like so many rebellious
teenager films from the 1950s (Brando’s The Wild One in 1953
as just one example), Ray here presents the outlaw hero as one who is
bucking the system and confronting the establishment as much as anything
else.
Sticking with the Rebel Without a Cause comparison, and also recalling Bigger Than Life,
Ray draws attention to notions of domesticity with this film as well,
and the sense of supposed normalcy that goes along with it. After
renting a house, Jesse and wife Zee (Hope Lange) discuss what they’re
going to do with it, their family, and the town they now live in.
Idealistically, they strive to be immersed inside the community, while
conversely, perhaps impossibly, living outside the law. This conflicting
existence is abruptly cut short when Jesse announces that he must leave
for another job. It seems that while they may buy into the illusion of a
settled down home and place in the neighborhood, Jesse’s chosen field
will forever disrupt their hopes for a “normal” life.
Aside from the previously mentioned nighttime attack, The True Story of Jesse James
is full of typical Ray flourishes in terms of style. Making complete
use of the widescreen frame (again, something he does extraordinarily
well), Ray composes a majority of his shots not only packing the frame
from all sides with details, more often than not significant ones, but
also adding a dimensional depth to his compositions. Having characters
or objects placed prominently to one side or one section of the image
foreground, in close-up, Ray also draws attention to what may be going
on behind said character or object, sometimes much further in the
background, highlighting it in the open, unoccupied widescreen space.
It’s this combination of depth and the horizontal that makes for some
very striking and realistic images. A line of individuals can stretch
all the way across the frame, while their surroundings are
simultaneously given due prominence. Added to this is Ray’s use of the
tracking shot, further emphasizing the horizontal constriction of the
film. When Frank brings a wounded Jesse to a family member’s house
(where Zee is introduced) Ray again combines beautifully the horizontal
with depth of field by tracking along their wagon while, at the same
time, moving in on the fallen Jesse. Effectively utilizing smoke, light,
and camera angle as well, Ray at one point films a nighttime train
robbery quite masterly, causing a nightmarish sense of hypnotic
pandemonium.
The
film also has its moments of humor. Jesse is asked what line of work
he’s in and he responds that its banking and railroads. And later, much
amusement is had (by the audience and by Jesse and Frank) when the
brothers attend the trial of a captured gang member. Using aliases and
thus unknown to those around them (no one has seen their faces) they
speak openly and confidently to the prosecutor and, later, the detective
assigned to their capture, neither of whom have any idea who they’re
actually talking with.
Played
by Wagner, Jesse here (like Brad Pitt playing him in Dominik’s film) is
an attractive figure, a further element of the Jesse James myth. It’s
important that if he is to be likable he is also to be handsome. At
first, it does seem like Jesse gets into bank robbing with the best of
intentions. It’s just going to be this once; he doesn’t want to make a
career out of it; it’s for his family, his home. But this doesn’t last.
In a self-destructive manner not totally unlike Bogart in In a Lonely Place or Mason in Bigger Than Life,
Jesse abandons whatever positive ideals he may have had and heads down
the path to his downfall, to loneliness and violence. Near the end,
Jesse is a man obsessed, blind to dangers. He’s quick to kill anyone who
wrongs him in any way. And, in contrast to not making a career out of
bank robbing, he refers to their crimes as “our business.” Jesse seems
to himself have bought into the Jesse James myth. This is comically made
clear when, after gang member Cole offers some money to a poor elderly
lady who gave them food and temporary shelter, Jesse, following his
reading of outlandish published tales about himself, gives her $600
dollars, enough to pay off her entire mortgage and encourage the tales
of his good nature and kindness. Once the man from the bank has
collected the funds, however, Jesse immediately robs him.
After
attempting to rob a bank in Minnesota, out of their normal territory
and under paranoid circumstances, everything begins to go wrong. The
town where the bank is located is remarkably united, everyone seeming to
pitch in by blocking the gang’s escape and firing at them, killing
most. This is in opposition to the tragic disunity that has developed
within the gang. Jesse’s paranoia, his frenzied behavior and
heedlessness, is one of the film’s most prominent psychological
developments (this rivaled by the end of the film when Jesse realizes
that even his own children have succumbed to the fable of Jesse James,
his son and daughter playing with a wooden gun, the former “shooting
down” the latter causing her to cry).
Finally
though, it’s the betrayal of a friend that leads to Jesse’s demise. His
being shot in the back by Robert Ford is well known and well documented
– in western stories and films – and this picture is no different in
its presentation. Ford, initially introduced in this movie off-handedly
yet ominously as “Robbie,” is weasely and instantly suspicious (this no
doubt aided by our established knowledge of his role in the story). Once
shot and lying on the floor, the crowd that gathers is a testament to
Jesse’s fame. Ford runs down the road proclaiming that he just shot
Jesse James; the crowd runs the other way, toward Jesse. One character
earlier commented that when the public doesn’t need Jesse James that
will be his end; this was clearly not yet the case. Indeed, on their way
out of Jesse’s house they steal miscellaneous objects of memorabilia.
There
is much to admire in this typically neglected Nicholas Ray film; many
of the hallmarks of his formal and stylistic affinities are present,
even if the general story told has been recounted frequently. Working in
a genre that revels in the use of the widescreen and color, Ray's The True Story of Jesse James
is a more than solid production. If this is indeed how Ray saw the life
of Jesse James, if this is how he imagines the scenes and actions that
comprised Jesse’s existence to be, then it’s impossible to imagine them
ever presented any other way than in the medium of cinema, with rich
colors and expansive Cinemascope.
