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Films

Screening of Mr. Arkadin (1955)

A tribute to 100 years of Orson Welles


Date & time
Sunday, April 26, 2015
6:30 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Speaker(s)

Will Fech, Concordia Film Studies , Phd

Cost

$8, $6 for students and seniors. Tickets available at the door only, in cash.

Contact

Philippe Spurrell
514-738-3456

Where

Visual Arts Building
1395 René Lévesque W.
Room VA-114

Wheel chair accessible

Yes

Mr. Arkadin by Orson Welles
(1955, France / Spain / Switzerland , 98 min., 16mm)

Welles’ Mr. Arkadin (a.k.a. Confidential Report) could easily be interpreted as the crazed sibling to his Citizen Kane. The premise is the same; a man is asked to make an inquiry into the mysterious past of a millionaire. It then quickly transforms into labyrinth of false leads, illusions and enigmas. In this quest for separating truth from illusion, it also hints at his 1973 film, ‘F’ for Fake, a faux documentary on fakes.

This film also contains elements of the spy, noir and pulp fiction genres in its exploration of Cold War Europe. Welles was literally obsessed with his on-screen character and fabricated esthetic put together on a shoestring budget. And like many of Welles’ European oeuvres, Mr. Arkadin was made under very difficult conditions. His directorial trademarks are ever present and pushed to extremes; dizzy camera angles, baroque sets, expressionist lighting, theatrical staging and omnipresent music.

It also became yet another case of where the production company meddled in the final edit, tired of the extravagance of Welles and worried about the complexity of the film’s narrative structure. Nevertheless, the end product was considered by some to be a masterpiece and by Cahiers du Cinéma in 1958 to be Welles’ best work ever. Starring Orson Welles, Peter van Eyck, Akim Tamiroff, Michael Redgrave.

Coffee, tea and home-baked desserts offered at intermission.

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