For those who fall under the spell, “Mr. Arkadin” is a sensual feast and a deeply engrossing film.
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This is going to take some explaining.
"Mr. Arkadin" (1955) may be the work of a revered auteur, but Orson Welles´ under-appreciated gem proudly displays its pulp-fiction roots. All the lurid elements of the noir genre are in place: a peg-legged gunman, a would-be detective with a checkered past, his equally seedy girlfriend, a mysterious millionaire and his beautiful daughter, and, of course, a trail of corpses strewn across half of Europe.
Guy Van Stratten (Robert Arden) is a two-bit cigarette smuggler minding his own business in Italy when he encounters a dying man named Bracco who tells him and his girlfriend Mily (Patricia Medina) a secret that will make them rich beyond their wildest dreams. Problem is, Guy´s dreams are pretty wild, and he parlays this secret into a meeting with the beautiful Raina (Paola Mori, sometimes known as Mrs. Orson Welles) who happens to be the daughter of the enigmatic multi-millionaire Gregory Arkadin (Welles) who also happens to be the subject of Bracco´s death-bed secret. Arkadin is so mysterious even he doesn´t know his own background; Arkadin claims to have no memories before a day in 1927 when he happened to be wearing a suit and clutching 200,000 Swiss francs. He hires Guy to discover the true origins of famous Gregory. Arkadin. Whether Arkadin´s amnesia is real or faked, Guy has no idea, but when the subjects he interviews start dying off, he has little time to worry about anything besides saving his own skin.
The plot is as delightfully pulpy as can be, but the real pleasure of the film is the kinetic fury that infuses nearly every scene. With a story about a reclusive tycoon, the film superficially resembles "Citizen Kane," but a more proper point of comparison in Welles´ oeuvre is "The Trial" (1962). Like Welles´ later Kafka adaptation, "Arkadin" employs a strategy of whirlwind movement, distorted camera angles, and geographical disorientation to keep the viewer constantly off-balance. The story hops constantly from country to country and the locations are so grandiose and baroque (castles, ruins, etc.), Welles´ detective story takes on a science-fiction quality: the Martians may have landed at Grover´s Mill, New Jersey, but you can just feel them hot on Guy´s tail as he races from Amsterdam to Hungary to Spain and points beyond.
Welles was famous for his fondness for magic, but here he functions as a specific type of magician: a mesmerist. He hypnotizes the audience as director by never letting the viewer get his bearings; as soon as you figure out where you are, whoosh, it´s off to the next exotic setting. The viewer is left only to trust Welles to serve as his guide in this whirling dervish universe. As an actor, his Rasputin-like Arkadin (complete with outrageously false beard) uses his magnetic stare and stentorian voice to bend everyone to his iron will. You will obey my every command! For those who fall under the spell, "Mr. Arkadin" is a sensual feast and a deeply engrossing film, perhaps not on par with Welles´ greatest works, but eminently satisfying nonetheless.
Gregory Arkadin´s background is baffling enough, but the film "Mr. Arkadin" is surrounded by its own tale of intrigue. As happened with many of his projects, Welles was never able to complete the film on his own terms. Welles re-worked his material long after the completion of principal photography. He re-wrote the script in the editing room and even dubbed voices (usually his own) over the characters´ lines to the point where the lip movements don´t even remotely match the spoken dialogue (this can be distracting at first, but actually contributes to the disorienting experience of the film). Welles´ perfectionism tried the patience of many a producer, and in the case of "Arkadin," producer Louis Dolivet (a shady character in his own right) eventually took the film out of Welles´ hands altogether.
Since then the film has been shown in multiple permutations, none of which can rightly be considered the "correct" version. There is no "Director´s Cut" of "Mr. Arkadin," only competing versions. This three-disc set from Criterion offers three of these versions. The Corinth version has been the one preferred by scholars since Peter Bogdanovich tracked it down in 1960; the "Confidential Report" version was edited by Dolivet and released by Warner Brothers in 1956 (with the title "Confidential Report" instead of "Mr. Arkadin); and the new "Comprehensive Version," which draws on the best of many different versions, was produced exclusively for the Criterion release. This selection hardly exhausts the possibilities; there are also two Spanish-language versions: the "Mark Sharpe" version and the "Bob Harden" version.
(Some of you have seen "Mr. Arkadin" on the hideously awful Laserlight DVD release (the only Region 1 DVD of "Mr. Arkadin" I am aware of) and are wondering which of these editions it is. The answer: none of them! The Laserlight edition was yet another version usually known as "The American version." While there is no definitive version of the film, most critics agree that this badly butchered cut is inferior to the rest. )
If you´re confused by now, don´t feel bad. I told you this would take some explaining.
In most versions, the film begins with Van Stratten visiting Jacob Zook (Akim Tamaroff), a man who knew Arkadin from the old days which therefore makes him a potential target of Arkadin´s wrath. The film is then structured as a flashback with Van Stratten relating the story to Zook. The primary difference among the competing versions is the way in which this flashback structure is preserved.
I don´t have the time or space to detail all the differences between the versions. Instead, I will compare the opening ten minutes of the Corinth version and "Confidential Report" to give you a sense of how substantial some of the changes are. The basic structure is identical in both: after a few title cards, the film opens with a shot of an empty plane, then the opening credit sequence, Van Stratten´s visit to Zook´s apartment, and a flashback to Bracco´s death on the docks in Italy.
In the Corinth version, Guy walks up to Zook´s apartment under the opening credit sequence with the title music still playing. In "Confidential Report," these shots don´t occur until after the opening credits have finished, in voice-over narration, Van Stratten tells us that he is here to save Jacob Zook from Gregory Arkadin´s clutches. Then another switch. In the Corinth version, the flashback to Bracco´s death includes Van Stratten´s narration (as he tells the story to Zook); in "Confidential Report" this extended sequence plays with no voice-over whatsoever.
The Corinth version returns repeatedly to Van Stratten´s conversation with Zook, thus structuring the film as a complicated series of flashbacks, much like "Citizen Kane." "Confidential Report" never returns to Zook until the story catches up with him near the end, and the film proceeds in a more standard, linear fashion (one big, well-ordered flashback instead of multiple smaller ones). The opening voice-over in "Confidential Report" establishes Van Stratten as a more traditional hardboiled detective, while the Corinth version preserves the sense of mystery well into the first scene.
The Comprehensive Version, on the other hand, opens with a shot of a dead body before showing the empty plane, but I´m not even going to go there. The Comprehensive Version was assembled by critics Stefan Drössler and Claude Bertemes, with the optimistic intention of creating a version closer closest to Welles´ original intention. Drössler and Bertemes base their version on painstaking research of Welles´ letters and interviews over the years, and they incorporate elements from virtually all versions of the film which makes their cut the longest at 105 minutes (Corinth clocks in at 99 min, "Confidential Report" at 98 min.) Both men admit that there is no real way to know what Welles would have done had he maintained control over the final cut, but they wanted to provide another perspective on "Mr. Arkadin." I am not certain that the addition of yet another version of "Mr. Arkadin" to the mix provides any clarity, but it provides Welles aficionados even more material to obsess and argue over.
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[release]18812[/release]