The last 45 minutes of The Magnificent Ambersons is the stuff cinephile dreams of -- the sort of thing Indiana Jones might go looking for if he weren't busy mixing it up with Mayan aliens or whatever he was doing the last time we saw him.
All jokes aside, here's the very serious history lesson: In 1942, while Welles was in Brazil -- working on a documentary project -- RKO studios ordered the director's second directorial effort re-edited with a newer, happier ending, thus beginning the regular practice of chopping up anything Welles directed from that point on (except The Trial, which due to European backing, exists as Welles imagined it). Of course, the real tragedy was RKO's decision to completely destroy the footage, rendering The Magnificent Ambersons a giant "what if" in Welles's filmography and American cinema.
BFI's (British Film Institute) Sight and Sound poll recognized the film twice, in 1972 and then again in 1982, in its top 10 greatest films of all time lists. Looking back, labeling The Magnificent Ambersons "one of the greatest films of all time" may have been overstating the film's case a bit, yet justifiable if only to highlight all that is spellbinding in the surviving footage. Even in its truncated version, Ambersons has many of the makings of an American classic.
Orson Welles and the Fall of the House of Ambersons
Based on novel by Booth Tarkington, Ambersons, like Citizen Kane before it and Touch of Evil after, follows the tragic downfall of a larger-than-life figure, in this case, the fabulously wealthy Amberson family. As with those two other aforementioned Welles pictures, this tragic figure (or family) doubles as a reflection of America and its many ills. Charles Foster Kane is entrepreneurship and capitalism run rampant. Hank Quinlan, a bloated symbol of corrupted justice. And George Amberson Minafer, the last heir to a dying generation.
George, or "Georgie" (Tim Holt) as his mother, Isabel (Dolores Costello), calls him, is the raging brat of the family, whose "comeuppance" the townspeople eagerly await. In Minafer -- whom Tarkington may or may not have based on Welles, a family friend -- Welles recognizes the fierce arrogance of youth, but also, a destructive but not unjustified longing for the way things were.
Twisting the old Oedipal knife, Welles pits George against his mother's suitor, inventor Eugene Morgan (Joseph Cotton), a progressive and understanding man who sees his "horseless carriage" go from town joke to social/cultural/technological game-changer. Though George is the most vocal and easy target, really, it's all the Ambersons who refuse to adapt to modernization. Their manners do not spare them, although the RKO studio execs do, slightly, in their efforts to temper the final destitution of the Amberson clan for a happier closing.
A Sense of Loss in Ambersons -- What Is and What Will Never Be
Despite the tacked on sentiment, loss is woven beautifully throughout Ambersons, be it the loss of stature, sanity or life. What makes the downfall of the Ambersons so interesting is how ambiguous Welles's take on the material is. At times, he (as the narrator) is a man in love with all the Ambersons are and represent. The ball celebrating George's return home from school is so inviting in its decadence, the door swinging open to display the rich inside of the Amberson estate.
Later, as the bottom begins to fall out, the mansion becomes something of a cavernous tomb, a place of broken dreams and desires. For all the nostalgia Welles has for horse drawn carriages and sleighs, social balls and other cultural relics, he is equally zealous in tearing down the facade and revealing George's life for what it is: empty and childish.
The tight-edit makes the Amberson decay appear as if it happens overnight, which probably wasn't exactly what Welles had in mind considering the original version of the film ran close to 150 minutes. And although it is mighty tempting to wish upon a falling star for a supposedly lost copy of one of the preview versions to pop up somewhere, Ambersons still has so much of its magic intact, we should all be thankful RKO didn't destroy the film in its entirety.
Agnes Moorehead as the neglected Aunt Fanny, perhaps the saddest case in the Amberson/Minafer family. Jack Amberson's (Ray Collins) parting speech to George at the train station. The opening sequence paying tribute to the history of early cinema. There are moments that match the best of Citizen Kane, and if the studio meddling didn't help the film on a whole, it makes the tragedy within the film that much more palpable.
Whether he deserved it or not, Welles got his comeuppance, and never enjoyed the creative freedom given to him on Citizen Kane again. It's this knowledge that imbues Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles with a tinge of sadness, and strengthens the bond between Tarkington's George and the real life Welles, whose downfalls are two sides of the same coin -- one fictional, the other, sadly real.
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