Movie Night: THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS

 Three thoughts about THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, coming up after the trailer...

* This is Orson Welles' follow-up to CITIZEN KANE, and it shares much with its predecessor: The use of shadows, light, and deep-focus shots on the technical front, as well as an obsession with the decline and fall of wealth -- of a single man, in the case of KANE, of a whole family in AMBERSONS. It is beautiful to look at, and I'll want to revisit it again sometime in the near future.

* Welles' narration of this movie reminded me very much of the narration in Martin Scorcese's THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, and in a way that makes a whole lot of sense: The source novels for both movies appeared two years apart, and they both document the fine details of wealth -- both the physical setting, as well as the social customs -- in an era just before modernity struck.

* The studio famously stuck a kind-of happy ending onto this otherwise dark picture, and hoo boy, it shows. Everything is depressing until the last 30 seconds. Agnes Moorehead's character, who has been in  a state of near-hysteria for much of the film, ends the story with a smile on her face. It's weird. But there's so much to enjoy in the rest of the movie, and it's not like pretty good movies aren't stuck with bad endings all the time, even now. Still worth another view.

THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS is currently on Criterion Channel.

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