A new writing segment, "Ten Items or Less" is an attempt to consciously cutback and restrict how much I write. I get ten sentences or less to discuss a movie. That's it. Let's see if some genius comes out of working around my self-made obstacle.
Writer-director Orson Welles' ostentatious, opulent The Magnificent Ambersons is a film about the rippling effects of the past playing out into the present. Much like Welles' Citizen Kane, the film deals with people deeply wounded by events long since faded into memory, which they bitterly and nostalgically still cling to. The film shows the inevitably of change and the many scales on which it plays out on; the town goes from a Midwestern countryside hamlet to a bustling city, and the Ambersons go from wealthy benefactors to footnotes in the history of the town. Eugene Morgan (Joseph Cotton) pines for the woman, Isabel Amberson (Dolores Costello), who he long lost, and his daughter Lucy (Anne Baxter) is courted by his lost love's son George (Tim Holt). This all takes place under the scrutinizing gaze of the family and the townsfolk. In some ways, the film is about how family legacies are passed through generations, as well as how the evolution of the town is seen through the lens of the Amberson's experiences. Welles' direction is purposely showy but he fills each frame with a tremendous amount of telling detail. It's no wonder why Wes Anderson looked to Ambersons when making The Royal Tenenbaums, it's a film that uses background detail, character detail and precise framing to make unstated, dense points that enrich and inform the greater narrative. It's also a film about a wealthy, dysfunctional family coasting on their inheritance and legacy. But Welles' meticulous, brazen style hides a deep sense of melancholy reflective of individuals who hurt themselves and one another by refusing to let go of the past or by denying change in the present.
Grade: ★★★
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