Orson Welles: Six Films Analyzed, Scene by Scene

Orson Welles is a self-conscious storyteller who often invites his audience to question the methods and veracity of what they see and hear. He is that rare magician who both pulls the wool over our eyes, for our delight, and unravels the wool before our eyes, encouraging us to ponder the nature of the magic itself. Many of the characters in Welles’ movies can also be seen as magicians of a sort, creating impressions intended to manipulate other characters, or even themselves, in one direction or another. But unlike Welles, few of them voluntarily expose their tricks to the scrutiny of their victims. Six major Welles films -
Citizen Kane ,
The Magnificent Ambersons ,
The Lady from Shanghai ,
Touch of Evil ,
The Trial , and
Chimes at Midnight
- receive a scene by scene analysis in this critical study. From a viewer’s perspective, it illuminates the dramatic rhythms of each film as they unfold on screen and from the soundtrack. Frequent analogies to other movies and pertinent quotations from the impressions of other commentators broaden the text, always within the scene by scene progression dictated by the principal film under discussion.