মি অ্যান্ড অরসন ওয়েল্‌স

চলচ্চিত্র থেকে
(Me and Orson Welles থেকে পুনর্নির্দেশিত)

রিভিউকারদের মন্তব্য

রজার ইবার্ট
- The impersonation of Welles by Christian McKay in "Me and Orson Welles" is the centerpiece of the film, and from it, all else flows. We can almost accept that this is the Great Man.
- Oh, he [Welles] had an ego. He once came to appear at Chicago's Auditorium Theatre. A snowstorm shut down the city, but he was able to get to the theater from his nearby hotel. At curtain time, he stepped before the handful of people who had been able to attend. "Good evening," he said. "I am Orson Welles -- director, producer; actor; impresario; writer; artist; magician; star of stage, screen and radio, and a pretty fair singer. Why are there so many of me, and so few of you?"
- The film is steeped in theater lore. The impossible hours, the rehearsals, the gossip, the intrigue, the hazards of stage trap doors, the quirks of personalities, the egos, the imbalance of a star surrounded entirely by supporting actors -- supporting on stage and in life.
- Many of the familiar originals are represented here, not least Joseph Cotton (James Tupper), who co-starred with Welles in "Citizen Kane" and "The Third Man." Here is John Houseman (Eddie Marsan, not bulky enough but evocative), who was Welles' long-suffering producer. And the actor George Coulouris (Ben Chaplin), who played Mr. Thatcher in "Kane." All at the beginning, all in embryo, all promised by Welles they would make history. They believed him, and they did.
- Self-confidence is something you can't act; you have to possess it, and McKay, in his first leading role, has that in abundance.
- Linklater's feel for onstage and backstage is tangible, and so is his identification with Welles. He was 30 when he made his first film, Welles of course 25, both swept along by unflappable fortitude. "Me and Orson Welles" is not only entertaining but an invaluable companion to the life and career of the Great Man.
নিক ব্র্যাডশ'
The film is careful to skirt hindsight. Welles is granted one introspective moment with his cherished copy of Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons (inspired by Welles' father); and after Caesar's triumphant first night, he wonders, "How do I top this?" The film instead honours that accomplishment, representing the "lean, brutal" production in swift, sharp strokes, militaristic Roman gangsters in fascist suits marauding through the audience, backlit spit flying, the young performing talents of a generation fully justifying their platform to shine a light on their world.
পিটার ট্র্যাভার্স
what makes the movie stick, besides Linklater's pitch-perfect direction, is the way McKay and Efron handle the seduction and betrayal of Richard by Welles. The treachery is sweetly done, of course, but it leaves its mark. Just like the movie.
জে হোবারম্যান
- For all of its virtues, Me and Orson is not perfect. The thrifty period mise-en-scène is oversaturated with '30s popular music (although not, curiously, the modernist-cabaret score Marc Blitzstein provided for the stage production), and the screenplay gives only a perfunctory sense of the era's Popular Front politics (Clifford Odets's Golden Boy opened on Broadway one week before).
- Burdened by an unnecessary subplot featuring Zoe Kazan's aspiring writer, Me and Orson goes disconcertingly soft toward the end—throwing away the provocative notion that the entire episode might have been Junior's classroom daydream for a more conventional closer. This nod to naturalism is itself cancelled out by the sentimental addition of Orson's sotto voce "thank you," directed to the back of the long-suffering Houseman. This momentary deflation of the Welles ego is the least convincing moment in the film.
এ ও স্কট
- In that production Welles played Brutus — a complicated character, both noble and treacherous. And “Me and Orson Welles” shows him in similarly shaded light, illuminating both his talent and his caddishness. Best of all, the movie allows us to glimpse enough of the rehearsal and performance to see just why the Mercury “Caesar” was a milestone in the history of the modern theater.
- Disenchantment is part of the magic, and “Me and Orson Welles” strikes a persuasive balance between naïveté and cynicism, both of which are necessary to the theatrical enterprise. Art is a fairy tale we choose to believe in, and this movie, a fiction confected about real people, is too good not to be true.