The Magnificent Ambersons Review!!!
SYNOPSIS: George Minafer Amberson is a child who has everything he could possibly want: a lavish house, the best schooling, a pretty girl he pines after. But he is ultimately irresponsible and as the feet of progress move over him and his family, they fall from their graceful perch. This is the story of a fall, the spoiled George's fall.
ANALYSIS: The Magnificent Ambersons is a damning movie. Damning in the respect there is much to be lauded. Damning in the respect that it comes up so far short in the end. At least part of the problem with the 88 minute version of this story is that it should really be 130-something minutes. Or longer. You see, director Orson Welles had the film taken away and recut against his wishes. 40 minutes got chopped off there, about 30 here...and what it leaves is a mess. The film, ostensibly about George's fall from grace, doesn't move as gracefully as it should from one situation to the next; instead, the character talking cuts shooed off the screen by dissolves or others cuts. Some of the scenes were reshot; a new ending was put together. In the end, these types of things are obvious, even in a movie created in 1942.
But there is a lot to admire. The cast, a who's who of acting talent from the early days of cinema, are categorically the best thing on the screen. Agnes Moorehead in particular as Aunt Fannie. She delivers a jarring performance of a lady who always lived in someone else's shadow, did everything for other people and never for herself. Eventually, she realizes-as we all do-we must live for ourselves. If only she could have shared the giving part with George, who does nothing but take throughout the picture. He is the rebellious, willfull, spoiled child who turns into a rebellious, willfull and spoiled man who gives no regard to the people around him. What does it matter if his mother is finally happy? He's more concerned with appearances. Who cares is the girl he truly loves wants him to get a job and make something of himself? He doesn't want to. And in the end, he looses everything: the girl, the money, the privilege, even himself.
A cautionary tale? Yes, but it's also more than that. It's a tale about a Hollywood in which a star director (Welles) couldn't see his creation through to the end. It's about a Hollywood system that doesn't trust the material. It's about hubris and excess and money. Its, in essence, a movie not only about the Ambersons-the last of a dying breed-but also about a Hollywood that didn't exist anymore in 1942.