The Magnificent Ambersons (BFI Film Classics)
Publisher: British Film Institute
Published: February 1, 2000
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 77
ISBN-13: 9780851703732
Subjects: Film theory & criticism; Performing Arts; Motion Pictures Of Specific Genres; Pop Arts / Pop Culture; Performing Arts/Dance; Film & Video - Direction & Production; Film & Video - History & Criticism; Performing Arts / General; Film studies; Film & Video - General; Magnificent Ambersons (Motion; Magnificent Ambersons (Motion picture)
First sentence: A study of The Magnificent Ambersons will keep speaking of it as a ruin and treating it as one of the great tragedies of movie history.
Description: "At the age of twenty-five, with Citizen Kane (1941) Orson Welles was the author and star of The Greatest Movie Ever Made. Then he persuaded RKO to let him adapt a favourite book, The Magnificent Ambersons. Booth Tarkington's novel had won the Pulitzer Prize in 1917, and had kept its popularity as a slice of mid-Western Americana. Its tale of dynastic ruin and social change wrought by the rise of the automobile inspired Welles' fond reconstruction of a lost world of leisure and elegance, brought to atmospheric life by a company of his favourite actors, including Joseph Cotten and Agnes Moorehead in their most famous roles." "V.F. Perkins explores Welles' genius in directing actors, his intricate weaving of his own narration in and around the drama, and his unsurpassed use of the long take to capture the finest nuance of expression and unspoken feeling."--BOOK JACKET.