{"id":2200,"date":"1999-01-28T08:07:33","date_gmt":"1999-01-28T12:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/?p=2200"},"modified":"2025-09-14T15:46:36","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T19:46:36","slug":"mr-arkadinconfidential-report-1955","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/?p=2200","title":{"rendered":"mr. arkadin\/confidential report (1955)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Directed by Welles from his own novel, this is the\r\n\r\nonly movie he ever made that was not from somebody else's story. It\r\n\r\nis not strong, and the editing (not by Welles, of course) was\r\n\r\nterrible. You would probably be better off reading the book (even\r\n\r\nthough Welles later claimed that he hadn't actually written\r\n\r\nit, or even read it).<\/P>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

However, its faults aside, this movie is important\r\n\r\nfor one reason, which is the story of the scorpion. Mr. Arkadin, a\r\n\r\nrich and powerful man (played by Welles) tells this story at a party.\r\n\r\nI paraphrase:<\/P>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

A scorpion wishes to cross a stream, but scorpions\r\n\r\ncannot swim. So, he asks a frog to carry him across on his back. The\r\n\r\nfrog refuses, saying that the scorpion will sting him. The scorpion\r\n\r\npoints out that if he stings the frog while they are going across the\r\n\r\nriver, they will both drown.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The frog sees the logic of this argument, and starts\r\n\r\nacross, bearing the scorpion on his back. Halfway across, he feel the\r\n\r\nscorpion's sting. \"Is this logic?\" he cries as they sink beneath the\r\n\r\nwater.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\"No, it is not,\" replies the scorpion, \"but I can't help\r\n\r\nmyself. It is my character.\"<\/BLOCKQUOTE>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This story is very important for understanding the\r\n\r\nview of human nature which Welles brought to all of his work. In most\r\n\r\nof his films, there are scorpions and frogs, and the scorpions always\r\n\r\nkeep to their true nature even when it means their own\r\n\r\ndestruction.<\/P>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

It is even important for understanding how he\r\n\r\nconducted his career (see my review of Ambersons<\/a><\/em> for his comments on\r\n\r\nhis films). He had to make his films his way, to be true to his\r\n\r\ncharacter.<\/P>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

(The story is already familiar to anybody who has\r\n\r\nseen The Crying Game<\/em>, of course.)<\/P>\r\n\r\n


Later<\/B>: Welles' original version of the movie is available on the Criterion Collection DVD, which includes three versions of the movie in total. It is much improved over the versions which had been generally available until now. It does not alter the meaning of the film (unlike Touch of Evil<\/em>), but it does make a much better story, focusing the attention on the most interesting character (and the best performance).<\/B><\/P>\r\n\r\n


return to the orson welles page<\/a><\/P>

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Directed by Welles from his own novel, this is the only movie he ever made that was not from somebody else’s story. It is not strong, and the editing (not by Welles, of course) was terrible. You would probably be better off reading the book (even though Welles later claimed that he hadn’t actually written […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-2200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-orson-welles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2200"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9676,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200\/revisions\/9676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}