{"id":16742,"date":"2015-05-07T01:13:10","date_gmt":"2015-05-07T00:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=16742"},"modified":"2015-05-07T01:13:10","modified_gmt":"2015-05-07T00:13:10","slug":"the-immortal-story-a-film-by-orson-welles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2015\/05\/07\/the-immortal-story-a-film-by-orson-welles\/","title":{"rendered":"The Immortal Story, a film by Orson Welles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"immortal.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Immortal Story<\/em><\/a> (1969) is an oddity in the Welles oeuvre, an hour-long adaptation of an Isak Dinesen short story originally made for French TV but subsequently released as a feature. Plans to film two more Dinesen stories foundered when the promised funds disappeared. This was the first of Welles’ films in colour\u2014he always preferred black-and-white\u2014and the last dramatic film to be successfully completed and released during his lifetime. After this there was the “film essay” F for Fake <\/em>(1973), and many years of unfinished projects.<\/p>\n

Welles wrote and directed The Immortal Story<\/em>, and also plays the manipulative Mr Clay, an aged businessman who wants to see a story he was once told enacted in real life. Jeanne Moreau is\u00a0Virginie, a woman paid a large sum of money to spend a night with a penniless sailor (Norman Eshley in a blond wig); Roger Coggio is Clay’s assistant, Levinsky. Jeanne Moreau had earlier played Miss Burstner in Welles’ The Trial<\/em>, Doll Tearsheet in Chimes at Midnight<\/em>, and would have been in The Deep<\/em> if Welles had completed it. She’s the liveliest presence in a film that’s rather slow and sombre by Welles’ standards.\u00a0The Immortal Story<\/em> is set in\u00a0Macau but was shot in Spain; Satie’s Gymnop\u00e9dies<\/em> and Gnossiennes<\/em> contribute to the somnolent atmosphere. Watch out for an uncredited (and dubbed) Fernando Rey in the opening scenes.<\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 Welles at 100<\/a>
\n\u2022 The Fountain of Youth<\/a>
\n\u2022 The Complete Citizen Kane<\/a>
\n\u2022 Return to Glennascaul, a film by Hilton Edwards<\/a>
\n\u2022 Screening Kafka<\/a>
\n\u2022 The Panic Broadcast<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Immortal Story (1969) is an oddity in the Welles oeuvre, an hour-long adaptation of an Isak Dinesen short story originally made for French TV but subsequently released as a feature. Plans to film two more Dinesen stories foundered when the promised funds disappeared. This was the first of Welles’ films in colour\u2014he always preferred … Continue reading “The Immortal Story, a film by Orson Welles”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42,7],"tags":[4827,7285,7055,2871,7283,762,7284],"class_list":["post-16742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-film","tag-erik-satie","tag-fernando-rey","tag-isak-dinesen","tag-jeanne-moreau","tag-norman-eshley","tag-orson-welles","tag-roger-coggio"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-4m2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}