This movie moves like an old cat in front of a mirror. The mirror is dreaming him. but he can see only himself, as the image in the mirror. That is to say, stories tell us, we don't tell them. We pretend to tell them, in order to give substance to our lives. Like the director, the actors, the critics, the production assistants, we -- the viewers -- are the rooster who believes he has made the sun rise, with his crowing.
This is the simple message Orson Welles leaves us, in his final movie.
It is a movie about a movie, and likewise there is a message within the message. The secret message is embodied by Ms. Oja Kodar painted as a "redskin." In these parts -- Oklahoma, formerly Indian Territory), the devil is still a native woman, sitting in a cave somewhere, silently plotting to steal all your stuff and humiliate you. Even in enlightened California, the Eagles painted such a figure with the song "Witchy Woman" (she'll rock you in the nighttime until your skin turns red). It's built into the American dream (circle the wagons! they've gone off the reservation!) as a nightmare, as it was for Orson Welles. and his alter-ego, film director Jake Hannaford. In the second movie -- the "film within a film -- Hannaford is stripped of his masculine power and divinity by Ms. Kodar's portrayal -- she is credited only as "The Actress" in the (first) movie, but in the movie Hannaford makes she is "Pochahontas."
This (second, "Pocahontas") movie is shown at a drive-in theatre, but at its conclusion "the actress" is the only person (other than you and me) left in the audience, in a car like the one in which she ended Hannaford's divinity. She, as the sole survivor in the theatre, is the final scene in the (first) movie. You can build a life without a god if you want, but you cannot build one without a devil.
This is the simple message Orson Welles leaves us, in his final movie.
It is a movie about a movie, and likewise there is a message within the message. The secret message is embodied by Ms. Oja Kodar painted as a "redskin." In these parts -- Oklahoma, formerly Indian Territory), the devil is still a native woman, sitting in a cave somewhere, silently plotting to steal all your stuff and humiliate you. Even in enlightened California, the Eagles painted such a figure with the song "Witchy Woman" (she'll rock you in the nighttime until your skin turns red). It's built into the American dream (circle the wagons! they've gone off the reservation!) as a nightmare, as it was for Orson Welles. and his alter-ego, film director Jake Hannaford. In the second movie -- the "film within a film -- Hannaford is stripped of his masculine power and divinity by Ms. Kodar's portrayal -- she is credited only as "The Actress" in the (first) movie, but in the movie Hannaford makes she is "Pochahontas."
This (second, "Pocahontas") movie is shown at a drive-in theatre, but at its conclusion "the actress" is the only person (other than you and me) left in the audience, in a car like the one in which she ended Hannaford's divinity. She, as the sole survivor in the theatre, is the final scene in the (first) movie. You can build a life without a god if you want, but you cannot build one without a devil.