The Immortal StoryA story is not given power by its veracity but by the fantasy it conjures. The Immortal Story is the tale of a tale, of an old, miserly tycoon named Charles Clay (Orson Welles), who one night, tired of hearing of his accounts again, talks of a story he heard on a sailing vessel in his youth, and tasks his accountant, Elishama Levinsky (Roger Coggio), to make the fable a reality. Levinsky recruits Virginie Ducrot (Jeanne Moreau), the daughter of Clay's late business partner, now grown into a woman full of resentment toward Clay for her father's suicide as a result of his greed; she concedes, knowing that the story will be the old man's undoing.
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The Immortal Story is adapted from a short story by Karen Blixen, and was produced for French television. But don't let that suggest that the film is not a consistent entry into the oeuvre of Orson Welles' magnificent career as one of the finest filmmakers ever to have lived. The film carries with it many familiar elements found in his body of work, from the introduction by a narrator in his immediately identifiable own baritone voice, chauffeuring the audience through this mythical story of greed, desire, love, and power--or at least the shadows of such. These themes are familiar in his work, including Citizen Kane--and before and after--but the crucial piece is that it is the story of a story and about storytellers making the art come alive. Clay's boredom prompts his demand of Levinsky to entertain him with something new, too familiar with his own wealth and riches, that story read to him like a nanny reads a bedtime story to a petulant charge over and over. What Levinsky--in a moment of spiritual depth--tries to enlighten Clay with is a poetic parable of wisdom by the prophet Isaiah, which Clay ignorantly dismisses as mere prophesy by the prayer's future tense. Clay's claim is that he only puts stock in that which is factual, and ironically impresses upon Levinsky a common story told aboard a ship about a sailor offered five guineas by an old man to father an heir for him. When Levinsky reveals that the story is itself just an old tale told by sailors, without a wit of truth to it, the shock of it is a challenge to the old man to actualize the myth any way he can. So arrogant and convinced of his power is Clay that he actually intends to turn fiction to fact, an egomania which is later likened to that of the ancient Roman emperor, Nero.
There is a perversity to Clay's proposition, as he knows the story requires a woman who must sleep with the sailor he is to recruit, like the depraved obsessiveness of a lech indulging in pornography, seeing his fantasy consummated. A well-known rumor on the island of Macao--where The Immortal Story takes place--is that Clay's fortunes were strengthened following his betrayal of his former business partner over a matter of three hundred guineas. Thus when Levinsky is commissioned to cast the woman for this fabricated drama, it is impossible that he would not have known Virginie's resentment toward Clay for her disintegrated fortune and loss of her father. In essence, Clay's initiation of this concept propels Levinsky to indulge in a scheme of his own, although the nature of it remains ambiguous--he knows that the endeavor of Clay will not end in his favor, but fosters its inception. Levinsky remains the biggest enigma of The Immortal Story, recalling the reporter of Citizen Kane who journeys to put the pieces of a great puzzle--the life of Charles Foster Kane--together. His proposal to Virginie is a negotiation, of values and of money. As the story is known, it is unsurprising that Levinsky is greeted with a slap on the face at first. But more careful consideration of her ability to find closure for her grudge--and even vengeance--motivates her to accept the role for the price of an "old debt". Their conversation together reveals their mutual, sad histories, as they recall their sorrowful pasts to one another, as the wistful melodies of Erik Satie's "Gymnopedie No. 1" plays on the score. Whether this is an act of manipulative deception or genuine sympathy on Levinsky's part is impossible to say for sure--and perhaps they are not mutually exclusive.
The final ingredient in the recipe comes in the form of the disheveled sailor, Paul (Norman Eshley), whom Clay solicits as though reciting the lines from the story verbatim. In turn, the sailor eventually shares a story with Clay as interesting and familiar to a seafaring life--of his year stranded on an island, his collection of seashells, his youthful hopes and dreams. Does Clay hear the story of Paul? No; Clay is as he was when Levinsky shared the prayer of Isaiah, ignorant of anything but his own selfish need to flaunt his power. Clay even resembles a corpse in the makeup worn by Welles, barely containing the last vestiges of life, nearly rotten already. He delivers a monologue to Paul about the mighty works he has wrought, an introspective cry for acknowledgement and perhaps regret. There is a sense, as in many of Welles' films under similar moments of pathos, that some of Welles' voice comes through here. None yet living can truly say if there was something missing from the larger than life history of Orson Welles, but it would be fair to say that he and history did not always dance to the same step. Welles was a man ahead of his time, and many of his works would not be appreciated until some time later. Welles was a storyteller par excellence, the inverse of Clay, who is a slave to his own fantasy, and does not create but merely plods through the key plot points with all the artistry of a machine operator on an assembly line. The Immortal Story is similar to Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", with Clay an obvious Ebenezer Scrooge, save that Clay is so unloved that he has to hire all of the players in his own drama--no ghosts will work to liberate him of his ephemeral chains. And although it is likely true that the players in The Immortal Story were compensated, one suspects that, like Welles' best works, it was also a work composed by a collective of artists, and art comes from love.
Recommended for: Fans of a film which plays on the idea of turning a myth into reality, and the conceit which prompts that action. It is a familiar, intimate story with a minimal--but excellent--cast and recognizable themes about humanity...a film that would also be at home on the stage.
There is a perversity to Clay's proposition, as he knows the story requires a woman who must sleep with the sailor he is to recruit, like the depraved obsessiveness of a lech indulging in pornography, seeing his fantasy consummated. A well-known rumor on the island of Macao--where The Immortal Story takes place--is that Clay's fortunes were strengthened following his betrayal of his former business partner over a matter of three hundred guineas. Thus when Levinsky is commissioned to cast the woman for this fabricated drama, it is impossible that he would not have known Virginie's resentment toward Clay for her disintegrated fortune and loss of her father. In essence, Clay's initiation of this concept propels Levinsky to indulge in a scheme of his own, although the nature of it remains ambiguous--he knows that the endeavor of Clay will not end in his favor, but fosters its inception. Levinsky remains the biggest enigma of The Immortal Story, recalling the reporter of Citizen Kane who journeys to put the pieces of a great puzzle--the life of Charles Foster Kane--together. His proposal to Virginie is a negotiation, of values and of money. As the story is known, it is unsurprising that Levinsky is greeted with a slap on the face at first. But more careful consideration of her ability to find closure for her grudge--and even vengeance--motivates her to accept the role for the price of an "old debt". Their conversation together reveals their mutual, sad histories, as they recall their sorrowful pasts to one another, as the wistful melodies of Erik Satie's "Gymnopedie No. 1" plays on the score. Whether this is an act of manipulative deception or genuine sympathy on Levinsky's part is impossible to say for sure--and perhaps they are not mutually exclusive.
The final ingredient in the recipe comes in the form of the disheveled sailor, Paul (Norman Eshley), whom Clay solicits as though reciting the lines from the story verbatim. In turn, the sailor eventually shares a story with Clay as interesting and familiar to a seafaring life--of his year stranded on an island, his collection of seashells, his youthful hopes and dreams. Does Clay hear the story of Paul? No; Clay is as he was when Levinsky shared the prayer of Isaiah, ignorant of anything but his own selfish need to flaunt his power. Clay even resembles a corpse in the makeup worn by Welles, barely containing the last vestiges of life, nearly rotten already. He delivers a monologue to Paul about the mighty works he has wrought, an introspective cry for acknowledgement and perhaps regret. There is a sense, as in many of Welles' films under similar moments of pathos, that some of Welles' voice comes through here. None yet living can truly say if there was something missing from the larger than life history of Orson Welles, but it would be fair to say that he and history did not always dance to the same step. Welles was a man ahead of his time, and many of his works would not be appreciated until some time later. Welles was a storyteller par excellence, the inverse of Clay, who is a slave to his own fantasy, and does not create but merely plods through the key plot points with all the artistry of a machine operator on an assembly line. The Immortal Story is similar to Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", with Clay an obvious Ebenezer Scrooge, save that Clay is so unloved that he has to hire all of the players in his own drama--no ghosts will work to liberate him of his ephemeral chains. And although it is likely true that the players in The Immortal Story were compensated, one suspects that, like Welles' best works, it was also a work composed by a collective of artists, and art comes from love.
Recommended for: Fans of a film which plays on the idea of turning a myth into reality, and the conceit which prompts that action. It is a familiar, intimate story with a minimal--but excellent--cast and recognizable themes about humanity...a film that would also be at home on the stage.