The Lady from Shanghai (1947)

Columbia, 1947. Directed by Orson Welles. Starring Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, Everett Sloane, and Glenn Anders

To say that Orson Welles was ahead of his time sounds so much like an understatement nowadays that it may well fall into the category of a widely accepted stereotype. Based on Sherwood King's novel If I Die before I Wake (which Anton took the time to read and actually turned out to be much better than he expected), and graced by fantastic performances by Welles, his then-wife Rita Hayworth, and two fabulous actors such as Everett Sloane and Glenn Anders, The Lady from Shanghai bears witness to this. Welles landed this project merely by chance, when his career as a director was faltering, and he needed money for other endeavors. But no matter, because the movie represents one of those instances when fate and genius come together, and the result is pure and simple greatness.

In The Lady from Shanghai, Welles undertakes a highly interesting generic revision: this is indeed a film noir, yet a very atypical one at that. The movie plays around with most elements of the genre (murder, shady characters, the figure of a femme fatale) but the plot is so elaborate and leaves so many questions unanswered that we often find ourselves completely at sea as spectators. We constantly have the feeling that Welles is playing with us, building up our expectations in one scene merely to shatter them completely in the next one. The characters add to the overall sense of indeterminacy of the film. All of them are complex characters, but their complexity lies mainly in the fact that their development throughout the storyline is conveyed by means of brushstrokes. They are like puppets in Welles's hands, and we only get a very superficial idea of what is hidden behind their masks. For instance, when at some point Grisby (Glenn Anders) stares directly at the camera with a grin on his face and says to Michael (Orson Welles), "Remember that you were only doing target practice," we can't help but feel unsettled because Grisby seems to be winking at us, as though he were announcing that he knows something that we don't.

The plot also moves along unevenly, sometimes almost tentatively, and quite often the events in the story don't seem to be clearly connected. This might be due in part to the fact that Welles's original cut of the movie ran over an hour longer than the final version, which clocks in at roughly ninety minutes. Welles was made to reduce the length of the film against his will, and that definitely influences the way in which the story is told. However, The Lady from Shanghai is also a wonderful example of Welles's highly personal use of the camera: the movie is full of bizarre shots, improbable angles, and strange, almost grotesque settings. This unsettling atmosphere provokes a feeling of estrangement in the viewer, which climaxes in that powerful final scene at the funhouse, a directorial tour de force that embodies what The Lady from Shanghai is ultimately about. As each character pulls the trigger and smashes one another's image on the mirrors, Welles reminds us that, both within the movie and in the outside world, things are hardly ever what they seem.

Although it wasn't well received when it was first released, in our opinion, The Lady from Shanghai is a masterpiece. Like most of Welles's movies, it requires several viewings in order to make sense out of its intricacies. However, don't feel frustrated if you see it dozens of times and you still feel that you can't find convincing answers for all your questions. In most of Welles's movies, greatness isn't necessarily planned; it simply happens.

Anton&Erin.