Farewell, dear readers! Orson’s Well remains here for your pleasure, but we will not be adding to its bounty.

Should you be curious about the Wellesians’ further exploits you can find Joe at Junior Brain, JB at JBCooper and The Telegraph, and Thom at heartsbreakingeven.

Christopher Hitchens – Why The King’s Speech is a gross falsification

First Orson’s post on The King’s Speech! It’s just a link, but a good one: Christopher Hitchens takes the film to task on its rather fuzzy understanding of history, specifically the behaviour of Churchill and the royal family before the war. The word “appeasement” appears – one of those fun words that only ever appears in a certain context – and Hitch reminds us how so many British national myths, from the doughty heroism of Churchill to the magical ability of our royal figureheads to produce some quantity of “national unity”, are mostly fantasies. And good on him.

I went to see the film with a friend who said it reminded him of how much he believes in the monarchy. True enough, watching this film will not turn a royalist into a republican. Of course, the film refuses to flatter the royal family; but it does so by pulling that old con trick, “they’re just normal people in a strange situation”, inviting gasps and giggles as we watch these everyday human beings try to live up to the tradition of obeisance they just happened to inherit.

It’s hardly the first bit of screen fiction to “humanise” British royalty – but let’s unpack our need to “humanise” them. Though it seems like irreverence, it really just reconciles royalty to us as an acceptable novelty, neatly brushing aside all those awkward national and political facts that we would rather not confront.

Here’s my half to partner this.

5. Nightwatching (dir. Peter Greenaway). An extended lecture on the ontology of art dressed up in Greenaway’s favoured Renaissance ruffles, Nightwatching is a neoclassical tale about Rembrandt that manages to be in turns sexy, strange, and literally smeared in shit. It didn’t get the press it deserved on release, which is probably because the film lacks the comic lurches that helped The Draughtsman’s Contract and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover gain Greenaway attention back in the 80s. Nonetheless, Greenaway is in full artistic pomp here, proving himself a visual composer worthy of the Dutch Master he paints.

4. Memento (dir. Christopher Nolan). Intriguingly planned, carefully paced, attentively acted, shot with a thorough yet not self-satisfied knowledge of its genre: it’s a shame no-one asked the director of this gorgeous fin-de-siecle noir to helm Inception, 2010’s big blowout.

Oh, wait.

3. Dr. Strangelove. Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (dir. Stanley Kubrick). I saw this in strange (sober) circumstances in a warehouse in the East End. And boy! How I had forgotten.

In retrospect, I think my memory had been clouded by Anthony Lane’s unnamed friend, who said, somewhere in Nobody’s Perfect, that Dr Strangelove works best when considered a B movie. Absolutely not! Just because there’s a simplicity of means here – the satire is oh so clean; the sets step straight off the stage – doesn’t mean Dr. Strangelove should be downgraded. Far from it. There’s a tenderness to the comedy of Strangelove, from Mandrake’s quiet pleading to the closing montage of mushroom-cloud destruction, that makes this 1964 classic a match for anything Kubrick did thereafter.

2. Taxi Driver (dir. Martin Scorcese). The Brixton Ritzy screened Taxi Driver without context in October. Perhaps the programmer there had read the most-likely-balls rumour doing the rounds that Scorcese and, um, Lars Von Trier, were going to team up to make Taxi Driver 2. Whatever the weather, no excuse should be needed to watch a film like this (or, apparently, ticket: most of the audience walked in for free).

The feel of Taxi Driver alone had me in full swoon. Scorsese’s soundtrack of residual jazz rhythms mingles with a camera that shoves dewy eyed impressionism through an urban filter characterised by rain hitting tarmac. The result is caustically sensual and scary: the first and last word in the aesthetic of urban obsession and alienation.

1. Four Lions (dir. Chris Morris). A film by Chris ‘Laughter-in-the-Dark’ Morris about jihadi terrorism, Four Lions had critics and community support officers cowering before its release. The virulent reception never quite materialised though, largely because Morris clearly knew his stuff (and wasn’t afraid to show it).

There are some wrong-in-the-belly-laughs in here – the type of spiraling, self-satirising laughs Morris has made his own. But they arrive at different points for different viewers – the audiences I sat in never moved as one into hysterics. I suspect that’s not uncommon to Chris Morris vehicles. The Day Today and Brass Eye don’t just get better (and better) on reruns (and reruns): entire new lines become suddenly noticeable for their genius. But I also suspect it’s something to do with the this particular film’s agonizingly excavated position. Given that he’s satirising black and white thinking, Morris impressively avoids painting his characters, or his audience, as one.

A wonderfully clever, careful, and comic piece of work.

Oscar for Best Film? Anyone?

Orson is away.