The Magnificent Ambersons

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Pampered Youth

Original title: The Magnificent Ambersons
Year: 1942
Running time: 88 min.
Country: United States
Director: Orson Welles
Screenwriter: Orson Welles (Novel: Booth Tarkington)
Music: Bernard Herrmann
Cinematography: Stanley Cortez (B&W)
Cast: Tim Holt, Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Agnes Moorehead, Anne Baxter, Richard Bennett, Ray Collins, Nancy Gates
Producer: RKO
Genre: Drama | Family Relationships. Jealousy. 19th Century. 1900s. The Great Depression. Small Town Life (North-american)
Synopsis / Plot: The young, handsome, but somewhat wild Eugene Morgan wants to marry Isabel Amberson, daughter of a rich upper-class family, but she instead marries dull and steady Wilbur Minafer. Their only child, George, grows up a spoiled brat. Years later, Eugene comes back, now a mature widower and a successful automobile maker. After Wilbur dies, Eugene again asks Isabel to marry him, and she is receptive. But George resents the attentions paid to his mother, and he and his whacko aunt Fanny manage to sabotage the romance. A series of disasters befall the Ambersons and George, and he gets his come-uppance in the end.

Awards: 1942: 4 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Supporting Actress (Moorehead)

1942: Film Critics Circle of New York: Best Actress (Agnes Moorehead)

Critics' reviews

"Welles makes the story even more powerful through his extraordinary mise en scene and some of the finest acting to be found in American movies"

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Chicago Reader
"[Welles] has an eloquent, if at times grandiose, flair for the dramatic (...) 'The Magnificent Ambersons' is an exceptionally well-made film"

T.M.P.: The New York Times
"OK, 'Ambersons' isn't 'Kane' -- it's not as much fun as 'Kane' (few movies are), but it's every bit as accomplished and it goes deeper into its characters and its evocation of the past."

Jim Emerson: rogerebert.com
"The film as it stands is a vision of a lost world of graces and traditions that are as alluring as they are confining, as beautiful as they are useless"

Richard Brody: The New Yorker
"[It] continues to enchant (...) Masterly. It’s the movie that all other films about families in decline are measured against."

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky: AV Club
"A flawed masterpiece, as brilliant a study of social change as Visconti's 'The Leopard' (...) This is Welles's warmest, most personal film"

Philip French: The Guardian
"The film retains enough brilliance to make us glad it's been re-released (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"

Kim Newman: Empire
"A masterpiece, astounding for its almost magical re-creation of a gentler age (...) With immaculate period reconstruction, and virtuoso acting shot in long, elegant takes"

Geoff Andrew: Time Out

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