Orson Welles Auteur Features
Orson Welles has a great deal of identifiable features of his auteur style that appear over the vast majority of his works. His environments tend to be very exotic as can be seen in a lot of his films. In 'The Lady from Shanghai' there is not a big focus on the exotic visuals in certain areas as a lot of the film takes place inside a coastal town instead of on an island however there are certain scenes such as the boat scene where the visuals are relatively exotic and wondrous. The film is also littered with establishing shots with boats across the sea which help to create a semi-exotic atmosphere however 'The Lady from Shanghai' does also have a lot of scenes which would argue against that such as the courtroom which is the last thing you would think of when you think 'exotic'. The main production locations were Acapulco, Pie de la Cuesta, Sausalito and San Francisco, all of which are not straying extremely far from Hollywood and not straying at all from America. Had the location been more exotic, this may have been conveyed better.
He also has a tendency to use features of noir in his films frequently which are extremely evident in 'The Lady from Shanghai'. From the constant drinking and smoking, to Elsa who is the femme fatale- a common feature of noir, to Michael the protagonist who ends up getting involved in a murder mystery which is also a key theme of noir film.
In addition to this there is his infamous 'mirror scene' in 'The Lady from Shanghai' which created a trend in film. It set motion a list of other mirror scenes in films such as the Bruce Lee film 'Enter the Dragon' where much like in 'The Lady from Shanghai', the scene entails the mirrors obscuring the location of the people in the room and said mirrors eventually being smashed to reveal the true location of said people. Personally I think it works better in 'Enter the Dragon' as it seems like a fitting strategy for a villain to use to confuse his for and it works for a while, whereas in 'The Lady from Shanghai' it seems sort of random and out of place and doesn't bring any tension as the shooting of the mirror gets repetitive.
Orson Welles has a big focus on lighting in his films and often uses high contrast hard lighting for dramatic lighting effects such as chiaroscuro- an effect which Orson Welles uses a lot in his films which can either be used to show ambivalence/ an amoral ideology or to evoke tension/ fear in spectators. Thus characters in Orson Welles films that fit this amoral ideology are often cast with chiaroscuro to imply to the audience their ambivalence towards good and evil subtly or to make them seem intimidating.
Common themes that Orson Welles seems to use are isolation, corruption or the downfall of a powerful figure. In 'The Lady from Shanghai', there technically is the downfall of a powerful figure as Elsa is a powerful figure that is found to be behind the whole murder mystery and is eventually taken down. I guess corruption may also come into this as Elsa is a corrupted figure who works with appearance versus reality where she seems innocent but is in fact very dangerous.
Welles tended to be incredibly involved with his films, he would often direct, produce, write and star in his films, working as a 'jack of all trades' type. Andrew Sarris once said that 'you find how much or how little influence different directors had' but honestly I would say that this alone is proof that Orson Welles is an auteur.
He also has a tendency to use features of noir in his films frequently which are extremely evident in 'The Lady from Shanghai'. From the constant drinking and smoking, to Elsa who is the femme fatale- a common feature of noir, to Michael the protagonist who ends up getting involved in a murder mystery which is also a key theme of noir film.
In addition to this there is his infamous 'mirror scene' in 'The Lady from Shanghai' which created a trend in film. It set motion a list of other mirror scenes in films such as the Bruce Lee film 'Enter the Dragon' where much like in 'The Lady from Shanghai', the scene entails the mirrors obscuring the location of the people in the room and said mirrors eventually being smashed to reveal the true location of said people. Personally I think it works better in 'Enter the Dragon' as it seems like a fitting strategy for a villain to use to confuse his for and it works for a while, whereas in 'The Lady from Shanghai' it seems sort of random and out of place and doesn't bring any tension as the shooting of the mirror gets repetitive.
Orson Welles has a big focus on lighting in his films and often uses high contrast hard lighting for dramatic lighting effects such as chiaroscuro- an effect which Orson Welles uses a lot in his films which can either be used to show ambivalence/ an amoral ideology or to evoke tension/ fear in spectators. Thus characters in Orson Welles films that fit this amoral ideology are often cast with chiaroscuro to imply to the audience their ambivalence towards good and evil subtly or to make them seem intimidating.
Common themes that Orson Welles seems to use are isolation, corruption or the downfall of a powerful figure. In 'The Lady from Shanghai', there technically is the downfall of a powerful figure as Elsa is a powerful figure that is found to be behind the whole murder mystery and is eventually taken down. I guess corruption may also come into this as Elsa is a corrupted figure who works with appearance versus reality where she seems innocent but is in fact very dangerous.
Welles tended to be incredibly involved with his films, he would often direct, produce, write and star in his films, working as a 'jack of all trades' type. Andrew Sarris once said that 'you find how much or how little influence different directors had' but honestly I would say that this alone is proof that Orson Welles is an auteur.
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