I agree that Welles is a very important figure in noir, but as you say one of many others.

Orson Welles
Director – Production

Greg Toland, ASC
Photography

As for The Lady from Shanghai: a brilliant jigsaw of a film noir, with a femme-fatale to die for, and a script so sharp and witty, you relish every scene. You can watch it again and again, and find something new each time.

“Then the beasts took to eating each other.
In their frenzy…
they ate at themselves.
You could feel the lust of murder like a wind stinging your eyes.
And you could smell the death reeking up out of the sea.
I never saw anything worse…
until this little picnic tonight.
And you know…
there wasn´t one of them sharks in the whole crazy pack that survived.
l´ll be leaving you now.”

As to your question about Kane, Rick, it’s a difficult one to answer definitively. Prior to Welle’s appearance in Hollywood, there was a fair number of European-born directors working there (Edgar G. Ulmer and James Whale, to name a couple) who were using distinctly European staging and filming techniques, primarily within a horror idiom — so it’s not as though Welles necessarily introduced this visual style. What I would argue is that Kane took these techniques and made them distinctly American. I could go on for a while about how and why (I smell a thesis — although I’m sure it’s already been written by someone else), but suffice it to say that it removed them from the gothic and the supernatural and used them to comment on the concrete and the human…if that makes sense.

I’m not entirely sure I agree about Nolan — as often as not he seems to be more “substance over style” — in other words, he generally has a “message” (as Rick says, a rather blunt one that he beats you with), but fails to mold it into anything cohesive artistically (this is particularly true, I think, of his Batman series, though less so of his earlier work like Memento — blunt though that one may be).

I agree that merely engaging the narrative is a very lazy way to review films.

Other than that, I think I’ll let you boys have at it…I’m enjoying this little discussion.

I think of style and substance in these terms: substance is what the film is about (i.e, what it says) and style is how it says it. Or another way to put it is form versus meaning. Realist films supposedly subordinate style to substance, expressionist the other way around.

All films, of course, have both style and substance — they are all about something, for instance, they evoke an emotional response, etc. All films say those things in a certain way as well, with a certain lighting style, compositional style, etc.

Of course, many films have no discernable, cohesive style, and that should be fodder for analysis, or they have a style that doesn’t reinforce or support the substance, what the filmmaker is trying to say. On the other hand, a few filmmakers — directors, cinematographers, mostly — have a personal styles that even idiots like me can identify.

All that said, I think the substance versus style debate is way overblown, and used by lazy critics to avoid having to actually engage in film criticism. I cannot think that one is more important than the other, and I don’t think that directors “critics” have derided has being all style and no substance — you mentioned the Coens, whom I adore, and, yes, Welles and I’ll even concede Christopher Nolan, though I would argue that he’s got plenty of substance, he just bludgeons you over the head with it. I’d add Wong Kar Wai to that list, and pertinent to the discussion on another blog, Johnny To.

You mention narrative clarity. Is that substance? Other people seem to think it’s emotional affect, which you also mention, and theme, etc. Are these things not produced by style? Are these things separate from style?

I feel locked out. I can’t see this substance thing that everyone else can see. Please, Rick, or someone else, show it to me, so I can understand why the Coen Brothers and Orson Welles and Christopher Nolan are not as good as I think they are, because they privilege style over substance.

Also, I hate that we still have that tired old debate style over substance. And even if we admit that it’s a valid debate, there are other kinds of “substance” than narrative clarity. In fact, I might argue that it may be one of the least important, when compared to theme and motif and subtext and symbol and emotional heft and …

I get tired when lazy critics — I’m not talking about you, here, as I said: fine review — trot out the old style vs substance debate to save them having to shell out any real critical analysis.

I would argue that far from being brilliant films in spite of their lack of narrative clarity, flicks like “The Big Sleep” and “Lady From Shanghai” are great precisely because they subordinate it to other things. So there.

G, you make a valid point. I guess I used “minor” in the sense that not a lot of people immediately think of Welles when you say noir. Also, he wasn’t extremely prolific within the movement, even if his contributions were indispensable. I concede the point.

You make a valid point there G, he may be the top player in the game based on the undeniable references you present there. Lang pushes close enough, but I think you have it nailed there.

You mentioned THE THIRD MAN, which in my humble opinion is the greatest British film of all-time (arguably of course–Powell and Pressburger,David Lean, and even Reed’s own ODD MAN OUT enter into the equation, not to mention a 60’s masterwork KES, by Ken Loach and Kubrick’s own A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and Robert Hamer’s KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS)and a number of others. Who is reviewing THE THIRD MAN? I will challenge the person to an old-fashioned duel if he gives it less than 5 stars! LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I’d love to start a debate, noir fans (films noir, Sam, et al): Is there any filmmaker who had as much success as Welles with noirs? He’s almost singlehandedly responsible for Lady from Shanghai, Touch of Evil, The Stranger, and Mr. Arkadin, and was a major force in Third Man and Journey Into Fear. Can anyone (Lang? Wilder?) match that?