The Essential Orson Welles - Mr. Arkadin

In this pulp rendition of Citizen Kane, Orson Welles plays Gregory Arkadin, a mysterious, amnesiac millionaire who hires cigarette smuggler Guy Van Stratten (Robert Arden) to investigate his past. 

Stratten scours the globe interviewing everyone who knew Arkadin from his early days, only to find that such information can prove perilous to those who possess it. Over the years, Mr. Arkadin has been screened in a variety of different cuts including a Spanish-language version and an English-language iteration titled Confidential Report, none with Welles’s editorial approval. But this baroque thriller has its champions, from Jean-Luc Godard, who called the film “a model of montage,” to Japanese director Shinji Aoyama (Eureka), who voted for it on Sight and Sound’s 2012 poll of the Greatest Films of All Time and said: “No other movie is destructive as [Mr. Arkadin], which gives me different emotions every time I see it. Achieving this kind of indetermination in a film is the highest goal that I always hope for, but can never achieve.” J. Hoberman hailed the film as “one of Welles’ most inventive and resonant.” The Academy will be screening the most comprehensive version in existence, reedited by the Filmmuseum München after Welles’s passing to restore the film closer to his intended vision.

1955, 106 minutes, black and white, DCP | Written by Orson Welles; directed by Orson Welles; with Orson Welles, Michael Redgrave, Patricia Medina, Akim Tamiroff, Mischa Auer, Katina Paxinou, Jack Watling, Gregoire Aslan, Peter Van Eyck.