Touch Of Evil: Orson Welles, Director

"Considered by many critics to be one of Welles's great works, the film gets a superb review in this first-rate anthology. . . . Recommended." --Film Study "This is a welcome addition to the growing collection of scripts of film classics, one to put on the shelf next to Welles's Citizen Kane. . . . Recommended." --Choice Welles is by consensus one of the most talented film directors who ever worked in Hollywood, and this flamboyant film--a 1958 exploration of the thriller form--is one of his greatest achievements. Comito's introduction considers the film's relation to the tradition of film noir and demonstrates how Welles's mastery of cinematic language transforms the materials of a routine thriller into a work that is at once a sardonic examination of the dark side of sexuality, and elegiac rumination on the loss of innocence, and a disquieting assault on the viewer's own moral and aesthetic certainties. Other contextual materials in the book include a biographical sketch of Welles; an important interview with Welles by Andre Bazin, Charles Bitsch, and Jean Domarchi, available here for the first time in English; an interview with Charlton Heston on the making of the film; representative reviews; critical essays by William Johnson, Jean Collet (translated especially for this book), and Stephen Heath; an analysis of the relation of the complete film to Welles's recently discovered shooting script; and a filmography and bibliography. The continuity script collates the two available versions of Touch of Evil and provides an invaluable, shot-by-shot guide through the visual and audio complexities of Welles's masterpiece.