318 - Mr. Arkadin (Confidential Report), United States, 1955. Dir. Orson Welles.

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

318 - Mr. Arkadin (Confidential Report), United States, 1955.  Dir. Orson Welles.

I knew what I wanted.  That's the difference between us.  In this world there are those who give and those who ask.  Those who do not care to give, those who do not dare to ask.

You dared.  But you were never quite sure what you were asking for.  Now there's nothing more you could hope to beg from me, Van Stratten.  Not money.  Certainly not my daughter.  Not even your life.

Give the gentleman his goose liver.

Mr. Gregory Arkadin is talking to Guy Van Stratten from inside his car.  Van Stratten has come to get a goose liver at the express request of Jakob Zouk, a Polish Jew who fled Poland during the War and whose life, according to Van Stratten, is in danger.  Van Stratten is a stranger to Zouk, but he has come to rescue him because saving Zouk's life means saving his own.

This all began when Van Stratten, an American smuggler, was released from prison in Italy and saw a man named Bracco dying on the docks.  Bracco gave him two names:  Arkadin and Sophie.  Arkadin is an international business tycoon and a billionaire, and he has a pretty daughter.  The identity of Sophie is a mystery.

Van Stratten likes money and pretty women, so he decides to bite.  He is a with a girl named Mily, and their relationship is ambivalent, so he is more than willing to pursue this thread that has been handed to him.  Bracco dies.  Van Stratten and Mily move on in search of Mr. Arkadin.

They find him.  At an unusual religious festival of penitentes, a kind of Carnivale/Mardis Gras/Masque Ball with grotesque masks inspired by Goya.

Van Stratten initiates a relationship with Raina Arkadin, the daughter, and she seems game to go along.  Not that she is easy to fall in love.  She is too rich.  She has had men throw themselves at her her entire life.  And who is this vulgar American anyway?  He represents an adventure and this year's friendship so she joins him.

Mily does not like it.

Mr. Arkadin pulls Van Stratten into his confidence and tells him he would like to hire him.

Arkadin wants Van Stratten to investigate himself.  He has amnesia.  He cannot remember anything that happened before 1927.  Perhaps Van Stratten can find out who Arkadin was.  And what he did.  He started out with modest money.  How did he get so rich?

Mr. Arkadin asks him, "You imagine it's pleasant to be ashamed of something you can't even remember at all?"

Van Stratten travels the world.  Sometimes with Raina.  Sometimes with Mily.  Sometimes alone.  He meets many eccentric and mysterious people.  They all have their story to tell.

He meets a Marquis.  He meets a Professor, the Ringmaster of a Flea Circus.  He meets Thaddeus, a sophisticated man.  He meets Trebitsch, the soft store owner of an antique shop.  He meets a Baroness.

Does he meet Sophie?

And who is Oskar?

Each one tells his story.  Each one shines a little more light on Mr. Arkadin.

Each one ends up dead.

What?

In the end Van Stratten will discover and meet the man behind it all:  Akim Athabadze.

And every thread followed and every person met ties back to him.

The puppetmaster.

There are two more to interview, and two more to die.

Unless Van Stratten can get to Spain first.

And talk to Raina.

As he races an empty plane.


The scorpion promises the frog that it will not sting him if he carries him across the river.  The frog is skeptical and does not wish to be stung.  The scorpion assures the frog that logically he would never sting him, because then the scorpion would drown too.

The frog agrees with logic.  The frog carries the scorpion across the river.  The scorpion stings the frog.  As they both begin to drown, he asks him why.

There is no logic in this!
I know. . . . But I can't help it.  It's my character.

Let's drink to character.

They drink.

They die.