The Immortal Story
An aged, wealthy trader plots with his servant to recreate a maritime tall tale, using a local woman and an unknown sailor as actors.
An aged, wealthy trader plots with his servant to recreate a maritime tall tale, using a local woman and an unknown sailor as actors.
Jeanne Moreau
Virginie Ducrot
Orson Welles
Charles Clay
Roger Coggio
Elishama Levinsky
Norman Eshley
Paul, the sailor
Fernando Rey
Merchant
An aged, wealthy trader plots with his servant to recreate a maritime tall tale, using a local woman and an unknown sailor as actors.
The greatest story about storytelling from the greatest storyteller, "The Immortal Story" makes a challenging and profound statement while presenting itself as the simplest tale. It begins with an old sailor's yarn about a raggedy sailor who encounters a rich man and is paid a large sum of money to come to the rich man's house and perform a task. This story-within-the-story becomes the obsession of rich old Mr. Clay (Orson Welles) who, irritated at learning that it's only a legend, decides to make it really happen. What follows doesn't stray far from this simplest of plots, and yet as it takes us deeper into the drama, peeling back each character's motivations (there are only 4 characters in the entire film), we realize that this tale exposes the very fabric of society and why "people run north, south, east, west." Even deeper, it exposes the machine driving all these people: in this case a withered old man intent on proving his omnipotence. For, having conquered the world in terms of money and material success, what left is there? Clocking in at under 60 minutes (this was made, to much fanfare, as the first color program to air on French TV), "The Immortal Story" proves that a film doesn't need to be a 3 hour epic to be a masterpiece. It's all neatly encapsulated here in under an hour, the perfect length for watching over & over. You can hang on every word, you can soak in every detail of the magnificent sets or the revolutionary way Welles used color (notice how distant backgrounds are lit in a dreamy soft yellow, giving us a tremendous sense of depth), and of course you can lose yourself in the incredible acting. Ultimately all of these things feed into the main point Welles is making about storytelling through the ages. "The Immortal Story" is indeed the immortal story.
In the 1930s, British officer John Truscott journeys to a remote village in colonial Malaysia to educate and Westernize the local Iban population. There, he's introduced to the lovely Selima. In keeping with tradition, Selima is assigned to sleep with Truscott and teach him the native language and customs. But when they fall in love, both colonists and natives object to their plans to marry.
Young writer Richard Collier is met on the opening night of his first play by an old lady who begs him to "Come back to me". Mystified, he tries to find out about her, and learns that she is a famous stage actress from the early twentieth century. Becoming more and more obsessed with her, by self-hypnosis he manages to travel back in time—where he meets her.
Born under unusual circumstances, Benjamin Button springs into being as an elderly man in a New Orleans nursing home and ages in reverse. Twelve years after his birth, he meets Daisy, a child who flits in and out of his life as she grows up to be a dancer. Though he has all sorts of unusual adventures over the course of his life, it is his relationship with Daisy, and the hope that they will come together at the right time, that drives Benjamin forward.
During the French Revolution, a mysterious English nobleman known only as The Scarlet Pimpernel (a humble wayside flower), snatches French aristos from the jaws of the guillotine, while posing as the foppish Sir Percy Blakeney in society. Percy falls for and marries the beautiful actress Marguerite St. Just, but she is involved with Chauvelin and Robespierre, and Percy's marriage to her may endanger the Pimpernel's plans to save the little Dauphin
Passengers on a ship traveling from Mexico to Europe in the 1930s represent society at large in that era. The crew is German, including the ship's Dr. Schumann, who falls in love with one of the passengers, La Condesa. A young American woman, Jenny, is traveling with the man she loves, David. Jenny is fascinated and puzzled by just who some of the other passengers are.
An adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Long Island-set novel, where Midwesterner Nick Carraway is lured into the lavish world of his neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Soon enough, however, Carraway will see through the cracks of Gatsby's nouveau riche existence, where obsession, madness, and tragedy await.
Growing up in the sheltered confines of a 1920s English coal-mining community, free-spirited sisters Gudrun and Ursula explore erotic love with a wealthy playboy and a philosophical educator, with cataclysmic results for all four.
The daughter of a thief, young Moll is placed in the care of a nunnery after the execution of her mother. However, the actions of an abusive priest lead Moll to rebel as a teenager, escaping to the dangerous streets of London. Further misfortunes drive her to accept a job as a prostitute from the conniving Mrs. Allworthy. It is there that Moll first meets Hibble, who is working as Allworthy's servant but takes a special interest in the young woman's well-being. With his help, she retains hope for the future, ultimately falling in love with an unconventional artist who promises the possibility of romantic happiness.
A beautiful temptress re-kindles an old romance while trying to escape her past during a tension-packed train journey.
On the coast of Cork, Syracuse is a divorced fisherman who has stopped drinking. His precocious daughter Annie has failing kidneys. One day, he finds a nearly-drowned young woman in his net; she calls herself Ondine and wants no one to see her. He puts her up in an isolated cottage that was his mother's. Annie discovers Ondine's presence and believes she is a selkie, a seal that turns human while on land. Syracuse is afraid to hope again.