Citizen Welles - The Stranger, The Trial, Hearts of Age

Amazon.com

For budget-minded cineastes, this two-disc set of Orson Welles films is a welcome addition to any DVD library, even if it falls short of its claims. While the accompanying documentary demonstrates that The Stranger, The Trial, and Welles's 1934 silent short Hearts of Age have been restored, source materials are not specified, inviting speculation that the films were digitally "cleaned" from video sources in the public domain. The films do sound better than ever with a subtle 5.1-channel remastering, and the visual quality is good but hardly pristine; Milestone Video's DVD of The Trial presents a crisper, sharper image.

Those quibbles aside, the set's strengths do make for an acceptable and affordable means to appreciate Welles's visual ingenuity, stylized by cinematographer Russell Metty in Welles's conventional Nazi-manhunt thriller The Stranger, and by Edmond Richard in the brilliant, budget-constrained production of Kafka's The Trial. The films are excellent, and apart from critic Jeffrey Lyons's flaccid commentary tracks, this package treats them with all due respect. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews:

You Get What You Pay For.......2006-02-07

No one is lying when they say the video quality of these prints is not great. They look okay, and that's it. It's hard to find any copies of The Stranger these days, so unless you snagged it off a TV broadcast you may have to settle for this one. The Milestone DVD of The Trial looks much better, but is very expensive.

The set is worth buying in order to add Hearts of Age to your collection, which Welles referred to not as a "film" but as "a little joke one Sunday afternoon."

The commentaries by Jeffrey Lyons are the worst I've ever heard. He should be ashamed of himself.

The soundtracks are only available in the 5.1 Surround Sound mode - for some reason the producers didn't see fit top include the original mono.

The video is okay. The Stranger looks a little bleached. I've seen much worse copies of both of these films.

If you need these for your library, go for it. Or if you feel like shelling the bucks for the Milestone Trial, then you will be better served.

Actually, the best quality DVD release of The Trial is by Studio Canal (under the title "Le Proces") - much better picture than the Milestone one.

Unbelievably bad DVD transfer.......2003-10-26

If one reads between the lines of Amazon's editorial review of Citizen Welles, you'll see a serious concern about the quality of the digital transfers of these movies. The Trial is probably passable, although very far from being "pristine". However, The Stranger is truly shocking in terms of how bad it looks. If you've ever seen a public domain movie on VHS from a fly-by-night distributor, you'll have an idea of how bad The Stranger looks on this set. Even if the source materials used for these DVDs were video tapes originally sold to consumers, it still doesn't explain why The Stranger looks this bad.

By the way, there's actually a quote from Jeffrey Lyons (who does two very mediocre audio commentaries on this set) that says "This restoration is in perfect condition. Orson Welles would have loved seeing it." I can't imagine how Jeffrey Lyons could say this, although I'm sure the money he got paid for his contribution to this DVD set has something to do with it. Orson Welles was one of our greatest directors and his movies don't deserve such shabby treatment.

PERFECT QUALITY - Nothing Wrong With This Copy!.......2003-05-25

Why would someone *LIE* and say that the picture quality to this DVD set was bad?! The picture and sound quality (for both films) is absolutely PERFECT! If you're a fan of Citizen Kane, or Touch of Evil, take a chance.... Open your mind to the next level of Welles genius! The Trial, in particular, will blow your mind with its avant-garde flare!

atrocious quality.......2002-08-13

Citizen Welles is pretty awful. The movies themselves are really fascinating for anyone who is a fan of Welles' work, but this DVD set is a waste of money.

The transfers are unwatchable on a digital display and are pretty disgusting on a regular TV as well. The picture is washed out to the point that even messing with the brightness/contrast couldn't salvage a distinct feature. The restoration documentary seems to imply that this disc is mastered from a video source. I have no clue why they would boast so much about the sound on the box, because it's an incoherent mush. There are MUCH better releases of these films on VHS and the Image DVD of The Stranger is so superior that I really wonder why anyone bothered with this awful thing.

There is a short documentary by Richard France. It's very basic, but I'm sure it's new to someone out there. As interested as I am in Welles, I can't say that I got anything important out of watching Hearts of Age - a student film. It's more a curiosity than entertainment.

Jeffrey Lyons' commentary is bad. Not only did he pretty much just repeat what was on the screen ("...here we see him coming in the room..."), but he was frequently SURPRISED by what he saw. As other reviews noted, either he hadn't seen The Stranger and The Trial in a long long time or he was watching them for the first time.

atrocious quality.......2002-08-13

Citizen Welles is pretty awful. The movies themselves are really fascinating for anyone who is a fan of Welles' work, but this DVD set is a waste of money.

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