Fade to Black (2006) User Reviews (8)

Black magic

[jotix100 · 6/10 · 2 June 2009]

Orson Welles was invited in 1947 to participate in the film "Black Magic", directed by Gregory Ratoff. At the time, Mr. Welles was getting over the painful experience he suffered after the divorce from Rita Hayworth. His arrival to Italy went mostly unnoticed, as we witness his arrival at Rome's airport; his presence there is upstaged by that of Tyrone Power. One of the reporters insists in calling him Mr. Hayworth, something that must have hurt the wound in his heart.

When the shooting begins in the fabled Cinecitta, everything is chaos, as director Ratoff tries to rein all what is going on in the set. To make matters worse, the leading lady, the gorgeous Lea Padovani, doesn't seem to warm up to her more famous co-star. When one of the players in the film dies right in front of Mr. Welles, he discovers a list with names of prominent Christian democrats. Curiosity gets the best of him, as he wants to follow the motives behind the deaths.

It was a difficult time for Italy. Having been defeated, the country was in turmoil with thousands of refugees living in squalor. The communist party had a strong following, something that Orson Wells notices right away. His the help of his young driver, Tommaso, he goes into an unknown territory and gets sucked in the mystery behind the politics of the time.

As directed by Oliver Parker, the film is a curiosity piece about what went on in Italy at the time, from the real Orson Welles perspective. Danny Huston, who portrays the American genius, has an uncanny resemblance and is about the best thing in the picture. Diego Luna, is seen as Tommaso, and lovely Paz Vega, has some good moments as Lea Padovani, the leading lady.

Eradicating Rita

[writers_reign · 6/10 · 8 March 2008]

This is one of those 'what if' conceits that sometimes come off spectacularly and more often than not bomb. This time around we are asked to surmise 'what if' Orson Welles couldn't get arrested in Hollywood in the late forties and in the wake of his separation and impending divorce from Rita Hayworth found himself playing the lead in a cheesy costume picture in Italy and on the side got involved in both murder and local politics. Like all 'what if's there's a modicum of truth here; Welles did exile himself in Europe in 1948 where he did appear in some fairly dire movies and, of course, he was divorced from Rita Hayworth around that time. The film has him lining up an investor for his version of Othello to be shot in Italy when the current film is in the can whereas although he did write, direct and star in Othello it was actually made in Morocco in 1952. Danny Huston really needs to do more than wield a cigar to come over as Welles and perhaps wisely he makes no attempt to reproduce that distinctive timbre though he might have had a stab at that impish twinkle in the eye that was so much a part of Welles. Pick of the rest is Anna Galieni, so great in The Hairdresser's Husband for Patrice Leconte. As a curio this is worth a look but that's about it.

Take a meat cleaver to the plot and this might have been great

[MBunge · 5/10 · 16 November 2011]

I'm not sure how this was as a novel, but the film version has the classic flaw of all book adaptations. In trying to cram hundreds of pages of narrative into a couple of hours on screen, things need to be cut out. Sometimes things that are important, even vital, to the prose have to be sacrificed to the demands of cinema and other elements expanded or enhanced to take their place. Fade to Black has a great setting and a great hook but needed to severely restructure its plot in order to take full advantage of them. Any movie about genius filmmaker Orson Welles also needs to be a hell of a lot more visually imaginative than this. Those weaknesses mean that a film which starts out quite strong and has a lot of initial appeal, never manages to fulfill your expectations. Watching it is an okay experience, but also vaguely disappointing.

In 1948, with his career on the down slope and his personal life in ruins, Orson Welles (Danny Huston) travels to Italy to play the bad guy in a two-bit production called Black Magic. After one of his co-stars mysteriously dies, Welles decides to investigate and finds himself caught up in the political intrigue of Italy's first post-war election and winds up a name on somebody's hit list. With the aid of his driver, Tommaso (Diego Luna), and the distracting motivation of a beautiful actress, Lea (Paz Vega), Welles discovers that reality is more twisted than any fantasy he can dream up.

Fade to Black has three major strengths. Well…four, if you count the presence of Paz Vega. Danny Huston is very appealing as Orson Welles. Who's to say how personally accurate the portrayal is, but Huston does a fine job at capturing the essence of a wunderkind that was no longer a kind who felt no rules applied to him and didn't handle it well when he discovered some did. The moments here that play up Welles love of filmmaking are nicely contrasted by his conflicted relish of fame and dread of celebrity. Plopping Welles down into the middle of a murder mystery is also a great idea. So is using Welles as a window into the turmoil of post-Mussolini Italy and the dawning of Cold War political manipulation.

Unfortunately, combining the mystery and the political machinations proves to be too much for the film to tolerate, especially when it turns out neither has much to do with the other. Perhaps they were woven together better in the novel. Here, each vies for your attention and stunts the growth of the other. When it comes time for big developments in either the murder or the political underhandedness, it feels a bit hollow because there hasn't been the proper build up. One of them needed to be kept in the background, with the other come fully to the foreground and a subplot involving the fate of Italian Jews and an ill fated Resistance cell should have been done away with entirely. As it is, Fade to Black starts out entirely about the mystery, then becomes totally about the politics, then flips back and forth between the two until the very end.

I don't want to be overly critical because I did like this movie. It came so close to being a lot better than it is, though, it's hard not to be caught up in those lamentable failings. If writer/director Oliver Parker had embraced Huston's Welles as the story's heart and soul and not felt obligated to elevate Diego Luna's Tammaso to nearly his equal, which may have been true to the Italian novel this is based upon but is nothing but false to the potential of this movie, he might have made something compelling. What he created instead was merely satisfactory. That's much better than most but in this instance, it isn't enough.

your not that important Orson

[kuciak · 30 July 2011]

Of course this is a fictional account, and as the narrator Welles says, "if you want history read a history book." First for people who will see this film, Black Magic, while having Italian help, was really an American film, and Welles is reputed to have directed his own scenes, and if you see that film, you will be able to see his trademark. The film Black Magic, is also not that bad a movie.

I had heard about this film being possibly made in the late 90's, and was surprised to see that it actually had been. The man who directed this film also had ironically directed Othello in 95.

the use of Orson Welles in a thriller is something unusual. I love Orson Welles movies, and wonder if we all were cheated that he was not able to do more. I suspect that I like others are part of an Orson Welles cult following, and that is why such a film is made, with Orson Welles as a lead character.

It is ironic that seven years before this film was made, Leiv Shreibner, (I probably spelled his name wrong) played a very convincing Welles, and sometimes seemed to look like him,. especially when he moved across to an elevator. I couldn't help but feel that it would have been something of a great sequel if the same actor had played Welles in this film and not Danny Huston.

I don't want to suggest that Danny Huston is a failure in this film, but I think that if the film does not really grab our intention and our future memories of film, his performance in the film may be one of the reasons for that. I first remember Danny Huston in the Austrailian film The Proposition, a film in which I feel he gave an excellent performance. In this film however, I think the idea of the filmmakers, and perhaps Huston, was to portray Welles as really an everyman, not a leading figure in a movie that we would like. When he is kissing a woman in a scene, we feel that woman is only kissing him because he is someone important, not someone they find attractive. Even his co-star in the film he is about to do shows scorn for him. Everyone else in the film seems to be more of an interesting person that he is. When he meets his friend from long ago, Pete, (played by Christopher Walken, in a good performance), Walken seems more magnetic than Huston as Welles. This Welles in a clumsy, and has to be pulled out of a few situations by his Chaufeuer, and I guess body guard played by Mexican actor Diego Luna. this Welles, as someone comments towards the end of the picture does not seem important at all. Only during a scene, where Huston portrays Welles doing his magic trick, does the character of Welles really shine through, and perhaps suggests, that Welles was just another guy in this world, but through magic was able to make him on screen and on stage more magnificent than the real person. If the filmmakers had this in mind, make everyone else perhaps more interesting, I think that this was a miscalculation, and perhaps not very flattering on the life of Orson Welles. Hustons portrayal of him, does not make Welles look either interesting or likable.

The film which starts out as a murder mystery, leads more to a conspiracy than just a possible murder itself. The idea is interesting, and asks some questions itself, which I won't say because it might give away to much. Though, you can see things in this film a mile away.

More comical than thrilling.

[jlpicard1701E · 5/10 · 17 February 2024]

I never read the novel from which this movie was transliterated, but by the looks of this film, it seems that no one really cared about the real Orson Welles, and took the character out of context from actual events that happened around 1947 in Italy and just played around with them in no particular relevant order.

First of all, Danny Huston, although an otherwise serious professional, doesn't seem extremely interested in depicting Orson as he really was, and his own voice more closely resembles (obviously) more that of his deceased father John, than that of Orson Welles.

May I remind you that Welles had a very incisive and commanding voice of a bass-baritone quality that Danny Huston simply cannot reproduce.

But this was royally ignored by the producers of this little movie when they decided who to cast for the role.

So be it.

Nevertheless, and despite being this just a fictionalized account of what really happened in those years to the real Orson Welles, which indeed would in itself, have made a much more interesting and fleshed out story than this, the entire film is actually more boring than interesting in any form or shape.

Even the supporting actors seem more bored than actually fascinated by the script they were handed out and some are even just acting by the numbers.

This entire exercise is just academic at best, but doesn't have any true quality to it except for its mysterious title, which actually doesn't really say much.

Just compare this so called mystery thriller to the real works of Orson Welles, such as "Mr. Arkadin" (a.k.a. Confidential Report) or "The Lady from Shanghai" and you shall see the obvious majesty and real genius of one of the masters of film making, from which alas, Oliver Parker, indeed hasn't inherited much, nor has learned to reproduce the magic that Orson's movies all had.

This movie, if ever, shows you most clearly the huge chasm and divide that separates classic movie making, from today's money grabbing but empty efforts being made.

I don't know if this has anything to do with a kind of laziness, lack of imagination, lack of true creativity or simply a deep tiredness of newer movie directors and producers, but it clearly reveals an absolute inability to create something of true value.

And finally, I would also criticize some screen writers for their lack of true luster in creating a true original script with a witty, involving and well refined dialogue as they were so very often produced during the so called "Studio System".

Nor do the various excuses of "everything having already been explored" validate the fact that many of such writers just slam words on paper at random, instead of really making an effort to write something that can be indeed savored by well educated audiences.

But we are living in a "populist" world, where mass production seems to be more important than to actually uplift and actually somehow educate audiences to aim to higher levels of quality, both in writing as indeed in filmed entertainment.

Today, movie theaters more resemble a kind of "McDonald's Fast Food Spectacle" rather than a refined Restaurant where one might enjoy a real and carefully prepared meal.

This equals to cultural degradation in its lowest form, and "Fade to Black" is indeed one of these representatives and indeed it won't be the last such products dished up either in Europe or from greedy Hollywood Studios.

In short, this is a pedestrian movie, with no special value whatsoever, except maybe for that kind of audience only going to the movies to munch popcorn and sip on a soft drink while passing the time just watching flickering images passing them by, not quite particularly interested in the subject handled there, as long as they seem colorful enough.

Orson Welles in post-war Europe

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 4 April 2013]

Danny Huston is Orson Welles in "Fade to Black," a 2006 release, directed by Oliver Parker, and featuring Paz Vega, Diego Luna, Christopher Walken, Anna Galiena, and Nathaniel Parker.

In this story, Welles goes to Italy after his divorce from Rita Hayworth to make a film, "Black Magic." He also wants to raise money for his film version of "Othello." While in Italy, one of the actors in the film is murdered, and as he's dying, he whispers the word "Nero" in Orson's ear. Welles intends to find out who killed him. But he finds himself not only involved with shady characters, but embroiled in the politics of the country. As time goes on, he begins to hear different stories about the actor, somewhat contradictory in nature. On top of which, Tyrone Power is a much bigger star in Italy and Welles keeps coming up short, except on a hit list!

This is a nice blend of fact and fiction. Welles did go to Europe around this time, and he made several films, which he often did when he was trying to get money together. His marriage to Rita Hayworth was a complicated one. When his political ambitions led nowhere in the '40s, Rita, so desperate to get out of show business, turned to Aly Khan instead. Welles adored her, but her insecurities made her difficult to live with and was a bad combination with his egotism.

It's doubtful that Welles would have gotten himself mixed up in anything that didn't somehow lead to his own self-aggrandizement, but I could have gone along with it if the script had been better. It tries to cram in too much plot.

Italy after the war was a horrific mess. The production values for "Fade to Black" are wonderful and show the post-war ruination, as well as striking differences between rich and poor. Of course, Cinecitta the film studio is in Rome, and Tombolo, the place where deserters and collaborators escaped, is way up north, though it's not clear if they're speaking of a district or the city. In any event, it's a wooded area seemingly not far from Rome. The word tombolo has more to do with a mound or beach, so the woods would be the name for it.

Danny Huston doesn't look or sound like Welles, except on the film that plays behind his magic act - there we see him in the typical Welles big overcoat and hat, in black and white. He does a good job, though I do believe Welles was a bit showier. As the mother and daughter who knew the murdered actor, Paz Vega and Anna Galiena are gorgeous and look just like mother and daughter. Both have a mysterious aura which adds to the film.

The denouement is no surprise. Still, this is an enjoyable film about one of Hollywood's most electrifying people, a brilliant maverick with a flamboyant personality. Sadly, though he resented the discipline and structure dictated by a Hollywood studio, he needed it. Once he left, he was never the same.

Orson would have loved it!

[audresonmichael · 8/10 · 16 February 2008]

I enjoyed this movie immensely. It captures the sense of Orson Welles as an adventurer, trying to raise money for movies which he understands better than those around him and instead making ones for other people which he knows are rubbish. On his travels in 1948 Italy, he stumbles into a murder mystery connected, perhaps too loosely, with a political conspiracy.

It's cleverly made and very funny. I loved the playfulness which nodded at Welles's work without doing anything as crass as obvious references. It's an enjoyable story. Not a great thriller, the insights and revelations weren't surprising but that only made it more real and engrossing.

Huston was encouraged to do part Orson and part his Father, John. He's a likable, believable hero matched by a good, mainly Serbian cast. Paz Vega is excellent as the heroine and Diego Luna gives a wonderful turn as the second hero to Welles, reminds me of James Macavoy, only likable.

You want historical facts, read a History book!!

[mdewey · 8/10 · 8 March 2015]

Our subject film gets underway by showing Mr. Welles in a very inauspicious light, as evidenced by his tepid, if not sarcastic, reception at the Rome airport as he arrived at the terminal almost unnoticed and visibly upstaged by Ty Power's arrival. But what's our guy to do given his current set of circumstances brought upon him by Ms. Hayworth giving him the old heave-ho and thereby ending their marriage?

So now he's in post WWII Rome where he shall try to undergo some face saving (he hopes) by attempting to reinvigorate his career by directing his slightly convoluted version of Othello that starts to look like a comedy of errors at the immediate onset of this dubious production.

But camp turns to tragedy as one of the actors gets murdered not long into the production. The dying thespian whispers something into Mr. Welles' ear just before passing on, and now a whole new chain of events starts to take place. One mystery begets other mysteries in a sort of arithmetic progression and the serious side of this drama/mystery starts to unfold. And this part of the film shows an understated, realistic Orson Welles who stumbles about looking for murder clues amidst a truly chaotic time in Italy. No star fanfare or ballyhoo here as he undertakes this complex task.

After all, it is post WWII Italy and the country is in total upheaval as large segments of the populace live in dire poverty. Added to this is a loose but dangerous amalgamation of ex-Nazis, dope dealers, neo-Fascists, US & other Allied forces' mercenaries acting under the guise of the political umbrella called the Christian Democrats who purportedly want to democratize Italy and make it a safe haven for democracy, out of Stalin's Communist Party's reach. Welles stumbles into these characters as he proceeds with trying to find more facts surrounding the murder on his set and ends up in a bailiwick of troubling surprises in so doing. What he sees, hears and learns from one of his old friend American colleagues (Chris Walken's role) and others in the aforementioned umbrella group is what drives the latter part of the film and pieces together the political ramifications of what transpires here. Was this a true account of what actually happened in post WWII Italy's chaotic time of turmoil? As was said toward the film's conclusion: "You want facts, read a History book!" At least there you will find out one person's view of the facts...Welcome to the real world!!