Last night Charlton Heston died at age 84. He is not an actor I fancy much but I wanted to watch 'The Agony...' for a long time. The movie itself I find very weak, somewhere near a documentary with all the poor and pretentious talk I can imagine. 'I'll die for my work' - Michelangelo exhibits mood swings worthy of some capricious wench rather then a passionate and focused artist. Read the book - it is much better.
An Orson Welles film-noir (people say one of the last of this genre) which did not impress me much. The movie is noir indeed, so much so that it seems the screen is tuned up to maximum contrast: no soft tones only cutting shadows, the day light has nothing smooth in it, there is almost no transition from light to dark.
I did watch again the seemingly famous tracking shot at the beginning and I do think it pays to see it but the rest I would not watch another time. Charlton Heston is not doing a good job in his acting a Mexican(does he look Mexican at all to you?!) policeman. I only became aware of his resemblance to Sergiu Nicolaescu(S.N. is a dinosaur of Romanian cinema).
Orson Welles himself does a much better job impersonating the corrupt and generally finished cop. He drinks, he smokes continuously and does not seen the ever shower. In a word he is disgustingly ugly. When the camera looks up at him, which happens almost always, I feel he is invading my personal space - always too close.
