The Lady From Shanghai Research Task

"The Lady From Shanghai" Research:

 

Plot Summary-

• The story starts on a night in New York, when while strolling in the park, Michael O'Hara (Orson Welles) meets Mrs. Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth) and talks for a little bit with her. After they depart, Lady Bannister gets attacked but is saved by Michael who then accompanies her to her car.
• While they are walking, Michael tells Mrs. Bannister that he is a sailor which offers her the chance to ask him to work for her on her yacht. Michael refuses after he finds that she is married but Mrs. Bannister asks him to think about it.
• The next day, Mr. Bannister comes to ask Michael to work for him bur he refuses once again. They go out for a couple of drinks with another two men and Mr. Bannister gets so drunk that he has to be taken home by Michael. There, he meets Mrs. Bannister once again and this time, he agrees to work for them and accompany them. 
• On route, they meet with one of Mr. Bannister’s associates, Grisby. Grisby had found about Michael’s past, about how he killed a man and asks him that if he would do it again if he would have the chance. Michael doesn’t respond so Grisby leaves.
• When Mrs. Bannister, Rosalie, returns from swimming, she makes it clear that she attracted to Michael but he refuses her, an action which shocks both her and him. Michael tells Mr. Bannister that he wants to quit but Rosalie convinces him not to do it.
• Grisby approaches Michael again and tells him that he wants to fake his own death. He asks Michael to help him and promises him 5.000 dollars, money which Michael intends to use to run away with Rosalie. Grisby promises him that he will not be convicted as long as there is nobody and puts Michael to sign a confession.
• On the day when the supposed crime was to take place, Sydney Broome a private investigator hired by Bannister, meets with Grisby and tells him that he has found of his plan to murder Bannister, run away and blame Michael for both murders. Grisby shoots Sydney and then meets with Michael who proceeds with the plan, unaware of what happened.
• Sydney calls Rosalie and tells her about Grisby’s plans. When Michael also finds out what has happened, he rushes to Mr. Bannister’s office but instead of finding Mr. Bannister dead, Grisby is the one who was killed.
• Michael is accused of Grisby’s murder and locked away but Mr. Bannister promises him that he will represent him in court. During the trial, Mr. Bannister finds that Rosalie started liking Michael and predicts that he will lose the case. Before the verdict is given, Michael escaped by pretending to kill himself and then meets with Rosalie at a theatre. There, he realizes that it was she who wanted her husband dead but it is too late to run and he is captured by Rosalie’s Chinese friends who take him to an abandoned building. There, he finds that Rosalie plotted with Grisby to kill Mr. Bannister but because Sydney appeared, she had to kill Grisby in order to save herself. 
• The movie ends in a hall of mirrors, where both Rosalie and Bannister die and Michael is left with the hope that what he has found will let him win the trial.

Film Context-

"The Lady From Shanghai" (1948) is an imaginative, complicated, unsettling Film Noir who-dun-it thriller, with fascinating visuals and tilting compositions, luminous and numbers sub-plots and confounding plot twists. Although the tale of betrayal, lust ,greed and murder was filmed early 1946 and finished inn early 1947. It wasn't released until late in 1948. It failed both at the success at the box office and as a critical success (there were no Academy Award nominations).

The film, originally titled Take This Woman and then Black Irish, was made when major stars Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth (in her last film under contract to Columbia Pictures) were still married although estranged and drifting apart.  [Note: Their divorce decree was issued in November, 1947, thereby making the film itself and their characterizations a visualization of their own personal breakup]. Believing that Hayworth's sexy screen image, after her success in "Gilda" (1946), was tarnished forever with her role in the film as a wicked and evil temptress, studio chief Harry Cohn was also incensed to find that his reigning, top box-office star's magnificent auburn hair was bobbed, waved and bleached blonde for the film. Orson Welles served as director, producer, screenplay writer, and actor, basing his screenplay upon Sherwood King's 1938 novel "If I Die Before I Wake". The film was shot on locations including Acapulco and San Francisco (such as the Sausalito waterfront and the Valhalla Bar and Cafe, Chinatown, the Steinhart Aquarium in Golden Gate Park, and Whitney's Playland amusement park at the beach), and on Columbia studios sets, and features numerous classic set-pieces including: the aquarium scene, and the funhouse and Hall of Mirrors climax.  [Note: The numerous close-ups of Rita Hayworth in the film were later added by Welles in Hollywood upon orders of the studio, to lend strength to her 'star' power.] Ultimately, the film's length was severely cut down by one hour, creating an almost incomprehensible, discontinuous, cryptic patchwork from numerous retakes and substantial edits. This was Welles' last Hollywood film until the making of "Touch Of Evil" (1958) ten years later.

Themes and Aesthetics-

Despite his style of work being shot in black and white with themes of Film Noir, Orson Welles uses lighting to portray a character in a specific way and to give more detail about the characters personality and morals.

For example, in "The Lady From Shanghai",   

-Mirrors

-Smoke

Longest Shot Exposure

Lighting And Visuals

Orson Welles Research

History Brief-

• Born 6th May, 1915, Kenosha, Wisconsin, United States 
• American actor, director, writer 
• Producer in theatre, radio and film
• Early career as a stage door actor before going on to radio, most well known for creating his version of H.G Wells's War of the Worlds.

Shot Types-

Orson Welles Referencing Other Films:

Orson Welles has produced other successful and well known films such as:

"Citizen Kane"-

Plot Summary- 

"The Magnificent Anderson"-

Plot Summary-