Technically brilliant at times. And the interweaving of the various plots is a great idea and greatly ahead of its time. But whoever put the sequences together was either drunk or blind. Glaring lapses in the plot and illogical leaps in characterization relegate this movie to the middle of the road.
I can imagine another 40-50 minutes of impressive, witty, and heart-breaking Welles dialogue and camera work, but that's so much to the tragedy of the politics of the time - like the destruction of the library at Alexandria. You can see genius in there somewhere, but you're not allowed to view it as a whole. You can either kid yourself and weep or take it as it is and admire what's left of the pieces.
I can imagine another 40-50 minutes of impressive, witty, and heart-breaking Welles dialogue and camera work, but that's so much to the tragedy of the politics of the time - like the destruction of the library at Alexandria. You can see genius in there somewhere, but you're not allowed to view it as a whole. You can either kid yourself and weep or take it as it is and admire what's left of the pieces.