Film Overview"The Hearts of Age" is a short speculative film released in 1934. The film stands as the first directorial debut work of Orson Welles, a well-known American filmmaker who was just 19 years old at the time. He co-directed the film with William Vance, a fellow trainee at the Todd Seminary School for Boys. Shot quietly in black and white and around running for 8 minutes long, the movie reveals an amalgamation of surrealistic and symbolic series.
Plot Summary"The Hearts of Age" has no standard plot. The film starts with a somber sign of death, a bell tolling versus the backdrop of a stone-faced old woman signifying the principle of aging. The scene shifts to a young girl (played by Welles' muse at the time, Virginia Nicholson), who wears a colonial flamenco-style attire and struggles to go up a steep hill to reach a large cross at the top.
A number of special characters regular the seven essentially dialogue-less sketches throughout the film. The characters include a severely aged male continuously playing a church organ, a clown, a middle-aged woman in black who cheerfully gets an egg, a Keystone police, and a lady with a painted skull. Welles likewise makes a quick appearance as the Keystone cop and the aged organist.
The film uses various concepts such as bells, death, church, hens, and clowns to comment on death and aging. It carries numerous symbolic series, such as bells flying like birds and a female laughing hysterically as she gets pelted with eggs, representing components of death and decay.
Design and Performance"The Hearts of Age" greatly leans on the avant-garde design, marked by surreal imagery and symbolic narrative. The film dabbles in components of absurdity, black humor, and dreamlike series shifting strangely from one scene to another. It is influenced by European avant-garde filmmakers, specifically Luis Buñuel's "Un chien andalou", and embodies an acquired style of French Impressionism.
In regards to efficiency, the cast, including Welles, essentially play archetypes instead of fully fleshed characters, meaning to stimulate wider styles and associations beyond private experience. The surprising and somewhat buffooning tone encompasses much of the film, opposing the solemn styles it explores.
The Legacy and CriticismSubstantially, "The Hearts of Age" meant Welles' potential as an experimental filmmaker. As his very first movie, it showcased a stark and haunting visual design that Welles would expand on in his later, more renowned works. "The Hearts of Age" was essentially a student film that Welles and Vance produced their amusement, however its appealing expedition of effective motifs and offbeat storytelling strategies pointed towards an excellent profession in cinematic artistry.
Nevertheless, the film dealt with criticism for appearing derivative of European art movie theater and doing not have originality. Also, due to its speculative nature, the film has actually typically been described as elusive and bewildering. Welles himself dismissed it as 'a little pastiche' and just acknowledged its presence when film copies appeared years after its creation.
In general, "The Hearts of Age" might not be a renowned or conclusive representation of Orson Welles' later works or the American progressive film motion itself, however it remains an interesting start to a famous cinematic career and a curious glimpse into the early usage of surrealist concepts and symbolic visual language in narrative movie theater.
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