THE STRANGER © Amazon
The Stranger by Orson Welles: filming the banality of evil
Screened at Cannes Classics in a new 4K restoration, The Stranger enables us to rediscover Orson Welles’s work that was long undervalued. The prodigal child, who became the stuff of cinema legend with Citizen Kane, returns here with a noir thriller set right after World War II, when the world was trying to come to terms with the horror of the camps. Behind the story of a Nazi criminal hidden in a small American town, Welles delivers a film about evil and its appearances.
With The Stranger, long considered one of Orson Welles’s minor works, the filmmaker stated that he wanted to prove to the studios that he could direct a “normal film,” meaning on schedule and within budget. The film’s premise? A Nazi criminal doesn’t hide in a bunker, but in a small, peaceful American town in Connecticut, where he became a beloved professor. Welles transforms this place into a paranoid play. Shadows invade the streets, the framing becomes suffocating, and the city’s enormous clocktower hovers throughout the movie casting a permanent menacing gloom. The director plays with all his obsessions: false pretenses, manipulation, altered spaces, and above all, evil masked behind a respectable façade.
It is striking how accurately the film reflects the times. Shot right after the Second World War, at the onset of the Nuremberg trials, The Stranger was the first Hollywood film to incorporate real images from the concentration camps. Welles does not only seek suspense, he wants to confront the viewer with a reality that’s still unimaginable for most. Evil can be found in the most banal scenery. The Nazi criminal morphed into a respected professor, betrothed to a judge’s daughter, and perfectly integrated into society.
This 4K restoration, led by the Cinémathèque française and the Library of Congress based on original negatives, reawakens the film’s strength. The blacks regain their depth, the expressionist lighting effects seem more precise, and Welles’s labyrinthine staging appears more alive than ever.
