Awful, boring, ugly

I thought Depardieu was very good here, although Empire praised this film more highly than I would, it's a good movie that's frequently audacious, compelling, inadvertently humorous and involving. It loses pace and purpose on occasion, especially in the final act, which drags a touch and employs some obscure flashbacks and moments where Depardieu seems to be looking directly at the audience. This is too cute and self-aware, but the arc from confident, sex-fuelled debauchery and lust to fish-out-of-water buffoonery and going from wholly in control to entirely lost worked for me. Even the flashbacks revealed other aspects of a complex and involving character, whilst the supporting roles are well played, too; particularly Jacqueline Bisset, who gives her best performance in years on the big screen. I think it could have been a little shorter and a bit tighter during the final act, but the first half is utterly compelling, highly amusing and handled with real aplomb by director and cast.

NOW TARZAN MAKE WAR!

I can't go along with the original post's thesis. Nowhere in that comment does the writer say anything that suggests an understanding of the film - what type of film it is, what intention drives Ferrara's depiction of this man and the life around him - except to say in a number of ways that it's boring. I can understand how someone who is not interesting in the sort of interior, human paradoxes that Ferrara delves into, and the film's lack of plot and narrative clarification, would see nothing more than: awful, boring, and ugly. That limited view reflects the poster's narrow vision and understanding, and not the raw material for thought the film provides.

Yes, even in the cut version - which is all I have available to me at the moment - it's clear that Depardieu, now in his 60s, continues to be the astonishing actor he has always been. I think at this point, in his life and his career, he's taken the craft and art of acting way beyond anything Brando did; Depardieu's acting has always remained amazingly simple, but detailed in a way that we perceive who he plays and never the mechanism used to achieve the result. He is obviously a man at home in his own skin, for in it, he has achieved a confidence that does not allow the obstacle of fear, in any form, to intrude. Age has not soften his edges, or threatened his work with anything remotely resembling vanity. He embraces this character with a combination of rage and love; he does not act-out; he merely IS this conflicted, horrifically self possessed, self deluded man. Without judgement, Depardieu shows us a man with wealth, position, and governmental potential brought down by addiction, compulsion, and his constant self awareness that a downfall is, and will continue to be, the consequence of these actions. The film follows Ferrara's other films, as it observes a man of power's disintegration within a Catholic context balancing free will with an addict's compulsion. At one point the character says, "God denies me His Grace to be good," and we wonder, is this true or is this, as his wife insists, rationalization? All of Ferrara's films have theological themes running through them. A search for God is at the core of his work. What differentiates it from other theologically motivated work is Ferrara's willingness to descend into the pit and show the sins committed; to vividly demonstrate actions that challenge any acknowledgement of God's presence.

The other performance, equally frank and soul-bearing, is the one given by Bisset. And let me add, for once, she's actually got a part where a great deal is demanded of her! She grabs hold, with a force equal to her acting partner, stands her group, and plays out the part of this sort of scandal we are always curious about: the wife's reaction to a famous husband's risky, indiscreet behavior. The scenes between Depardieu and Bisset are the most important moments, the film's driving force, dramatically. The sex orgies are shown so we remember them when husband and wife debate his actions, her motive, their share circumstance. The grunting excess we watch, contrasts the emotionally fueled intellectual debriefing process between the two that, in truth, makes up the majority of the film's running time. Bisset is equally astonishing.

Of course Cassavetes was in control of his films, what I was saying is that he wasn't ultimately concerned with aesthetically framing in a picturesque, matching shots perspective (at least on a conscious level) as he believed that should the actors receive the utmost concern and deliver the truest, most impassioned performances possible that the rest would follow on its own and automatically look better on a purely visual level. This is something I think that has increasingly hurt Scorsese on a creative level (even if his last several films were his greatest financial successes) as he has given up taking that sort of creative risk and feels the need to deliver, as you put it, something that is primarily "aesthetically and narratively coherent" (actual situations are rarely that straightforward which is what Ferrara was no doubt trying to capture with Welcome...) to please mass audiences and ensure the exponentially absurd expectations for studios profit-wise.