Fabrications
I admit, I find the story of the Mankiewcz brothers to be one of the most interesting in all filmdom. Part of the allure is their experimentation in narrative perspectives and the nature of fabrication.
Here, the fabrication is extra sweetly dimensional. We have a movie about movies, actresses portraying actresses with resonances among all these four elements.
And we have the character who fabricates a character (Eve), who incidentally is as much a written object as the characters of the movie are. And of course she believes otherwise just as Betty’s character does (and, we presume Betty herself did).
The writing is pure genius, aided presumably by psychotropics as was the later “Cleopatra,” which was begun with similar aspirations. I found the acting superficial, but again that’s part of the fun I guess.
Posted in 2004
Ted’s Evaluation — 3 of 3: Worth watching.