The Mephisto Waltz (1971)

(In French, On Cable TV, November 2022) On paper, there’s some really good stuff at play in The Mephisto Waltz—body-switching between two men of different ages and artistic capabilities, satanic rituals, plotting counter-twists, Alan Alda, Jaqueline Bisset, and stylistic flourishes from director Paul Wendkos… really, this should be a better movie. Because it’s in the execution that the film falls flat, a victim of the worst excesses in early-1970s New Hollywood cinema—poor pacing, atonal structure, genre discomfort, overly dark cinematography, pedestrian dialogue and a baked-in indecision. It’s not bad, mind you—The Mephisto Waltz’s qualities stay its qualities. But in the end, the result is far more muddled than it ought to have been with those ingredients. But then again, those with more fondness than I have about early-1970s cinema may like it a lot more.