A detective story without a solution, a film with several versions but no agreed-upon definitive cut, a widely held misfire that was once hailed by Cahiers du Cinema as one of the best films ever made—the paradoxes at the heart of the Welles’ Mr. Arkadin (A.K.A. Confidential Report) are strange and bountiful, rivaling even The Magnificent Ambersons atop the director’s most fantastic fiascos. It’s a legacy of mystery mirrored by the content of the film, which follows the daunting effort of hired American detective Guy Van Stratten to compile a report on the past of amnesiac international tycoon Gregory Arkadin (Welles). Pressing on through an atmosphere of Cold War obfuscation, Van Stratten confronts an endless array of gonzo European bit players only to witness Arkadin’s history growing increasingly convoluted and elusive. Compounding Van Stratten’s confused outsider perspective, Welles encumbers the surface of the film with distorted perspectives, menacing chiaroscuro and hysterically overloaded sets captured in excessive clarity. The net result is a behemoth—despite its relatively short runtime—whose vertiginous surplus of narrative, visual and auditory information cannot be rationally parsed in one sitting.