One Man Band tonight on Showtime

[Flint]

Thanks Jeff for the heads up on the Showtime screening.

Some thoughts:

The scene from OSOTW with Oja in the car having sex with guy - Unbelievable. Brilliant editing. I've been thinking about this clip all day. It was so completely cutting edge, I felt like it could have come right out of some Tarrantino/P.T. Anderson film and then to think this is the same guy who did Ambersons & Kane with all their classical formalism - wow. The other two clips (Huston arrive at the party & the guys in the screen room) were pretty cool but I think need to be seen in the context of the film.

The scenes from "Merchant of Venice" were fantastic. I'm constantly amazed at Welle's sense of composition. Also wondered if Kubrick had seen this as it reminded me of "Eyes Wide Shut" - the robes, the masks - almost identical. Anyone know just how much of this was shot? I looked it up in "This Is Orson Welles" and it only says the project was to be about an hour in length.

Wondering what was Orson's interest in the Moby Dick film of him sitting there reading the book. I think that one can stay lost. I don't get it.

I can't believe there's no high-powered filmmakers pushing to get all the unseen stuff finished and released. Why is Bogdonovich the only one who seems to care? Are Spielberg or any others of his ilk on record with any comments regarding Welles unseen works?


Just some thoughts on the show.

-Flint.

[blunted by community]

did not see the line oscar wrote.

[jbrooks]

As I recall, the end credits said "Licensed but not endorsed by the Estate of Orson Welles."

[Peter Tonguette]

I saw a still from "Merchant of Venice" years ago and was astonished at how much it resembled "Eyes Wide Shut" - something confirmed to me by the extended clip. Everything from the masks to the actual blocking of when Shylock enters the room called to mind the Kubrick film - to say nothing of the morbid tone and macabre music. I have to wonder if Kubrick ever managed to see this portion of the film somehow.

Peter

[Harvey Chartrand]

Stanley Kubrick wanted to follow up 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY with EYES WIDE SHUT/DREAM STORY (which would have been daring in 1969 but was old hat by 1999). Kubrick's desire to make an erotic film in the late sixties prompted his DR. STRANGELOVE collaborator Terry Southern to write the novel BLUE MOVIE — the story of a genius film director who makes an expensive stag movie with first-class production values.
Kubrick shelved DREAM STORY, as he became increasingly caught up in his NAPOLEON project. When that fell through, he directed A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, only resuming work on DREAM STORY (retitled EYES WIDE SHUT) in 1994.
Could the masque scene in EYES WIDE SHUT have been influenced by a private screening of Welles' THE MERCHANT OF VENICE? Possibly, but it could just as easily have been modelled after scenes in THE STORY OF O or the EMMANUELLE series.

[Jaime N. Christley]

Those masks also appear in AMADEUS, so perhaps the image is more general/universal? than Welles-Kubrick.

[mteal]

I missed the Showtime ONE MAN BAND because I was watching baseball instead (and another monumental collapse by the Chicago Cubs which, coupled with the Red Sox' extra-inning loss in Game 7 made me think about starting a thread on Welles and curses, but I digress). I've never been unhappy with my European version of OMB, so I don't feel an urgent need to see the American reedit right away (the main thing is the unfinished clips anyway). Does anyone have any info though, on a possible DVD release of this new version?

Regarding Welles reading from Moby Dick: that footage reminds me of footage of Welles reading from H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds in a NASA documentary about Mars called WHO'S OUT THERE? If I'm not mistaken, Gary Graver shot both the Wells and Melville readings, and so it's possible Welles may have wanted to sell the Moby Dick footage to another documentarian- F FOR FAKE in reverse. But that's just a guess.

Regarding the masks in MERCHANT: I can't say for sure, but I believe that in Venice those masks are worn mainly during the Carnivale season. I don't know that Shakespeare set MERCHANT specifically during Carnivale, but if he didn't, Welles decision to do so would seem to be a significant reference to the IT'S ALL TRUE fiasco. BTW, when the TRUE footage was discovered in 1984, it opened the door for Welles to do an essay film on his South American adventure, a'la F For Fake. Could've been a great film, but Welles refused to even look at the footage, saying it was "cursed".

[Peter Tonguette]

mteal,

Where did you get the information regarding Welles not even wanting to look at the re-discovered "It's All True" footage? Just curious. At least until the end of the '40s, it seemed he very much wanted to locate and complete the film, but by the mid-80s it sounds as though he'd changed his mind rather dramatically. Of course, there's a whole lifetime between the '40s and the '80s...

Peter

[Glenn Anders]

I believe that Welles said that he felt the discovered footage was cursed in that long interview that he did for the BBC, very near the end of his life. After all, Welles said earlier that he had engaged in commercial projects over a number of years in order to buy the footage for THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS and IT'S ALL TRUE. He may have realized that at such a late date, his energy level and other projects to one side, his chances of doing anything respectable with the footage was long past.

I've often thought that Richard Wilson deserved a lot of credit for putting the material together with so much love in the form of a documentary, for the Janqueiros Brazilian piece and the Mexican fragment were dazzling.

Glenn

[blunted by community]

and wilson deserves a lot of credit for being the unpaid curator of orson weles materials. everything the lilly has is thanks to wilson who saved the stuff. had it been up to welles, forget it. we would have nothing.

didn't wilson assemble a 22 minute jungadiero thing that showed at welles festivals for a few years before the meisel documentary it's all true?

one man band might have a few more screenings, it was just on again.

[Glenn Anders]

Yes, Blunted, I agree, Wilson does deserve much credit for saving a lot of Welles' material. I would not say, however, that left up to Welles, it would have been "forget it." It was Welles who brought a great deal of that stuff to Wilson's rather renowned garage. Now you might argue that he should have had it stored in some warehouse, like his "rosebud," but Welles was a man constantly on the move, and generally short of money, always seeking personal connections. And part of our discussion is about the circumstances under which important things were destroyed by the fire in his house in Spain, as referred to in OMB. He tried to preserve things, but he had extraordinary bad luck.

[One obsessed on conspiracies might suspect that he had enemies, some of them in high places, comfortable to see the curtailing, if not the destruction of his career. After all, J. Edgar Hoover, for instance, had his FBI taking an interest in Welles' career and prestige because of his early interest in what became known as "Civil Rights," and for his association with people of color.]

You might note, that the original negative of CITIZEN KANE, safely stored in RKO vaults, was destroyed in a fire.

Yes, Wilson did have a hand in the final editing of the segment about the Brazilian fishermen. It formed the major section of IT'S ALL TRUE, which I am referring to, again a project that Wilson helped produce. As I remember it, however, Wilson didn't have that material in his garage. It was discovered, mislabeled, in a studio vault.

Still, Richard Wilson is one more example, as is Bogdanovich from a different generation, of the extraordinary loyalty over many decades, which Welles commanded.

Glenn

[Glenn Anders]

Just a note for Jaime: Welles was interested in masks, disguise and magic his whole life, and it comes up quite often in his work. What is Kane but a man who hides his real motivations from everyone? The house which represented the Ambersons' magnificence runs down over decades until it is a poor house. Welles in THE STRANGER is concealing his Nazi past behind a created identity of a New England History professor. There is the slashed funhouse sequence in THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI. Don't forget the masked ball in MR. ARKADIN. There is his obsession with false noses . . . I could go on.

That the immensely private and secretive Kubrick was also interested in masks is not surprising.

Regards.

Glenn

[blunted by community]

welles made some twisted attempts to hang on to stuff. one of the more astounding finds at the lilly that defines welles' character, was a letter from a storage company that said if the storage bill was not paid the stuff would be auctioned off. the stuff in storage was from the mercury stage plays, (late 30s) the storage bill was from the late 50s!
welles paid the storage bill for some 20 years before he fell behind. very odd.

a note to wilson from welles said he didn't have the money to pay the storage, and losing the stuff was the end of an era. would be willing to bet it was the stuff from 5-Kings.

[Oscar Christie]

The saddest of all is what happened to the material from Kane and Ambersons.
A family friend told me this story a few months ago.
The new owner of the RKO properties had the Welles material warehoused and eventually saw no point in continuing to pay the storage fees. Seven days too late he happened to be in a collector's shop and saw the price that one item of Kane memorabilia went for. To this day, he can't believe he let everything be disposed of.

[blunted by community]

according to some of the books i've read some went in the ocean, some went in the studio furnace. stuff from kane, ambersons, journey into fear, it's all true. i think the only reason parts of it's all true survived is because parts of it had stock footage value.

same happend with tons of films. no one had yet figured out that people would want to see a movie more than once, and buy movie products.