Orson The Screenwriter - Screenwriting

[Jed Leland]

I don't know if this topic was covered before, but I happen to read The Cradle Will Rock by Orson Welles and became irritated the more I read it. I realized quickly that the movie that was filmed under that title was not the same story Orson wrote. The movie Tim Robbins directed was more of a statement than a recollection of a time period. If you haven't read the book, please do yourself a favor and check it out.

This got me to thinking about how good of a screenwriter Orson Welles really was. He was quite good. Granted most of his stories revolved around the mystery of a man, but what's wrong with that. Hell Howard Hawks made the same movie about 5 times and you don't hear people complaining about that.

I just thought I would start a dialogue going about Orson as a screenwriter. You know there are still several unproduced screenplays by him.

[Jed Leland]

I thought I would add to what I previously said by talking about The Big Brass Ring.

I had an opportunity for me to read the original script by Welles (available online or Samuel French). I was curious on how consistent the movie was to the screenplay. The fact is it's not. Which is really a shame. I understand that the guys who took on the project wanted to show the main character not on his way down the political ladder but on his way up. The changed the location from Overseas to Louisiana. The changed him from someone who just lost to Reagan to a man running for governor.

I don't know. Maybe someone might be able to shed some light on the subject. I guess you can say that I was disappointed. Would I've been disappointed with anyone other than Welles? No. I just think that when you take on a script by the likes of Orson Welles you owe it to him to keep the story as it was. To do otherwise is the same as those who re-editted The Magnificent Ambersons and Touch of Evil. Maybe if they had given their version a different title and just state that it was an adaptation from Orson Welles.

[blunted by community]

what i appreciate in welles is not something that comes out of the screenplay, it comes when welles was looking through the viewfinder, directing actors, and editing.

a welles screenplay is just scribbling on paper, and will do nothing to make the film look like a welles film. the best thing to do with a welles screenplay is read it, not to make it into a film. that was welles job.

welles had no problem jumbling around the works of sheakespeare, booth tarkington, and kafka. new directors have no problem shuffling welles' work around. maybe it's a trait inherent in director types.

[Jed Leland]

Maybe I should clarify. I'm not trying to say that what makes a Welles picture is his screenplays. No. What I'm trying to say is that he doesn't get enough credit for his writing. Sure, we all can recognize a Welles picture from anything else. It's what makes him so great, but his talent at storytelling starts at that typewriter. I pointed out The Cradle Will Rock and The Big Brass Ring to give examples of talent wasted or not used.

[Glenn Anders]

Dear Jed: Should you go back through past discussions, you will find a number of us who don't think much of Welles as writer. I suppose a case can be made, and has been, that his journalism and prose fiction, even his theatrical writing, were shallow, sometimes elegantly juvenile, and occasionally the proverbial "blood and thunder" stuff. However, I am with you on his screenwriting (and, I would add his first person audio essays and storytelling) as evidence of an often superb craftsman in that medium.

My judgment is always with the proviso which Blunted maintains that it is Welles the director and dramatic craftsman who is essential to realizing the works you mention. What he might have added or taken away from his screenplays of The Cradle Will Rock and THE BIG BRASS ring is incalcuable and might have made an appreciable difference to the finished result.

Perhaps Tim Robbins was right, after all, in not taking on the artistic and legal agonies of using Welles' screenplay for CRADLE WILL ROCK.

Glenn

[blunted by community]

craddle will rock made right from the welles screenplay but not by welles would be as painful to watch as the existing craddle will rock.

[Glenn Anders]

Ah, Bllunted! I wondered where you'd gone.

You have been taking your elixir again, I think, but if my decoder ring is not on the wrong click, we must be in agreement.

Onward.

Glenn

[mteal]

I tend to agree with Blunted and Glenn that only one person could have made a Welles film out of a Welles screenplay. However, if a good cast, crew and director were assembled it might be worth a shot bringing some of them to the screen anyway (provided they were more faithful then Hickenlooper's BBR and A&E's Ambersons mess). But I'd also like to see more of his screenplays get published too. As I've said before, I consider these to be Welles films that just never made it to film. If one has a good imagination, you can bring them to life the way you bring a book to life. The literary Welles is better then no Welles. But of course, this applies more to his original stories then to his adaptations, where one might as well just go back to the original source novel. I've wound up reading quite a few great books this way, and gotten alot of enjoyment out of it. Welles had great taste in literature, as in so many other things.

[Glenn Anders]

Amen. I rather think my own tastes in literature were formed by listening to Welles on Radio, and seeing his films.

Perhaps, there will be a new groundswell of re-discovery, and some of those plays will be published. I know that the Spoken Word market is burgeoning. All those millions stuck in traffic jams every day, tired of hip hop or chopped up classics, are turning to stories and plays.

[There's an outside chance that I may become part of it.]

Glenn

[blunted by community]

my explorations into literature were influenced by welles' taste in lit. as was truffaut's!

glenn, i gave up the elixir. i was hearing voices in my head, "kill, kill, kill for jesus."

[blunted by community]

jed, maybe welles is not given enough credit for his writing because welles himself didn't give much importance to writing. he wrote screenplays yes, but only to raise money. once he got the money he had no problem tossing out the screenplay. the welles screenplays i've read have been rather unremarkable. any one trying to make a film out of a welles screenplay is just raking welles' bones. they are not doing it because the screenplay has such genius that it must be made. it's just a money making ploy. it's to get free press, and to get people in the seats who have no clue what welles did but know it's highbrow stuff.

a henry hathaway film was remade a few years back, KISS OF DEATH. there was absolutely nothing in the new one that would make you think of the old one. just some very basic stuff that could have been rewritten with no major change to the film's plot. why didn't they just make a few changes and not have to pay the owner of the film? because remaking a film noir would get a heck of a lot more press interest than just another action movie. it's got that great title, KISS OF DEATH, and maybe they even used the fact that they were remaking an old classic film to entice a star.

unfortunately they use welles the same way.

welles didn't write many original stories. off the top of my head i can only think of arkadin, other side of the wind, big brass ring, craddle will rock, and way to santiago as original stories, and i'm not sure if way to santiago is original.

what would be an interesting project would be to take the original source novel he wrote the screenplay from, and do graphic comparisons in how he shaped the original material into his own. would be interesting to do with heart of darkness, and with ambersons. has to be on dvd though, not in book form or it's not cool.

[Glenn Anders]

Blunted: Stay off the elixir. You are much more understandable! Especially, when we agree on the salubrious influence of Welles on our literary tastes.

I would say, though, that the above fact suggests Welles' strong point in writing. He was a revisionist, a man constantly improving upon past efforts, as Shakespeare had been before him (if you will forgive such an artistic leap of faith). No stage version, no radio play, no movie screenplay, no piece of writing that Welles ever cared for remained the same after his interminable revisioning.

In that, given his accomplishments, lie CITIZEN KANE (Mankiewicz), THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (Tarkington), JOURNEY INTO FEAR (Ambler), THE STRANGER (Whoever), MACBETH (Shakespeare), OTHELLO (Shakespeare), TOUCH OF EVIL (Whoever), THE TRIAL (Kafka), and CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT (Shakespeare).

Like yourself, he was a man who refused to leave well enough alone.

Glenn

[blunted by community]

who isn't a revisionist?

[Glenn Anders]

You may have a point, Blunted, but if you are correct, there are two kinds of revisionists. The first, which one sees in young writers and hide-bound politicians, is a person who refuses to change anything. Everything is done and perfect. This revisionist may eventually change a work or position, only under great pressure, for personal gain, or to save face, while maintaining that nothing has changed; all is going "according to plan."

The second type of revisionist, from which Welles emerges, welcomes intelligent change, seeks it out, incorporates the "happy accident," encourages cooperation, into his/her thought and work, following an underlying set of principles or morality.

In these senses, you are right; we are all revisionists. There are, however, many fewer of the second type than the first, I'm afraid.

Glenn

[blunted by community]

ok