One Man Band on ebay

[nathan_h]

Dang, I've been hoping to find one of the screener copies of One Man Band (from when Showtime was almost able to show it) for ages, and now it appears on ebay here and it's already too rich for my blood! Wish someone with deep pockets would copy this "master" to DVD-r to preserve for posterity....

[mteal]

Looks like the Peter B. ONE MAN BAND re-edit went for $90 after 15 bids. Not bad - I guess Beatrice's meddling has turned it into a genuine collector's item. I agree with Nathan H: if the guy that bought it reads Wellesnet - and has a DVD recorder - I'd pay at least $20-25 for a decent DVD-r copy, and $15 for a decent VHS copy (I think others here probably would too). That is, if the guy wants to make his $90 back fast. Of course, he may want to wait to see if it becomes even more of a collector's item.

I thought I read somewhere that the Showtime airing was canceled because Beatrice demanded an outrageous fee for a brief clip from CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT. Anyone know if this is true?

[Jeff Wilson]

PB said that he wanted to use a clip from CHIMES, but the rights nolder (not Beatrice) wanted insane money for just a few seconds of footage. So he left it out. The very prospect of all that unfinished Welles footage showing up on American TV screens without Beatrice getting any $$ is what made her act, one assumes. Granted, we never heard one way or the other that it was her who put a stop to the screening of the film, but let's face it, who else would?

[fantomas]

As far as I heard it was the Iranian producer of TOSOTW who asked for a lot of money because there are clips of it in THE ONE-MAN BAND. PB tried to put clips from early Welles films in THE ONE-MAN BAND which is ridiculous because the documentary deals with the unfinished projects of Orson Welles. Obviously (and fortunately) there was not enough money to do it. In my eyes it's always strange when a filmmaker tries to improve another filmmaker's film without authorization of this filmmaker. Even Orson got the okay from Reichenbach when he started F FOR FAKE.

[ToddBaesen]

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Having seen the Peter Bogdanovich version of the film, I disagree that using clips from earlier Welles films was a ridiculous idea. In fact, if you see the film, I think you'd agree that it amounts to a nice re-cap of Welles career, lasting only about ten minutes, before getting into all the unseen footage. And since it was done for television, and many viewers might not be that familiar with Welles films like CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT and THE TRIAL, I think it was a great way to put the unfinished work into the context of all the other great films Welles made during his career. If somebody unfamiliar with Welles' later works just saw the sometimes rough and unfinished clips, he might justifibly wonder what all the fuss what about. And none of the clips that were in the German version were cut out, except for the brief London Tailors episode. Also, some clips were lenghtened or added, including Don Quixote! So overall, Bogdanovich really smoothed it out and made it much more balanced, and also added a much better narration which explains the circumstances around each of the unfinished projects, and talks about them in context of Welles career. Overall it's quite an improvement over the German original. And don't forget, the whole idea behind doing the film was Oja Kodar's in the first place. It seems like she got edged off the project by the German backers. At least that's what J. Rosenbaum seems to imply in his interview on Wellesnet. Apparently what happened was that after Kodar got the German money to do the film, she was not allowed to direct or co-direct it, even though she is credited as a co-director.

Here are the filmclips included in the PB version:


DON QUIXOTE (1959)
THE DEEP (1968)
CHURCHILL
SWEETS IN VIENNA (1968)
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE (1969)
STATELY HOMES/LORD OF THE MANOR (1969)
SWINGING LONDON (1969)
THE ONE-MAN BAND (1969)
MOBY DICK (1973)
F FOR FAKE TRAILER (1975)
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND (1976)
THE ORSON WELLES SHOW (1978)
FILMING THE TRIAL (1981)
THE DREAMERS (1982)

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[fantomas]

Todd:

Okay, let's discuss this point, and I hope you'll accept me to be a little polemic.

First of all I have to admit that I haven't seen the Bogdanovich version. I know Vassili Silovic's and Oja Kodar's original quite well. When I saw it at a Film Festival for the first time I liked it, and it started my interest in seeing the fragments. Even now, after seeing the restored shorts, I believe that the films documents the fragments in a good way as well as it portraits Oja Kodar and Orson's legacy.

I have problems with your argumentation:
"So overall, Bogdanovich really smoothed it out and made it much more balanced, and also added a much better narration which explains the circumstances around each of the unfinished projects, and talks about them in context of Welles career. Overall it's quite an improvement over the German original."
I imagine similar statements by the people who believed to improve Orson's films in the 40s and 50s. Especially the remark that the American audience needs more explanation to understand the point sounds to me like a Hollywood producer who "smoothes" films for better sales. For me it is not acceptable that someone changes the work of an living author without authorization of the author. And in this case the German producers and authors were definitely not involved in the changes of their film.

Can't you understand the point? Even when you think that an author's work could be better I would never accept that you change it. Instead of "improving" existing works it would be much better to create an own work and to let - even the worst - creation live as it was done by its author. Maybe in some years others will discover that the audiences are much less stupid (even in America), and that the "unimproved" style of a certain author suddenly is more modern than the "improvings" and "smoothenings".

Orson Welles' work is a good example to illustrate this thesis.

[nathan_h]

Guessing that no one here was the lucky winner on ebay a while back....

I didn't realize it was so different from the older version (which I have on a 6th gen VHS tape), which might have helped push me over the edge. I thought all I was going to be paying up for was some improved quality.

[71-1045893605]

A video for ONE MAN BAND goes for a ridiculous $90 (worth $20 tops) on eBAY and then the LP Soundtrack for THE TRIAL goes for $11.00 (worth over $100). Something is definitely wrong in Denmark.

[AndersE]

I'm not familiar with this item, but by pure chance I unearthed a box of VHS tapes yesterday that had been in storage after a move. Among them were the long BBC interview with Welles as well as something called "The Lost Films of Orson Welles" also recorded from the BBC a couple of years ago. It sounds awfully much like the item above, it has all the clips listed in the previous reply. It bears the caption "A Film made possible by Oja Kodar" and is produced by Medias Res Filmproduktion Munchen/Berlin, Mediterranee Film Production Paris and Boa Filmproduktion AG Zurich and is directed by Vassili Silovich.
Is this the same thing?

Anyway, very interesting stuff even if the linking segments are a bit dull at times.

Anders

[71-1045893605]

ONE MAN BAND & LOST FILMS OF ORSON WELLES are one-in-the-same. Same director, producer, etc... Same director's cut that played the fest circuit. I wish I could clean out an old trunk and find a nice Welles rarity. Oh, look what I found under my bed...the missing films cans from AMBERSONS!