Short about Welles starring D'Onofrio

[colwood]

On May 3rd, at the San Francisco Film Festival, they will screen a short titled "Five Minutes, Mr. Welles." It stars Vincent D'Onofrio who played Welles in the film Ed Wood. Apparently he is a Welles fan but wasn't happy with his performance in EW. He wanted to try again and came up with this short. It's setting is Welles' dressing room on the set of The Third Man right before shooting of the ferris wheel scene. Apparently it began playing the festival circuit last year (played the Venice Film Festival and this year's Florida Film Festival), but I can't remember it being mentioned here before.

A Wellesian Do-Over

[Glenn Anders]

One or more of our intrepid San Francisco unit will no doubt see this program. Perhaps you yourself, colwood. If not, I shall do the honors.

Glenn

[colwood]

As much as I'd love to, Glenn, I'm on the other coast.

Figured it should be pretty good since most people here said that D'Onofrio is one of the actors who could do justice to Welles.

[Glenn Anders]

Dear colwood: You have given us the info. We shall finish the job.

Glenn

[catbuglah]

Good actor - I think I saw him in this freaky dream movie with Jennifer Lopez - The Cell - good physical resemblance.

[ToddBaesen]

Thanks Colwood for that heads up on the Vincent D'Onofrio Welles short at the SF film festival...

It's strange that I wouldn't have known about it if you hadn't posted that link, and I live in S.F!!

Meanwhile here's a short piece from ED WOOD writers, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski on the reason for putting Orson into ED WOOD:

____

One scene that Scott and Larry definitely invented was Ed Wood's chance encounter with Orson Welles at Frank and Musso's Grille on Hollywood Blvd. "That was the one major bit of hooey in the movie," explained Karaszewski. "We said to ourselves, what would happen if the best director in the world, met the worst director. The more we thought about it, the more we realized they were in exactly the same shoes. Orson couldn't get a movie made to save his life. He was shooting just like Ed Wood was, with short-ends and just throwing things together. He'd have to start and stop over a period of years, as he got the money. Ed was trying to emulate Welles, and there are some interesting parallels. Ed as a young guy was writing, directing, acting, and producing GLEN OR GLENDA, just like Orson did on CITIZEN KANE. He even had his own little group of actors, just like Welles' Mercury Theater. They weren't in the same league as Joseph Cotten and Everett Sloane, but who would you rather hang out with: Paul Marco or Agnes Moorehead? That's a tough decision to make."

[Orson&Jazz]

A question has popped into my head whilst reading this thread.

As I recall from Ed Wood, they used LaMarche's voice blended with D'Onofrio's to match Welles' velvety one. Apparently D'Onofrio was also hurt that they didn't use his natural voice for his Welles role in the film because he worked so hard on it.

Just wondering if he got his way and was finally able to use his own voice because the link provided never covered that part.

[ToddBaesen]

I just saw Vincent D'Onofrio's second interpretation of Orson Welles, the first being his short bit in Tim Burton's ED WOOD, and I must say this is an absolute magnificent gem of Wellesania.

When I saw ED WOOD, I felt D'Onofrio was perfect casting for the part of Welles, but the Welles of the forties, not the Welles of 1958, when ED WOOD is set. But it seems like D'onofrio as an actor was so intrigued by doing this little bit in Tim Burton's film, that he wanted to further his exploration into the field of Orson Welles. Well, to my great delight, he has captured the Welles persona once again and also given us a beautiful little portrait of what might have happened when Orson was in Vienna filming THE THIRD MAN.

D'Onofrio portrays Orson in 1949 in a hotel room in Vienna, who wakes up one morning after having had a evening of sexual delight with his personal assistant... The shock of seeing D'Onofrio playing such a well known face as Welles wears off in only a few minutes, and very quickly, the actor portraying Welles, becomes Welles. Of course, part of the trick to this, depends heavily on the writing of the script, which to my mind, is absolutely wonderful. It's nothing like RKO 281, or any of the other awful movies that have attempted to portray Orson Welles... like THE CRADLE WILL ROCK...

Here, in 30 short minutes, we get a distillation of Welles the man, the actor, the lover, the genuis, the orge, etc... but unlike any of the previous incarnations of Welles, this portrait rings true to the facts, which made it for me incredibly moving... D'Onofrio the actor has obviously done his homework and studied the THE THIRD MAN to get Welles inflections and mannerisms down correctly and what's more, it's certainly not a flattering portrait of Welles. But to me, it seems be a very accurate and entertaining portrait of the man and all his flaws. And obviously Welles had many flaws... which I think to ignore would be idiotic, but to portray them as they were done in RKO 281 without the slightest regard to the truth, would make me lose interest immediately, as I quicky did when I saw that terrible film which begins by showing Welles watching a film at Hearst Castle in it's very first scene...

So kudos to Vincent D'Onofrio, who has done a great job, as both actor and director. And, I must add, he's wisely filmed this short in beautiful black and white and in the 1.33 aspect ratio that correspond to that of THE THIRD MAN...

This would also certainly make a nice addition to any furture DVD release of THE THIRD MAN, or if Criterion wanted to update there current editon...

[Glenn Anders]

I fully agree with Todd.

I enjoyed the half hour long "Five Minutes, Mr. Welles," as you all might, too. Vincent D'Onifrio rather grows into Welles, quite consciously, while the film progresses. It begins with Welles in his dressing room at a London studio, sprawled partially concealed in a bed, while his "personal assistant," Catherine, puts her stockings and skirt back on. He remains hidden so, for several minutes, as she tries to rouse him to run lines.

It is after four in the morning, and Welles has been up all night drinking, making love, and trying to learn his part for THE THIRD MAN. Not an easy combination. At a certain point, a call man raps on the door to say that Welles is wanted on the set, but he has only a portion of his lines really down for "The Ferris Wheel Sequence" with Jo Cotten. And, to further complicate his flagging task, Welles is dissatisfied with his exit from that scene.

He wants to either escape his responsibility or improvise new dialogue.

From that point, Writer/Director D'Onofrio draws out of Actor D'Onofrio a rather extraordinary transformation from the befuddled, frustrated, self-indulgent, slightly paranoid, angry Welles is in his private life. We watch him grow into something closer to the commanding public Orson Welles we remember, pulling together in the process a number of issues in Welles' life and career. D'Onofrio even throws in a bit of intrigue over his war with Hollywood, centered around the inspiration for his creation of "The Cuckoo Clock Speech" in Carol Reed's THE THIRD MAN.

Even D'Onofrio's voice, which tends to let him down here, lowers a register as the film progresses to go with Welles' public face, body, stature and gestures.

May this short subject win D'Onofrio some feature film assignments!

Glenn

[colwood]

Glenn and Todd, thanks for the reviews. Hopefully it might play here in NY sometime soon.

[ToddBaesen]

Roger:

Thanks for the link. I'm reposting it in this thread so Kane76 can see the comments already made about the film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-4PPr3r_r0

[Kane76]

Thank you very much. I'm going to watch it right now.

[NoFake]

Agree with all the kudos to D’Onofrio. Interestingly, Hollywood still manages to betray Welles – even when it tries to praise him. In Sunday’s Parade magazine, George Hamilton muses on his favorite films. Among them is Citizen Kane, about which he says:

“Citizen Kane could be the greatest movie of all time. Orson Welles plays a man destroyed by his miserable childhood. Eventually he finds the woman he really loves.”

There you have it! With a plot like that, why in the world did it flop?

[tonyw]

Five Minutes, Mr Welles is superb. Vincent really knows his Welles and his deep focus and camera angles are really great. He is much better than Angus M in THE CRADLE WILL ROCK. Has anybody invited him to join this site? He will be most welcome,