Don Quijote

[Tony]

tonyw:

I have Robin Wood's little book on Hitchcock, the first edition, printed in 1965; I also have his 69 edition, his 77 edition, and his 96 edition; I think Wood's ever-evolving book on Hitchcock is the definitive work on that director, and have told Prof. Wood so personally, on at least two occasions, as he lives here in Toronto. However, I am in complete disagreement with him on the value of Marnie, which I find loaded with dime-store psychology, badly acted (esp. by the non-actress Hedren), badly directed, creepy, and can only thank God that grace Kelly didn't do it. Afterwards, Hitch was never the same: Torn Curtain, firing Herrmann, losing his favourite editor and sound man, Topaz, Frenzy- they're all really weak films. I only like his last, Family Plot, becuase I think its a good script competently directed, but probably he should have retired after the Vertigo, North by Northwest, The Birds and Psycho run: these works tower over everything that came after. Hitch made too many films.

As for Kubrick, have you watched Eyes lately? Its very superficial, and a sad end to a career which gave us Paths of Glory, Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001 and Clockwork Orange. Would that he would have stopped there!

As regarding health: Welles was not only to direct but to star in all of the pictures except Cradle; I really don't think he was up to it. Heck, he's even got the tremors in the college interview material from 1978 intended for "Filming the Trial". And many were very worried when he was in a wheel chair and very infirm in Paris in 82: from all reports, he was really sick. My guess is much of the funding which fell through after Wind finally collapsed for two reasons: his reputation and his health. He already had a long-standing reputation for not finishing projects, and if he was very fragile and ill as well, this would be another reason for cancelling funding. You know, a man at his age, in his health and carrying his weight, could go at any time, and an investor wouldn't want to get stuck with half a Welles film. Just compare Welles at the 75 AFI, and in the 82 Leslie /McHaffie BBC interview: its a different man. As for the Griffin show the night of his death, I saw that and thought he looked like death warmed over; he had lost too much weight and looked drawn; some think the rapid weight loss was what killed him.

Maybe God made sure Welles didn't make too many movies, although a friend of mine wishes he had stopped right after Chimes. Personally, I would have liked him to complete DQ in 1970 with a Lafagnino score, and then quit.

[mido505]

Considering that Welles, uh, died the night after the Merv Griffin interview, I'd say that Tony is onto something here.

Tim Suhrstedt, who shot some footage for MAGIC SHOW in 1982, had this to say in ORSON WELLES REMEMBERED: "When he was down at the Variety Arts Theater, he was in a kind of double-sized wheelchair. Literally, when he stood up for five or ten minutes, he would perspire and his eyes would bug out. Actually, I joked with my crew, but it was true, that my greatest fear was that I would be a small footnote in cinema history: that I would be the cameraman working with Orson Welles when he keeled over. He was so grotesquely overweight...I figured that it's only a matter of time before he has a massive heart attack or stroke."

That being said, this is a fascinating topic: why do so many directors, especially American directors, just lose it in their later years? Hitch should have stopped with THE BIRDS; Ford, with the exception of LIBERTY VALENCE, fell apart after THE SEARCHERS; Hawks could have tossed in the towel after RIO BRAVO, or even RED RIVER. Huston is a notable exception - he did good work, in ill health, right up to the end. Non-American directors seem to have a better record - Bunuel, Kurosawa, and Bergman made great films in their autumn years. I tend to think that the American movie industry favors two things that work against an older director: youth, and genre. Just when Hawks, a Hitchcock, or a Ford has eased into maturity and gained some insight into life, they are asked to do the umteenth Hawks, Hitchcock, or Ford film, for an 18-25 crowd that couldn't give a hoot, and, sick of it, they just go through the motions. Or worse, they panic and try to do something trendy, and fall flat on their faces.

This was a topic that was of some concern for Welles, and lot of Welles' thinking on the subject eventually made its way into TOSOTW. Whatever may be the result of that controversial restoration project, it will be worth it to see this scene (quotation taken from WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ORSON WELLES): "The facade of Hannaford's omnipotence breaks down later as he confesses to "Brooksie" that he needs his help to keep his career alive. Huston's most demanding scene is a drunken, anguished rant in a bathroom as Hannaford washes his face, trying to sober up before the screening of his unfinished film. As he rails to Otterlake, Lear-like, about the movie business, Hannaford knows that his shattered career - even his life - is on the line, and the prospects for both are bleak".

The topic of the fate of older directors is a good one; perhaps we should start another thread on it.

[tonyw]

Mido505, I think we should as I'm in complete disagreement with Tony here. I still believe that MARNIE is one of Hitichcock's great works with artiifice emphasized over the false nature of realityand EYES WIDE SHUT grows on me with each viewing. Also, I don't think Ford lost it after THE SEARCHERS since THE LAST HURRAH and 7 WOMEN still show the existence of a resilient talent. But the youth factor is important today as David Bordwell has recently pointed out in his blog and did in the past. However, Ford's films were very popular in Europe and the foreign market kept him going. You have to remember also that some of these young Hollywood guys let him down when they were acclaiming his genius. That is enough to make anyone feel ill. But those images from THE DREAMERS are outstanding.

This is an interesting debate. It goes beyond Welles yet involves him in several ways so it is not entirely OT.

[Tony]

tonyw:

you're not alone on Marnie, as I mentioned, Robin Wood (the best writer in Hitch ever) loves it. But you're almost alone, as he's the only important critic I can recall liking it. As for Eyes, I'm sure you know it was critically lambasted upon release (and that's putting it mildly) and shows no sign of revival. I actually liked it when it came out, but have since joined the majority. And believe me, I've really tried to like it: I've been a major Kubrick fan since my Dad took me to 2001 (somewhat illegally, I think) when I was 11 years old, in 1968.

BUT: everyone has their point of view, and you're not wrong, just...not in the majority on these two films.

Oh yeah: I've heard the "artifice" theory to explain the horribly fake rear projections in Marnie, but I agree with Mido on this one: I think its been established that Hitch lost interest part way thru Marine because of Hedren rebuffing his inapropriate advances (again to put it mildly), and this has been usually given as the explanation for the sloppiness of the film. Personally, I like those rear projections (esp. the ship at the end of the street) but I feel nothing could save Marnie, as it's such a psychologically superficial and simplistic picture, with its cause and effect so neatly worked out: as Welles would say, "dime-store psychology".

But we can respectfully differ right? That's what the board's for! I always enjoy reading other people's views and ideas, especially if they're well written, intelligent, and different from mine. And yours fit this bill!

[tonyw]

Thank you Tony for your very generous reply. I don't mind being in the minority at all but, in case Jeff gets on to us for being too OT, I'd like to draw some parallels with Welles. Welles also described KANE as involving "dime store psychology" but, as Tony Pipolo once pointed out in his excellent essay on the film in PERSISTENCE OF VISION, we really should look at this aspect of the film and see how it operates in terms of style. He made a really good argument on this issue in terms of taking "Rosebud" seriously and, I think, it bears parallels to MARNIE especially in the parallel influences of expressionism and trauma as well as the melodramatic imagination aurally aided by the excellent work of Bernard Herrmann that also occurs in KANE.

Years ago, Welles was damned for not following the classical Hollywood system but, as Jonathan Rosenbaum has often eloquently noted, Welles was really an independent director at heart. Obviously, Hitchcock was not but he was reared in an era of exciting silent and early sound experimentation (the "knife" scene in BLACKMAIL) and tried, often unsuccessfully to insert these into his films whenever possible. As Larry Cohen once told me, Lew Wasserman made Hitichcock a very rich man but also an unhappy uncreative one, I'd say the later Universal films contain problems but even TOPAZ has its defenders. Welles did not have the industrial support but encountered problems concerning the realization of his vision for many different reasons. This debate is getting really interesting so I hope others on this site will get involved.

[Glenn Anders]

Among the great directors often mentioned as possible influences on Welles (and vice verse) whom you discuss here, Ford, Hitchcock -- neglecting von Stroheim, the greatest of all -- stylization was the mark they shared as auteurs. Expressionism was probably its source because all had been steeped at a certain point in the lessons of UFA. The Studio System afforded these directors stars full of juice and a a stock company of dependable character actors to give their stylizations life. In their last films, the life drained out of their films, leaving only the tricks. The magic had vanished with advancing age.

Welles was really affected least because he always seemed to retain the affections of his Mercury Players and a charismatic attraction to younger players, rising stars. He also moved beyond expressionism, exploring new and different styles (ones not always really suitable to his tastes). But like von Stroheim, for similar reasons, he became virtually unemployable as a director in the greater corporate film system.

I find mido505's analysis of Hitchcock's career, here and especially on his new thread, to be brilliant, but he appears to neglect Hitchcock's early work, the best he did in quantity, in my opinion, and also the masterpiece of his later period: VERTIGO. It is in that film where Hitchcock sublimates his almost pathological obsession with power over women into Art. Perhaps, because he was denied a blonde of his choice (a taste he had gravitated to, seemingly in bitter nostalgia for having "lost" Madeleine Carroll), and had to dyspeptically settle for Kim Novak -- my favorite Hitchcock heroine.

Welles, on the other hand, happily welcomed Oja Kodar as his later muse, but beyond F FOR FAKE, appeared unable to complete a picture with her.

Glenn

[Tony]

The comparing and contrasting of Hitch and Welles is really interesting, and fruitful, I think. Hitch was definitely into control, and Welles was into deep focus, which is giving away a lot of control to the individual viewer. Hitch was really a fascistic director, while Welles was a...democratic director. I remember the famous story of Hitch sitting with Herrmann at the back of a theatre during a preview and marvelling how they could play the audience's emotions like a big organ. In a way, although Hitch made 53 films, Welles made millions of films. You know what I mean: with Hitch you feel really secure, because he's got total control; with Welles, you often feel...dizzy, because you're in control...sort of. But you have to work to find meaning: you're his collaborator.

An irony is that in personal relations Hitch was very passive and quiet (or at least passively aggressive (or aggressively passive?) while Welles was often an ogre: precisley the opposite of their directorial styles. Though Hitch, I'm sure, exerted a kind of control while directing ('actors are cattle') while Welles could be really freewheeling and improvisational.

And to think Herrman worked for them both!

[Glenn Anders]

Just so, Tony.

But it was RKO that severed the long term link between Welles and Herrmann. But it was Hitchcock that summarily dismissed Herrmann, who had provided him with some of the most liquid and influential scores in the History of Cinema.

Herrmann, as someone has noted here, said that Welles was one of the few directors he ever worked with in any medium who truly understood music.

I like your comparison -- contrast, really -- of the styles of Welles and Hitchcock. In a Hitchcock picture, one can often think, just because of the stylization, "A-ha, now the old man is going to surprise me."

And that will often be true.

But, as you suggest, in the best of Welles' films, from the start of his career to the end, you are collaborating with the protagonist (usually, Welles in some form), often because you share his fecklessness.

I agree with you, this discussion is "interesting and fruitful."

All hail to you, tonyw, and to Mido505, for coming on board!

Glenn

[tonyw]

I'd like to make another point in the Hitchcock vs. Welles debate. The first was not as "fascistic" as commonly believed. Bill Krohn's well documented HITCHCOCK AT WORK gives the lie to the contorl freak myth since he did improvise according to the material covering the Hollywood films. Also, when I met John Finch in 1973, he affirmed that Hitchcock did not want any variation from the script during shooting. But if an actor discussed it with him the day before. Hitchcock would incoporate it into the shooting script if the change did make sense. Although he may neve rhave publically affirmed it, Hitchcock did have respect for good actors.

[nextren]

Marnie is full of plot holes and missed opportunities. Even the screenwriter says her script was no good, and it isn't. Hitch made it partly because the novel was a well-reviewed bestseller by a relatively youthful author. After Psycho, Hitch was very concerned about being "au courant" with the kids. (He fired Hermann mostly because Bennie wouldn't write a "pop" score for Torn Curtain.) The Birds' screenwriter said he was hired because he wrote The Blackboard Jungle.

That strategy wasn't working, so Hitch next turned to sheer box office: Julie Andrews and Paul Newman in Torn Curtain. Later he scorned the front office for its saying of these two "They're so hot." The film was a flop.

He turned to the big bestseller spy novel next: Topaz. Actually, if no one knew of Hitchcock's involvement with this movie, more people would regard it as an absorbing flick. But for a Hitchcock, it's not good.

Next he retreated to the slasher pic (as he'd been planning to do before Topaz but with Antonioni-like embellishments): Frenzy (minus the embellishments). It got valedictories, and some attention because of the nudity and grittiness.

Finally a sweet little black comedy, well-directed, well-acted, and well-scored (by John Williams): Family Plot. Solid entertainment, but not more.

Hitch ran out of things to say, or the courage to say them, the minute he achieved unassailable financial security and could (for a while there) make any picture he wanted.

If only the positions of Hitch and Welles had been reversed when each was 61. Welles would have had a multi-picture deal and could have brought many great things to fruition; while Hitch could have experimented and challenged us again.

The takeaway is: Know Thyself. "Welles," as Boggo put it in a docu once, "should have had a patron - someone to write the checks." Hitch, I say, always made his best work when forced to exercise great resourcefulness with little. Welles should have done almost anything to get a contract; while Hitch should have told Wassermann to bugger off.

Just my opinion. Thanks for letting me offer it!

[robertdavidmonell]

TOPAZ is a very underrated film and has a number of interesting similarities to MR ARKADIN, both deal with the "secret" meaning of the Cold War and both have final scenes where the truth is revealed at an airport. I interviewed an actor who worked on FRENZY in a small role which remains in the film. He had the chance to observe the entire shoot and told me that Hitch mainly confered with his DP and watched the actors do the scene their way and even move and change things if it didn't wreck his visual design. He said very little to the actors and only adjusted them within the frame if they were off mark and had assistants deliver some acting notes if needed. He in no way predetermined performance and only commented if they went too far off. He was surprised he "directed" so little in terms of acting. TOPAZ deals in detail with the physical mannersims of corruption as does KANE, ARKADIN, TOUCH OF EVIL and THE TRIAL.

[atcolomb]

I saw this on The Digital Bits Website:

Image Entertainment has set a few new titles for release on Blu-ray, including Discovery Channel's Fearless Planet on 6/3, Discovery Channel's Human Body: Pushing the Limits on 7/29, director Vincent Perez's The Secret on 8/12, a trio of IMAX titles on 9/9 including The Alps, Mystery of the Nile and Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag, and one more IMAX title, Coral Reef Adventure, on 10/14. In terms of standard DVD, interesting upcoming titles from Image include the 1989 Fred Olen Ray film Warlords on 8/12, Orson Welles' Don Quixote on 8/19,

Does anybody have more Info on this upcoming release?

[mido505]

Here is the link to the image site: http://www.image-entertainment.com/dvd/ ... N=37351471

Looks like the Jess Franco cut.

[Store Hadji]

Except the cover lists Patty McCormack, who isn't in Franco's cut.



And is that a photo of Francisco Reiguera or Mischa Auer?

What's The Lost Dream Project?

And considering how good the Franco cut looked in standard def, I can't wait to get my paws on the Blu-ray version!

[mido505]

Interesting, Store, that is a conundrum. I am going to email Robert Monell, who is working on a Jess Franco biography and who has posted on Wellesnet, to see if he knows anything.