Mr. Arkadin on DVD soon

[NoFake]

Another rave...

http://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s1937arka.html

[Tony]

NoFake: Publishers do the same thing- they want to build excitement.

[Harvey Chartrand]

From Mobius Home Video Forum:

To those who don't think they will be able to screen the three different Arkadins all at once, Tim Lucas offers this advice:

"If you start with the comprehensive, you're cheating yourself of the opportunity to see the film as it's always been known. I would start with the regular, then the Corinth, and work my way up to the comprehensive -- if only to understand the reconstruction and its value."

[Glenn Anders]

Then, I went at it the wrong way.

I could not resist going to Droesler's comprehensive version first. I found it much more the film I remember, but parts were still missing (though the places for the additional flashbacks I remember are now clearly there), and as my colleague here agreed, the ending should have been -- at least, most of it -- in the beginning, where it clearly belongs.

Still, when I manage to get the whole collection in my own hands, I shall try to follow Mr. Lucas's advice. After all, if you start with the edition we have always known, you know that it is a vistifyingly confusing piece of nonsense, and so, by the time you get to Droesler's re-edit of the compilation, you will see what a small masterpiece the original must have been.

As one of the Beyond the Fringe people once lamented: "What a shame it is that there is always that last little bit of jam that you can't get at in the bottom of the jar."

In the Criterion Arkadin, there is much more jam, and it is much sweeter, than anything most of us have found in THE CONFIDENTIAL REPORT on MR. ARKADIN.

Glenn

[Jeff Wilson]

People can watch whatever version they want, in whatever order they want. Just because Tim Lucas says it, does not make it gospel.

[Terry]

I'll watch the new version first as I've seen the other two dozens of times. Then I'll watch the extras, then the other two versions, and finally listen to all the commentaries. I'll read the new intro to the novel but won't read the novel itself. I read that once 15 years ago and that was sufficient, I think.

[Tony]

Years ago (in 1965, to be exact) Glenn Gould predicted there would come a time where the artist would present the comsumer with many different interpretations of different movements of pieces, and the listener would construct their own favourite version. I keep waiting for this to happen, and we might be close in dvds: we often get deleted scenes, or a director's cut, but soon maybe we will have the option to edit our own movie with great ease. In the case of Arkadin, we could shuffle sections around and make our own movie, and then change it when we got bored. Welles seems ideal for this, as he a) said he was not interested in posterity, so certainly wouldn't mind, and b) several (or perhaps all) of his pictures exactly fit the bill: just think if we were presented with all of Don Quixote, or all of It's All True, or all of Arkadin, or all of The Other Side of the Wind, or all of The Deep, or all of the Merchant of Venice...since in these pictures there is no official Welles version, then we could make our own.

I think he might approve.

[Terry]

Wouldn't he rather have cut his own films himself? Or left them unreleased if that's what he wanted?

I bet he wouldn't approve of Quijote being released. He was embarassed that Hearts of Age had been discovered. Didn't he also suppress The Deep?

I think Welles would have been happy to keep recutting his own films, but would not have liked the option of every viewer doing so.

On that Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within CG movie DVD, I think there was a section that let you edit one scene however you wanted - so what Gould predicted seems to be happening.

[Glenn Anders]

Interesting ideas and concepts, Tony and Hadji.

One of my favorite modern composers is Ralph Vaughn Williams, and because there are half a dozen sets of his complete symphonies, I have already intercut some of them, taking a movement from one conductor and orchestra to meld it to the interpretations of movements by others.

Movies should take only a little more care.

In fact, come to think of it, Oliver Stone's NIXON is another favorite of mine, and his director's cut has six out-takes, four of which add something substantive to his portrait of our sadly driven ex-President. Years ago, I cut those in at appropriate places while taping from my Laserdisc.

Worked fine.

Glenn

[colwood]

Jeff, when can we see your review for digitally Obsessed?

EDIT:
Never mind, just found it.

http://www.digitallyobsessed.com/showreview.php3?ID=8524

[Jeff Wilson]

Meant to post that and forgot, been busy this morning. Thanks for posting it.

[Terry]

Another great review Jeff. You are uncommonly readable.

[Tony]

Glenn:
You are precisely ahead of the game: your mixing of different movements is exactly what Gould suggested, and why not?

Wasn't it Orson who, standing outside Chartes in "F For Fake" says that we don't know who the artists were for this, possibly the greatest masterpiece of western civilization, but "maybe a man's name doesn't matter that much." In fact, "F for Fake " has been called Orson's response to Pauline Kael, who infamously questioned his part in the authorship of "Citizen Kane": Welles could be interpreted as saying "ultimately, it's the works that matter, not the author(s)", and, of course, he often said that to be interested in one's posterity was an ignoble pursuit: I think he meant that to be interested in the author at the expense of the work is ignoble, even if the author is yourself. I'm reminded that Stravinsky's famous statement " I am the vessel through which Le Sacre du Printemps passed" exemplifies this attitude of humility in the same way.

And what artist better fits the postmodern idea which questions authorship, and the very idea of a "work of art" as a "finished object", than Welles and his muti-leveled, multi-layered, oft-unfinished works which, even when he did "finish" them ( which he so hated to do) allow the viewer to choose what they want to focus on, to think for themselves, and to form their own interpretation?

It seems to me that Arkadin would be a great place to start: make your own edit of Arkadin; there is no sancrosanct Welles version to sin against; or should we just passively accept what others decide are the best possible edits? :;):

[Tashman]

Gould / "the postmodern idea which questions authorship, and the very idea of a "work of art" as a "finished object"

Brian Eno: What people are going to be selling more of in the future is not pieces of music, but systems by which people can customize listening experiences for themselves. Change some of the parameters and see what you get. So, in that sense, musicians would be offering unfinished pieces of music - pieces of raw material, but highly evolved raw material, that has a strong flavor to it already. I can also feel something evolving on the cusp between "music," "game," and "demonstration" - I imagine a musical experience equivalent to watching John Conway's computer game of Life or playing SimEarth, for example, in which you are at once thrilled by the patterns and the knowledge of how they are made and the metaphorical resonances of such a system. Such an experience falls in a nice new place - between art and science and playing. This is where I expect artists to be working more and more in the future.
...
If I could give you a black box that could do anything, what would you have it do?
I would love to have a box onto which I could offload choice making. A thing that makes choices about its outputs, and says to itself, This is a good output, reinforce that, or replay it, or feed it back in. I would love to have this machine stand for me. I could program this box to be my particular taste and interest in things.

Why do you want to do that? You have you.
Yes, I have me. But I want to be able to sell systems for making my music as well as selling pieces of music. In the future, you won't buy artists' works; you'll buy software that makes original pieces of "their" works, or that recreates their way of looking at things. You could buy a Shostakovich box, or you could buy a Brahms box. You might want some Shostakovich slow-movement-like music to be generated. So then you use that box. Or you could buy a Brian Eno box. So then I would need to put in this box a device that represents my taste for choosing pieces.


The whole interview is worth reading--
http://www.wired.com/wired/3.05/eno.html

[Ste]

Or you could buy a Brian Eno box. So then I would need to put in this box a device that represents my taste for choosing pieces.

Perhaps we could buy a box that turned Music for Airports into something more interesting. Or maybe we could just buy Here Come the Warm Jets.