stupid question? - complete Ambersons vs. completed Wind

[mteal]

Yes, once DVD recorders become affordable, it can be distributed that way, without losing picture quality, or having to worry about PAL vs NTSC. I'm hoping to have a crude prototype of the project finished in a month or so, but the project may take years before it's truly finished. Of course, we'll probably be burned out on it long before then anyway.

[TheMcGuffin]

Well DVD burners for desktop computers are running at pretty reasonable prices right now. The top of the line pioneer a105 which burns at 4x which i purchased about a month or two ago was under $300 and good media runs under a dollar per disc. Its a good time to invest. Heck for all my editing clients i recommend dvd for output cuz it cost less than VHS tapes now. VHS tapes will only get more expensive with the rising oil prices....so DVDs all the way!

Rob

[R Kadin]

At first, I just dismissed the question. On further thought, however - and upon reading the preceding posts and the current voting trend - I have reversed myself entirely.

I say OSOTW would be the right call because one of the most depressing things about the OW story is that, relatively speaking, it offers so much in the way of artistic output from his youth and so very little from his later life. In other words, there is far more of a gap to be filled at the end than at the beginning. I want to hear from Welles the elder in much the same way that, in Kane, I have heard from Welles the younger.

That's not to say I am indifferent to the Ambersons alternative. In fact, the reconstruction work that Jaime and mteal are up to ranks as one of the most captivating undertakings I can imagine. It's just that I think our man deserves a better send off artistically than, so far, he has managed to enjoy.

By no means, though, was this an easy choice to make. So, good question. You really made me think.

[colwood]

Excellent question...I thought about it for a long time and while I would love to see the complete Ambersons, the idea of seeing a complete and new Welles film that I know almost nothing about is too tantalizing to pass (I voted for TOSOTW). I guess I also voted for Wind because, while this question addressed fantasy, the odds of seeing the complete Wind are much better than finding the complete Ambersons.

Then again, according to the PeopleNews section of today's IMDB (4/22), they apparently just found a silent western by John Ford that's been missing for 70 years, so maybe there is still hope that someone, somewhere, someday may find the complete Ambersons.

[LA]

colwood said:

Then again, according to the PeopleNews section of today's IMDB (4/22), they apparently just found a silent western by John Ford that's been missing for 70 years, so maybe there is still hope that someone, somewhere, someday may find the complete Ambersons.

Wow, I missed that news. Which one?


For the record, I voted for the completed TOSOTW . Why, I'm not sure. It may be because I have a feeling it's a landmark of American (and indeed world) film history (if it isn't already, by virtue of it's legend), a missing chapter of the story of cinema, so to speak, and, as maxrael put it, I'd love to see where Welles would have taken the medium next. But having said that, the idea of seeing The Magnificent Ambersons in it's full unexpurgated version....it's a tricky decision, but I voted for TSOTW .

[colwood]

LA, apparently it was titled Bucking Broadway...here's the link

us.imdb.com/PeopleNews/2003/20030422.html#6

[Narshty]

Ambersons all the way, no looking back. Well, it is my favourite film of all time. But even I have had to resign myself to the fact that there's no hope at all of ever finding the lost footage.

[LA]

Thanks for that URL, colwood.

That's great news, I can't think how it passed me by. A Ford- Harry Carey film from 1917. What a find. If that can be found, who knows...

Of course, it's extremely unlikely any lost Ambersons fotage will turn up. But I suppose we can keep hoping without expecting .

[colwood]

True, we'll probably never find any of the lost footage from Ambersons. Then again, we can hope can't we?

After all, again a film believed long lost has been found,

http://www.cnn.com/2004....ex.html

[Sir Bygber Brown]

i had to go with Wind, simply b.c while i'd love to see Orson's complete Ambersons, i've seen a lot more of Ambersons than i have of Wind, and while i may regret picking Wind over Ambersons (which is simply stunning, and one of my favourite Welles pictures), the draw of seeing the almost completely unknown for me is too much...

[Knowles Noel Shane]

Ditto, especially after seeing Roger Ryan's reconstruction of Ambersons, I don't feel so cheated out of Welles' original any more, but I haven't got a clue as to what TOSOTW would be like.

[Chirpy_Sabz]

I guess I would say The Other Side Of the Wind...it just seems very interesting.

[etimh]

Here's to Chirpy for reinvigorating this poll--I never even noticed it.

Considering this question completely in the fantasy realm, I would go for Ambersons--it makes me sick everytime I think of what this film was, in Welles vision.

TOSOTW could still be "constructed," but has never existed in a complete finished form that Welles envisioned.

Tim

[Chirpy_Sabz]

Here's to Chirpy for reinvigorating this poll--I never even noticed it.

Considering this question completely in the fantasy realm, I would go for Ambersons--it makes me sick everytime I think of what this film was, in Welles vision.

TOSOTW could still be "constructed," but has never existed in a complete finished form that Welles envisioned.

Tim

thats a good point!

[Harvey Chartrand]

If Welles was heartbroken over the mutilation of AMBERSONS, imagine how Erich von Stroheim must have felt pondering the fate of his magnum opus GREED. Unlike Welles, von Stroheim spent his last 25 years working as an actor only, never directing again after WALKING DOWN BROADWAY was taken away from him by Fox Film executives in 1932.
In a recent interview, director Curtis Harrington recalls meeting von Stroheim in 1950:

When Erich von Stroheim was making Sunset Boulevard, I was walking in front of the Paramount Studio one day and he came walking toward me. So I took the opportunity to introduce myself. I told Mr. Von Stroheim that I was a great admirer of GREED. I asked him if the complete film (almost eight hours long) existed in a vault somewhere. He replied, with a great sense of bitterness, “No, they burned the film for the silver they could get out of it.” That was my only encounter with Erich von Stroheim. He went back to France and died shortly afterwards.