Orson's cut

[Tony]

I was wondering: OW often complained that Kane was the only film they let him finish his way, but how many picures do we actually have of his actual cut?

1. Kane
2. Macbeth (originally edited according to studio request, but edited by OW, as he told it to PB, and of course now restored to the orginal cut and soundtrack)
3. Othello (I know, I know: his daughter has screwed it up, but OW's version is still available in Europe)
4. Trial
5. Chimes
6. Immortal
7. Fake
8. Filming Othello
plus: TV: Fountain,Around the World, Gina, In the Land of DQ

Honourable mention: TOE, almost (as "restored")


So, how many films aren't his cut?

1. Ambersons
2.Stranger
3. Shanghai
4. Arkadin
5.Touch

Hmmmmmm.... out of 13 pictures, 8 were his cut, and TOE has been restored as close as possible.

Doesn't seem too bad; everything after Evil he made sure was his cut- guess he never wanted another Arkadin.

Just a thought...

[Fredric]

Ah, but to me final cut also means finances and the coming together of the elements. Â Kane was the only film that had all these things going for it. Â Sure, he had final cut on the films you listed, but the resources weren't there to film in the first place, so he was forced to cut corners.

Macbeth had no budget, he had to use old western sets.

Othello was a hodge-podge of cuts because he filmed out of order for 5 years and then had to make it work in the editing. Â Sure, its genius came out of that process, but Orson would have filmed it differently if he had had a choice.

The sets didn't come through for The Trial, so he had to switch to the abandoned train station. Â He was putting the ending sequence together the night before the film opened, so he had time constraints there.

Chimes: Again, barely a budget. Â Filmed like Othello. Â Although, I think it was intentionally this time.

Immortal Story: Final Cut? Â Did he have enough money to not have to cut corners. Â Anyone know?

F for Fake was mostly someone else's footage that he cut together. Â At that point, he was confident that it was his editing style that was the important aspect of his work.

Filming Othello lacks the "traveling to locations" montage, because of permissions (I think), and of course, there was no budget to be as elaborate as he wanted.

Fountain of Youth: Â He didn't want to use stills, I think. Â Other TV shows, I'll have to ask about.

So, IMO, Kane was the only film in which he had not only final cut but money, time, and the fates on his side. Â That doesn't mean it's the best film, but it makes Orson's complaint valid.

[Noel Shane]

Tony:

One person or another's "cut" is an inadequate categorization when looking over the five you list as non-Orson cuts. Ignore THE STRANGER as a mild example, give an allowance for TOUCH OF EVIL (because some forty years after the fact so much was able to be restored), even overlook MR. ARKADIN for that matter (conceiding that OW may have been courting disaster on that one), and you are still left with THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI and THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, plus one in absentia: IT'S ALL TRUE. That last title is easy to miss, I'll grant you, reft as it was from its maker and, in most every sense, erased from the slate entirely.

Any one of these three episodes would be too much for a person's career. To echo Fredric somewhat, rather than relegating his many trials to a personal batting record (only 40% of his extant films, approximately, by your tallying, were fiddled with), each case should be gauged separately. How personally destructive was a given instance? How much did it set back his career -- his filmmaking options -- at the time? How many more films would we have to add to your list were it not for certain ugly episodes?

One should be grateful for those films Welles was able to complete on his terms and for what exists of the others. Absolutely. I don't think, however, one should conclude that the overall picture your numbers illustrate "doesn't seem too bad". At that point is where statistics fail us.

[Tony]

You fellows are both correct, but I think I am too. Yes, of course OW had budget problems on most projects, but what director doesn't have budget constraints? My idea is simple: which pictures of Orson's are his, notwithstanding any particular exigencies of production? And the answer remains, IMO, the same as my post: most of them, and that is a surprise to me. How many directors in the history of pictures can say that they had final cut on most of their films?

[colwood]

Until Tony listed them, I never realized how many final cuts were actually Welles'. While it's all open to interpretation, if final cut were to refer to both final edit AND budget, studio resources, etc, then this would go beyond Welles since few directors have ever had "final cut."

while Welles' record appears better than I thought, I think Noel put it best, the "successes and failures" need to be gauged independently and not all in the same light.