Editing in Othello / Mr. Arkadin - Was style born of necessity or choice?

[jaime marzol]

not long ago i aquired a french othello, and it has a bunch of scenes that are not in our english language othello. and the messy venice part, it's not messy in the french othello. why the different cuts? i don't know, but the french othello is miles betten than the english lauguage othello.

now if i could only speak french.

also, it benefits in not having welles' raucous, booming voice. some pissy frenchman does welles' voice.

[Jed Leland]

I was fortunate enough to be at a screening for a new 35mm print of The Confidential Report, which most people know as Mr. Arkadin. I will tell you that I was surprised. Yes, it's not his greatest work but it's better than much of the crap out there. It really shows an artist at work.

As some of you might know, there are 7 versions of this movie. I don't know how close this comes to the original concept. I will tell you that Gary Garver was there to help introduce the film and mentioned a man in Italy who owns every version. Also, Janus Film presented this clean version, which you might know them as Criterion. I don't know if this means that Criterion will be putting this out on dvd. Maybe if enough people request it it might happen. It would be a cool concept if Criterion was to present several versions of the movie.

[Christopher]

R Kadin, I love what you said several posts back about "Welles never planned to die." And in a way, he hasn't, not as long as there continues to be such intense interest in his work, finished and in progress. Bless you and all the fans on Wellesnet!

[blunted by community]

there are only 3 versions of the movie. the 7 versions are 3 versions of the movie, a series of newspaper articles that ran like a story, a book, the radio play, that is 6. i don't know what the seventh is.

but the eight wonder of the world is james brown.

i wonder who this man is that owns all the versions of arkadin. perhaps a relative of dolivet? but people are stomping all over his rights. you can get a public domain version from any film house for 700 bucks

[colwood]

Isn't the seventh arkadin the Spanish language version of the movie (with a few different actors)?

[fantomas]

In fact there are three different English spoken versions, two Spanish versions (with two different supporting actresses, different shots and different montage) and some dubbed versions with slightly different shots in the very beginning. Beside there are rumors about Orson's workprint which seems to have been shown in different states before the film was officially released. Ciro Giorgini in Italy has compared all the different versions and produced a video about it. From Giorgini Jonathan Rosenbaum got the idea to write his article about the "seven Arkadins". In his counting he included earlier broadcast versions of the story as well as the novel. The French and the English versions of the novel also show differences...

[Jed Leland]

I'm not sure what separates each version. I couldn't tell you about the Spanish in version 7. I will tell you that the version I looked at was the English Version and was Titled Confidential Report. The openning starts off with a written quote and then cuts to the empty plane intro. This version also included the paper mache bats during title credits.

You know one of the things that Welles had to do in his later films was shoot MOS. This is a shame because you can see how hard it is to match the dialogue to their lips. What also happens is that the actor tries to improve his/her performance during looping. One might think this isn't bad but what happens is that delivery doesn't match the expression.

[Jed Leland]

Ciro Giorgini in Italy has compared all the different versions and produced a video about it. From Giorgini Jonathan Rosenbaum got the idea to write his article about the "seven Arkadins". In his counting he included earlier broadcast versions of the story as well as the novel. The French and the English versions of the novel also show differences...

That's interesting. I didn't know that. I would love to get a hold of that article from Jonathan Rosenbaum. I assume he published this in a book?

[colwood]

"Seven Arkadins" is published in Jonathan Rosebaum's anthology, Movies as Politics. I once emailed him to ask if there was, to his knowledge, any version of MA/CR that could be considered closest to Welles' desired version ("director's cut"), but he simply referred me to his "Arkadins" article.

In a past Wellesnet thread, I believe titled Arkadins, there was some debate about whether a 1960 version that Bogdanovich reportedly saw could be considered a director's cut, and further, whether this version was the one currently in the library of Corinth Films.

[blunted by community]

that is interesting. i didn't know about the spanish language arkadins. any one know how i can buy a spanish language arkadin?

from everything i've read most people think that the english version without the papier mache bats in the credits, and with the flashbacks is the closest to welles' version.

and yes, colwood, from what i remember reading, that is the cut that bogdanovich found.

[Jed Leland]

I got a chance to read Rosenbaum's article today. Basically, the version I looked at was version no. 6. The movie had the Piano Playing Scene and the Bat Credits, which is not in the others.

What I was able to infer from his article is that version no. 3, the one that Bogdanovich acquired during the early 70's, is the closest to Welles vision. That doesn't mean it's a director's cut. It does have more flashbacks and is known as Mr. Arkadin.

Version 7 is the one most people have seen. The Spanish Version should be pretty obvious since they used different actors for Sofie and Oskar

Thanks for the help on the title of the article.

[Jed Leland]

I wanted to add something real quick. There's a version out on dvd. You'll recognize with a Young Orson Welles with a pipe on the cover. I have to believe this is version 7 and not the one Bogdanovich was talking about. If this was already discussed and explained in previous messages please except my apology for redundancy.

[blunted by community]

i'm still trying to figure out what the dvd covers look like of the 2 arkadins i need on dvd. i have the one with the papier mache bats. i've seen the dvd cover with young orson smoking the pipe. that is not the one with the bats?

[Jed Leland]

No, the profile of Orson Welles with a pipe does not have the bats in the credits. The Credits are Superimposed over the Plane and the introduction to the protagonist (Bob Ardin).

Let me just say that one shouldn't bother with this copy. No offense to those dvd producers but this print is horrible. The cuts are bad. The voice over is out of sync and is choppy. It's almost like a blind man cut this with dull scissors.

The version I saw was twice as good as this. The transitions were smoother and the audio appeared to be in sync. I can understand why some might see this dvd and dismiss Mr. Arakin. It's a real shame. Now, there's a UK version with the Arkadin figure on the cover being shopped around Ebay. I don't know if it's any good, but you might want to give it a try.

[blunted by community]

does the profile/pipe dvd have the flashbacks? if it has the flashbacks and no bats, it's the version closest to welles' intentions. i will probably get it, it can't be worse than my vhs tape of it, and i like the 3 versions of the film that are available.