I've just re-read this passage from TIOW and it's interesting that I misremembered it: I recalled that Welles was going to reshoot the original boardinghouse scene with Moorehead and Cotten in the early seventies, (and it's already been discussed on this thread how that would be difficult, story-wise), but that's not quite true:
Welles: "The idea was to take the actors who are still alive now- Cotten, Baxter, Moorehead, Holt- and do a quite new end to the movie, twenty years after. Maybe that way we could have got a new release and a large audience to see it for the first time."
I realize this idea of Welles's does not imply any lack of faith on his part in the value of his original "final act", but rather (as I think Roger mentioned) there would be a story problem with doing the boardinghouse ending 20 years later. I'm wondering if anyone has any idea as to how that "quite new end" with those four principals might have been done?
Magnificent Ambersons Radio Program
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by Glenn Anders » Sun Apr 16, 2006 1:19 am
If the logic of the story, as we've concluded, is essentially correct, given what happened to Welles' father, it would make sense that Eugene was wiped out in the consolidation of the auto companies during the 1920's, or by the Great Depression in the Early 1930's. The four characters might well all be sitting around the old dump of a mansion, now a boarding house cum poor house, recriminating with each other.
[An alterntate possibility, drawn from the schematic pattern of the story, is that Lucy could have died tragically, perhaps in child birth, and be present only in memory. That would be Welles playing "The Good Die Young Card," which late middle-aged George and the elderly Fanny and Eugene would be forced to reflect upon.]
An ending of this sort would give focus to the conclusion, bring it nearly up to date (as of 1942), and make it relevant for audiences of Welles' day, many of whom had been laid low by the Depression.
I think it important to emphasize that part of the unreality of the present ending to THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS is that George is supposed to have had a complete transformation, but in the cold eye of human experience, he probably could not have entirely conquered his immaturity, would never have fully grown up. George might have become a little more practical, accepting and understanding his fate a better, but I think that George, whether because of guilt or jealousy, could suddenly have become a really great guy.
Character doesn't work so neatly.
Any new ending must deal with that fact, or the disastrous sentimentality of the present conclusion would creep back into the film, and ruin it still.
To revert a way, adding a sidebar to Roger's beautifully sensitive tragic reading of the film, I would like to pose a wildly intuitive answer to the question which Tashman presented us with:
"Welles gives a new tilt to the scene [in the boiler room]--and it seems that he did so around that one line--wherein Moorehead suddenly ratchets it up into something that would fit comfortably in the worlds of Kazan or Lumet. And my question is: How much does this breakdown ["I wouldn't care if it burned me," etc.] carry into the original ending[?] . . . .
First of all, Gordon, I would not count on Simon Callow giving us the insight we need to the scene in question. I'm ever hopeful, but his commentary in the Criterion Arkadin box, which I've seen and listened to, due to the kindness of one of our colleagues, is redolent of the condescension found in his The Road to Xanadu. He notes that actors [like Robert Arden -- Van Stratten] almost always spoke worshipfully about the experience of being directed by Welles, but later, expressed varying degrees of reproach that they were dropped, unless or until Welles needed their services again.
One might think that experienced actors would be somewhat inured to that sad fact of theatrical life, but though it may have been true of an impecunious Welles in his later projects, he appears to have been gladly generous toward members of his original Mercury Players and to other early discoveries. People like Agnes Moorehead, Joseph Cotten and Ray Collins [excepting notably John Houseman] were professional and personal friends of Welles their whole lives. We'll have to see what Callow has to say about Welles directing Moorehead's performance in THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS. Will he consider Welles' direction brilliant? or condemn it as the cold act of a spoiled, desperate sadist?
----------------
Now, on to my wild and foolish insight:
Remember that during the 1920's and 1930's while Welles was growing up and learning his technique as a stage director, the arts and the general consciousness of the American Middle Class were awash with psychology and psychiatry. Nowhere was this phenomenon more true than in the Theater and in the Movies. Plays began to dramatize the theories of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler and Carl Jung. A singular example in the Theater was Strange Interlude, for which Eugene O'Neil utilized masks to convey psychological states.
[Both the younger Adler and Jung emigrated or traveled to the United States in the 1930's.]
Film directors in Europe (G.W. Pabst, for instance) quickly saw the natural wedding of psychological imagery with the Movies, in surrealism and expressionism. Hitchcock and Anatole Litvak brought these practices to America in the late 1930's and early 1940's. [Erich Von Stroheim was already here, way ahead of them, in a film like GREED (1925)!]
By the year of 1925, when Welles was ten, the American counterpart of Freud, Adler and Jung was one of the prolific Menninger family. In that year Dr. Karl Menninger opened the first of a number of clinics for the mentally ill across the Middlewest, which concentrated on the the thesis, What a society does to children, the children will do to it and to themselves. He wrote a series of highly influential, greatly discussed books.
Little read now, I gather, but among these books was Man against Himself, a 1938 study by Dr. Menninger of self-destructiveness in its various forms, causes and consequences. One widely excerpted section dealt with the startling idea that the way in which suicides carried out their acts reflected the origins of their depression, and the nature of their despair.
[Three years later, in 1941, Dr. Menninger opened perhaps his most famous clinic in Topeka, Kansas.]
One of many examples which Menninger presented in Man against Himself, and often noted in magazines, newspapers and books of popularization from the day, was that of a man (if I remember correctly) who felt so rejected as a child, so lacking in the reception of love and acceptance, so conscious of the emotionally frigid state in which he felt he lived, that he embraced a red hot stove and held on to it until he collapsed, after suffering third degree burns over much of his body. He subsequently died.
Though it is sheer speculation on my part, given Welles' family background, the example of his great aunt, the sad course of his mentally ill older brother's life, and his need to find new sources of motivation for his characters on stage and screen, I would bet a lot that Orson Welles was acquainted with Karl Menninger's work, may have absorbed Menninger's theories, perhaps even an application of the above example.
Whether he did or not, the clinical example presents a psychologically and dramatically sound motivation for Fanny Minifer's development, her emotional collapse, and her eventual self-reconstruction of her own ego. Should something of that process prove sound (and dramatically, I'm sure it would), Fanny might have emerged the dominant character in Welles' version of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS' last scene, twenty years on.
Just food for thought.
Glenn
[An alterntate possibility, drawn from the schematic pattern of the story, is that Lucy could have died tragically, perhaps in child birth, and be present only in memory. That would be Welles playing "The Good Die Young Card," which late middle-aged George and the elderly Fanny and Eugene would be forced to reflect upon.]
An ending of this sort would give focus to the conclusion, bring it nearly up to date (as of 1942), and make it relevant for audiences of Welles' day, many of whom had been laid low by the Depression.
I think it important to emphasize that part of the unreality of the present ending to THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS is that George is supposed to have had a complete transformation, but in the cold eye of human experience, he probably could not have entirely conquered his immaturity, would never have fully grown up. George might have become a little more practical, accepting and understanding his fate a better, but I think that George, whether because of guilt or jealousy, could suddenly have become a really great guy.
Character doesn't work so neatly.
Any new ending must deal with that fact, or the disastrous sentimentality of the present conclusion would creep back into the film, and ruin it still.
To revert a way, adding a sidebar to Roger's beautifully sensitive tragic reading of the film, I would like to pose a wildly intuitive answer to the question which Tashman presented us with:
"Welles gives a new tilt to the scene [in the boiler room]--and it seems that he did so around that one line--wherein Moorehead suddenly ratchets it up into something that would fit comfortably in the worlds of Kazan or Lumet. And my question is: How much does this breakdown ["I wouldn't care if it burned me," etc.] carry into the original ending[?] . . . .
First of all, Gordon, I would not count on Simon Callow giving us the insight we need to the scene in question. I'm ever hopeful, but his commentary in the Criterion Arkadin box, which I've seen and listened to, due to the kindness of one of our colleagues, is redolent of the condescension found in his The Road to Xanadu. He notes that actors [like Robert Arden -- Van Stratten] almost always spoke worshipfully about the experience of being directed by Welles, but later, expressed varying degrees of reproach that they were dropped, unless or until Welles needed their services again.
One might think that experienced actors would be somewhat inured to that sad fact of theatrical life, but though it may have been true of an impecunious Welles in his later projects, he appears to have been gladly generous toward members of his original Mercury Players and to other early discoveries. People like Agnes Moorehead, Joseph Cotten and Ray Collins [excepting notably John Houseman] were professional and personal friends of Welles their whole lives. We'll have to see what Callow has to say about Welles directing Moorehead's performance in THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS. Will he consider Welles' direction brilliant? or condemn it as the cold act of a spoiled, desperate sadist?
----------------
Now, on to my wild and foolish insight:
Remember that during the 1920's and 1930's while Welles was growing up and learning his technique as a stage director, the arts and the general consciousness of the American Middle Class were awash with psychology and psychiatry. Nowhere was this phenomenon more true than in the Theater and in the Movies. Plays began to dramatize the theories of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler and Carl Jung. A singular example in the Theater was Strange Interlude, for which Eugene O'Neil utilized masks to convey psychological states.
[Both the younger Adler and Jung emigrated or traveled to the United States in the 1930's.]
Film directors in Europe (G.W. Pabst, for instance) quickly saw the natural wedding of psychological imagery with the Movies, in surrealism and expressionism. Hitchcock and Anatole Litvak brought these practices to America in the late 1930's and early 1940's. [Erich Von Stroheim was already here, way ahead of them, in a film like GREED (1925)!]
By the year of 1925, when Welles was ten, the American counterpart of Freud, Adler and Jung was one of the prolific Menninger family. In that year Dr. Karl Menninger opened the first of a number of clinics for the mentally ill across the Middlewest, which concentrated on the the thesis, What a society does to children, the children will do to it and to themselves. He wrote a series of highly influential, greatly discussed books.
Little read now, I gather, but among these books was Man against Himself, a 1938 study by Dr. Menninger of self-destructiveness in its various forms, causes and consequences. One widely excerpted section dealt with the startling idea that the way in which suicides carried out their acts reflected the origins of their depression, and the nature of their despair.
[Three years later, in 1941, Dr. Menninger opened perhaps his most famous clinic in Topeka, Kansas.]
One of many examples which Menninger presented in Man against Himself, and often noted in magazines, newspapers and books of popularization from the day, was that of a man (if I remember correctly) who felt so rejected as a child, so lacking in the reception of love and acceptance, so conscious of the emotionally frigid state in which he felt he lived, that he embraced a red hot stove and held on to it until he collapsed, after suffering third degree burns over much of his body. He subsequently died.
Though it is sheer speculation on my part, given Welles' family background, the example of his great aunt, the sad course of his mentally ill older brother's life, and his need to find new sources of motivation for his characters on stage and screen, I would bet a lot that Orson Welles was acquainted with Karl Menninger's work, may have absorbed Menninger's theories, perhaps even an application of the above example.
Whether he did or not, the clinical example presents a psychologically and dramatically sound motivation for Fanny Minifer's development, her emotional collapse, and her eventual self-reconstruction of her own ego. Should something of that process prove sound (and dramatically, I'm sure it would), Fanny might have emerged the dominant character in Welles' version of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS' last scene, twenty years on.
Just food for thought.
Glenn
-
Glenn Anders - Wellesnet Legend
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by Tony » Sun Apr 16, 2006 9:50 am
Glenn:
An absolutely stunning post- your idea of everyone being broke, and Lucy having died, is fabulous- in a depressing kind of way, of course. You might have been born a little too late- would that you could have been there to offer up this idea to Jack Moss and Robert Wise!
As for your ideas about the influence of psychiatry on theatre at the time, I have no doubt, and probably on Welles in an osmotic (is that a word?) way; but I believe Welles is on record as not liking psychiatry, and of course famously condemned Rosebud as "dimestore psychiatry". I feel you're on dangerous ground (or is it a slippery slope?) when you start down this road, as Carringer was when he wrote his notorious essay "Hamlet in Indianapolis" (or was it "Oedipus in Indianapolis"?). At any rate, Welles hated symbolism of any kind (or so he said), so I'm not quite sure of this tack you're taking (even though he did sometimes indulge in it: witness his scene in the Trial with all the prisoners with numbers on their chests).
Of course, as usual you present much food for thought!
An absolutely stunning post- your idea of everyone being broke, and Lucy having died, is fabulous- in a depressing kind of way, of course. You might have been born a little too late- would that you could have been there to offer up this idea to Jack Moss and Robert Wise!
As for your ideas about the influence of psychiatry on theatre at the time, I have no doubt, and probably on Welles in an osmotic (is that a word?) way; but I believe Welles is on record as not liking psychiatry, and of course famously condemned Rosebud as "dimestore psychiatry". I feel you're on dangerous ground (or is it a slippery slope?) when you start down this road, as Carringer was when he wrote his notorious essay "Hamlet in Indianapolis" (or was it "Oedipus in Indianapolis"?). At any rate, Welles hated symbolism of any kind (or so he said), so I'm not quite sure of this tack you're taking (even though he did sometimes indulge in it: witness his scene in the Trial with all the prisoners with numbers on their chests).
Of course, as usual you present much food for thought!
- Tony
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by Glenn Anders » Sun Apr 16, 2006 5:53 pm
Tony: Please note that I labeled my speculation a "wild and foolish insight."
To pursue it a bit further down the rabbit hole though: Whatever Welles may have said to Bogdanovich in the 1970's, believe me, psychoanalysis and psychiatry, in general, would have influenced anyone growing up in those years. Welles would have had to think of these theories, if only because of the treatment and care his older brother received. By the 1970's, it would have been easy for any thinking person to conclude that Western culture, especially American culture, had gone overboard in its dependence on psychoanalysis. By then, the data was coming in that, in blind trials, people who received psychoanalysis did no better than people who did not. [The counseling and human connection, of course, counted (and still counts) for a lot.]
Welles did not go flat out for the subject as Hitchcock did in SPELLBOUND (1944), but he would have been hard put to ignore the subject entirely. He went for metaphors and symbolism, sometimes ironic, skipping the analysis, or leaving it to the viewer's interpretation:
The automobile in THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS; the assassin's eye glasses in JOURNEY INTO FEAR; the clock tower in THE STRANGER; the mirrors in LADY FROM SHANGHAI; the clay figure in MACBETH; the cage in OTHELLO; the masks in MR. ARKADIN; the numbered victims, as you point out, in THE TRIAL. All these figure, if not in psychoanalytic theory, then assuredly in dream imagery. And in dreams, psychoanalysis and art met, became pretty much the same thing, in terms of meaning.
But, you are right, to urge caution. I should have loved to google Welles and Menninger in the same sentence, but they were not there.
Glenn
To pursue it a bit further down the rabbit hole though: Whatever Welles may have said to Bogdanovich in the 1970's, believe me, psychoanalysis and psychiatry, in general, would have influenced anyone growing up in those years. Welles would have had to think of these theories, if only because of the treatment and care his older brother received. By the 1970's, it would have been easy for any thinking person to conclude that Western culture, especially American culture, had gone overboard in its dependence on psychoanalysis. By then, the data was coming in that, in blind trials, people who received psychoanalysis did no better than people who did not. [The counseling and human connection, of course, counted (and still counts) for a lot.]
Welles did not go flat out for the subject as Hitchcock did in SPELLBOUND (1944), but he would have been hard put to ignore the subject entirely. He went for metaphors and symbolism, sometimes ironic, skipping the analysis, or leaving it to the viewer's interpretation:
The automobile in THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS; the assassin's eye glasses in JOURNEY INTO FEAR; the clock tower in THE STRANGER; the mirrors in LADY FROM SHANGHAI; the clay figure in MACBETH; the cage in OTHELLO; the masks in MR. ARKADIN; the numbered victims, as you point out, in THE TRIAL. All these figure, if not in psychoanalytic theory, then assuredly in dream imagery. And in dreams, psychoanalysis and art met, became pretty much the same thing, in terms of meaning.
But, you are right, to urge caution. I should have loved to google Welles and Menninger in the same sentence, but they were not there.
Glenn
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Glenn Anders - Wellesnet Legend
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by Tashman » Sun May 07, 2006 3:05 am
Digging up a Welles quote on DON QUIXOTE for another thread, I rediscovered the following in the same interview with Cahiers:
"I believe the term 'Fascism' should only be utilized in order to define a quite precise political attitude. It would be necessary to find a new word in order to define what is happening in America. Fascism must be born out of chaos. And America is not, as I know it, in chaos. The social structure is not in a state of dissolution. No, it doesn't correspond at all to the true definition of Fascism."
That was in 1965, and I wish I had remembered this reference earlier here in this now dead (and may it RIP) conversation. Less related to anything specifically, but interesting for its own sake, just prior to the above quoted lines Welles said: "There was no American Right in my generation. Intellectually it didn't exist. There were only Leftists and they mutually betrayed each other. The Left was not destroyed by McCarthy: it demolished itself, ceding to a new generation of Nihilists. That's what happened." Which is certainly a finely-tuned way of considering the times.
As to use of the nebulous catch-all "robber barons," which pops up here from time to time in talk of KANE, I thought Welles' note about the character speaks directly to such vagueness: "What is very specific about Kane's personality is that he never earned money; he passed his life spending it. He did not belong to that category of rich men who made fortunes: he only spent it. Kane didn't even have the responsibility of the true capitalist."
That was obviously a real dagger Welles threw at Hearst, whose wealth began as a hand-me-down like Kane's. As with the previous quotes, though, we find again and again that Welles in conversation was nothing if not precise. The clarity of these particular reflections of his was especially admirable considering that he was addressing a European audience and would have had a sympathetic ear had he been inclined to be less judicious about the American scene.
Food for thought, anyway. And just to lighten the mood now, here's Mr. Billy Wilder (always good company) talking to Vanity Fair in 1995, concerning studios and preview audiences and thus, in a distant sense, AMBERSONS:
"Expensive as [pictures] are now, studios try and keep 'em popular. They're either very broad or very cautious--they like it best if it's a picture they've already seen. That was always true, but we made hundreds of pictures. Even then, they liked to do test-marketing, only they did it with preview cards. One card for The Lost Weekend told me it was a great movie but I should take out all the stuff about drinking and alcoholism. Another time I went to Long Beach with Ernst Lubitsch for a preview of Ninotchka, and he was reading cards in the car on the way home. Started laughing and wouldn't tell me why, but finally passed me the card that said, 'Great movie. I laughed so hard I peed in my girlfriend's hand.' "
Cheers.
"I believe the term 'Fascism' should only be utilized in order to define a quite precise political attitude. It would be necessary to find a new word in order to define what is happening in America. Fascism must be born out of chaos. And America is not, as I know it, in chaos. The social structure is not in a state of dissolution. No, it doesn't correspond at all to the true definition of Fascism."
That was in 1965, and I wish I had remembered this reference earlier here in this now dead (and may it RIP) conversation. Less related to anything specifically, but interesting for its own sake, just prior to the above quoted lines Welles said: "There was no American Right in my generation. Intellectually it didn't exist. There were only Leftists and they mutually betrayed each other. The Left was not destroyed by McCarthy: it demolished itself, ceding to a new generation of Nihilists. That's what happened." Which is certainly a finely-tuned way of considering the times.
As to use of the nebulous catch-all "robber barons," which pops up here from time to time in talk of KANE, I thought Welles' note about the character speaks directly to such vagueness: "What is very specific about Kane's personality is that he never earned money; he passed his life spending it. He did not belong to that category of rich men who made fortunes: he only spent it. Kane didn't even have the responsibility of the true capitalist."
That was obviously a real dagger Welles threw at Hearst, whose wealth began as a hand-me-down like Kane's. As with the previous quotes, though, we find again and again that Welles in conversation was nothing if not precise. The clarity of these particular reflections of his was especially admirable considering that he was addressing a European audience and would have had a sympathetic ear had he been inclined to be less judicious about the American scene.
Food for thought, anyway. And just to lighten the mood now, here's Mr. Billy Wilder (always good company) talking to Vanity Fair in 1995, concerning studios and preview audiences and thus, in a distant sense, AMBERSONS:
"Expensive as [pictures] are now, studios try and keep 'em popular. They're either very broad or very cautious--they like it best if it's a picture they've already seen. That was always true, but we made hundreds of pictures. Even then, they liked to do test-marketing, only they did it with preview cards. One card for The Lost Weekend told me it was a great movie but I should take out all the stuff about drinking and alcoholism. Another time I went to Long Beach with Ernst Lubitsch for a preview of Ninotchka, and he was reading cards in the car on the way home. Started laughing and wouldn't tell me why, but finally passed me the card that said, 'Great movie. I laughed so hard I peed in my girlfriend's hand.' "
Cheers.
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Tashman - Wellesnet Veteran
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by Glenn Anders » Sun May 07, 2006 5:10 pm
Tashman: Wilder's observation is amusing. Nowadays, the executives don't bother to green light the films unless some reader sees the commercial potential in the loglines, first couple of pages, or the endings of the scripts. That keeps a girlfriend's hand dry a little longer.
As for the quotes on fascism, you are quite right that Welles made careful distinctions about fascism and capitalism. He was fascinated and fully aware of the fascists of his time, and of course, he had many friends in the upper reaches of capitalism, such as Nelson Rockefeller. He claimed that his father hobnobbed with many of them. But it is one thing to recognize that America was not a fascist nation in 1930, and another to not to be aware that the potential for fascism was there, as it has been in any modern industrial state since Benito Mussolini gave the philosophy a thesis in the 1920's.
Certainly, by the early 1930's, when Welles entered the national stage, with 23 million out of work from a population of a hundred million or so, either fascism or some crackpot socialist syndicalism was in the wings. I would say that chaos was upon the poor, working and lower middle classes of America in that time. FDR's New Deal created a political and economic balance which allowed America to partially recover without adopting the nostrums of a Father Coughlan, Huey Long, Fritz Kuhn or Earl Browder.
It was to the spirit of the New Deal and Roosevelt that Welles lent his public passion, but he devoted the subtexts of his Art to warnings of the tribal roots and industrial florescence of Fascism: "Julius Caesar," CITIZEN KANE, THE STRANGER, THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, and MR. ARKADIN. I list only the more obvious examples. Heart of Darkness, Smiler with a Knife, and The Road to Santiago never got that "green light."
Certainly, if you had seen children with swollen bellies and sunken cheeks around you in elementary school classes, as I did in the 1930's, you might not be sanguine about the impossibility of fascism or some other "ism" in America.
One theme of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (greatly whittled down in what we have left of it) is the embittered reactions of an older family of American would-be "aristocrats" to the housing and industrial developments following the Civil War. Those developments eventually made them declassee, and George Minafer's reference to "riff-raff" late in the story is similar to the kind of attitude Mussolini's followers had toward those opposed to his New Corporatism; or Hitler's castigation of the trade unionists, communists, Jews, gays, the mentally challenged, etc. In that sense, George Minafer and Charles Kane are brothers, men who grew up with wealth they did not work for. They just spent the money, and when they began to lose power, they looked around for scapegoats.
You and Welles are quite right to point out that America is not a fascist nation, but to suggest that fascism might not take over America is foolish. That is like saying that Americans and Europeans come from different stock, are biologically from separate life forms.
A little fear, a little chaos, can turn the most comfortable Liberal Democrat or fiscally Conservative Republican toward a philosophy of governance which, under another name, woud be fascism -- as we have observed over the last five years.
And what of those little dots Welles was always pointing out, and people are always trying to connect? Do not most of them only care for the "strong man" who will proclaim security for their children? Given a choice between a new TV, a new SUV, or $2 a gallon gas, would anyone want to bet, in our overextended state, what "the dots" would support at the ballot box.
One of the great things about Welles was that, to his personal and professional detriment, he continually warned of the dangers of fascism, continually worked for democracy here in America and across the World.
Wellsians of the World, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your credit cards!
Glenn
As for the quotes on fascism, you are quite right that Welles made careful distinctions about fascism and capitalism. He was fascinated and fully aware of the fascists of his time, and of course, he had many friends in the upper reaches of capitalism, such as Nelson Rockefeller. He claimed that his father hobnobbed with many of them. But it is one thing to recognize that America was not a fascist nation in 1930, and another to not to be aware that the potential for fascism was there, as it has been in any modern industrial state since Benito Mussolini gave the philosophy a thesis in the 1920's.
Certainly, by the early 1930's, when Welles entered the national stage, with 23 million out of work from a population of a hundred million or so, either fascism or some crackpot socialist syndicalism was in the wings. I would say that chaos was upon the poor, working and lower middle classes of America in that time. FDR's New Deal created a political and economic balance which allowed America to partially recover without adopting the nostrums of a Father Coughlan, Huey Long, Fritz Kuhn or Earl Browder.
It was to the spirit of the New Deal and Roosevelt that Welles lent his public passion, but he devoted the subtexts of his Art to warnings of the tribal roots and industrial florescence of Fascism: "Julius Caesar," CITIZEN KANE, THE STRANGER, THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, and MR. ARKADIN. I list only the more obvious examples. Heart of Darkness, Smiler with a Knife, and The Road to Santiago never got that "green light."
Certainly, if you had seen children with swollen bellies and sunken cheeks around you in elementary school classes, as I did in the 1930's, you might not be sanguine about the impossibility of fascism or some other "ism" in America.
One theme of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (greatly whittled down in what we have left of it) is the embittered reactions of an older family of American would-be "aristocrats" to the housing and industrial developments following the Civil War. Those developments eventually made them declassee, and George Minafer's reference to "riff-raff" late in the story is similar to the kind of attitude Mussolini's followers had toward those opposed to his New Corporatism; or Hitler's castigation of the trade unionists, communists, Jews, gays, the mentally challenged, etc. In that sense, George Minafer and Charles Kane are brothers, men who grew up with wealth they did not work for. They just spent the money, and when they began to lose power, they looked around for scapegoats.
You and Welles are quite right to point out that America is not a fascist nation, but to suggest that fascism might not take over America is foolish. That is like saying that Americans and Europeans come from different stock, are biologically from separate life forms.
A little fear, a little chaos, can turn the most comfortable Liberal Democrat or fiscally Conservative Republican toward a philosophy of governance which, under another name, woud be fascism -- as we have observed over the last five years.
And what of those little dots Welles was always pointing out, and people are always trying to connect? Do not most of them only care for the "strong man" who will proclaim security for their children? Given a choice between a new TV, a new SUV, or $2 a gallon gas, would anyone want to bet, in our overextended state, what "the dots" would support at the ballot box.
One of the great things about Welles was that, to his personal and professional detriment, he continually warned of the dangers of fascism, continually worked for democracy here in America and across the World.
Wellsians of the World, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your credit cards!
Glenn
-
Glenn Anders - Wellesnet Legend
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by Tashman » Mon May 08, 2006 3:21 am
to suggest that fascism might not take over America is foolish.
I'll continue to not suggest it.
A little fear, a little chaos, can turn the most comfortable Liberal Democrat or fiscally Conservative Republican toward a philosophy of governance which, under another name, would be fascism -- as we have observed over the last five years.
Only the last five years? Let's not be modest! But ok, concerning just these years, who knows, maybe Welles would have agreed. We'll defer that question to the witches' cauldron. But it seems he would not have said "under another name"--you've gone and tripped over the point. Either it is, or it isn't. Or it's something else objectionable that need be ascertained (rather than obfuscated with worn-out similes) in order to be dealt with. Failing that precision, "it"s neck--figuratively speaking--will ever slip your noose. A victim may describe his assailant as a fiendish monster with arms like a bear and eyes like a wolf, but that does little good on a "Wanted" poster. You won't know whether to send for the police or the zookeeper.
One theme of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS is the embittered reactions of an older family of American would-be "aristocrats" to the housing and industrial developments following the Civil War.
True...
George Minafer and Charles Kane are brothers, men who grew up with wealth they did not work for. They just spent the money
TRUE...
George Minafer's reference to "riff-raff" late in the story is similar to the kind of attitude Mussolini's followers had toward those opposed to his New Corporatism; or Hitler's castigation of the trade unionists, communists, Jews, gays, the mentally challenged, etc. ... and when [George Minafer and Charles Kane] began to lose power, they looked around for scapegoats.
Drat! Two out of three!
I'll continue to not suggest it.
A little fear, a little chaos, can turn the most comfortable Liberal Democrat or fiscally Conservative Republican toward a philosophy of governance which, under another name, would be fascism -- as we have observed over the last five years.
Only the last five years? Let's not be modest! But ok, concerning just these years, who knows, maybe Welles would have agreed. We'll defer that question to the witches' cauldron. But it seems he would not have said "under another name"--you've gone and tripped over the point. Either it is, or it isn't. Or it's something else objectionable that need be ascertained (rather than obfuscated with worn-out similes) in order to be dealt with. Failing that precision, "it"s neck--figuratively speaking--will ever slip your noose. A victim may describe his assailant as a fiendish monster with arms like a bear and eyes like a wolf, but that does little good on a "Wanted" poster. You won't know whether to send for the police or the zookeeper.
One theme of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS is the embittered reactions of an older family of American would-be "aristocrats" to the housing and industrial developments following the Civil War.
True...
George Minafer and Charles Kane are brothers, men who grew up with wealth they did not work for. They just spent the money
TRUE...
George Minafer's reference to "riff-raff" late in the story is similar to the kind of attitude Mussolini's followers had toward those opposed to his New Corporatism; or Hitler's castigation of the trade unionists, communists, Jews, gays, the mentally challenged, etc. ... and when [George Minafer and Charles Kane] began to lose power, they looked around for scapegoats.
Drat! Two out of three!
-
Tashman - Wellesnet Veteran
- Posts: 104
- Joined: Thu Jun 17, 2004 8:23 pm
by Glenn Anders » Mon May 08, 2006 3:39 pm
Webster-Merriman Dictionary (online) Main Entry: fas·cism
Function: noun
Etymology: Italian fascismo, from fascio bundle, fasces, group, from Latin fascis bundle & fasces fasces
1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control <early instances of army fascism and brutality -- J. W. Aldridge
-----------------
Tashman: In America, the term of art is "corporatism." We appear to be moving from "a tendency toward" to an "actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control."
Fascism, we'll both agree, is pretty discredited at this point, as a word. Few American politicians or other leadership types are going to proclaim at press conferences: "I stand for the principles and aims of fascism!" We are all (little 'd') democrats here, but as Welles might have said, "A withered italianated rose may smell as rank by any other name." Just as the fascist "cartels" became simply "multinational corporations" during the Cold War, the term corporatism has been proudly used by top members of the present Administration, and I'll grant you, the philosophy has flowered with Globalization in the Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton Administrations, as well. Let's me concede, too, the trend has been onward and upward toward "The Strong Man" for at least 30 years, not five.
Frankly, Tashman, as may have been the case with other members, you lost me in the dark forest of your second paragraph. I'll just point out that Bernstein expresses my thought perfectly when he looks at the newspaper staff Kane has newly bought, and wonders to Jed Leland, how these guys are different now than they were before, just because they are going to work for the Enquirer.
The corrupt have many names, wear many hats.
Welles expresses my thought about Fascism when he shows how a top Nazi war criminal could escape Germany, come by way of South America (with all its ties to Fascism in the 1940's), and be accepted in the bower of a New England Liberal Arts College, marrying the daughter of a Supreme Court Justice!
Have you forgotten all the fascist leaders who found their way into America (or were brought in as "displaced persons" by the CIA) in the years following World War II? A signifcant number were given important governmental, political party or religious positions, and became embarrassments to several administrations from Nixon's time on? Though they may have died off, their teachings have become internalized, and so, we now defiantly justify black shirt, brown shirt, and red guard methods we would have righteously condemned in the last century.
Do you see a pattern here, Tashman?
Finally, forgive me, I gag a bit on the snide derision of your last entry.
Are you telling us that it not possible for Americans, in large numbers, to brand as . . . "liberals" those who do not want corporations to entirely control their lives from the cradle to the grave? Are you saying, that the attitudes Kane or Georgie would have had toward "trade unionists, communists, Jews, gays, the mentally challenged," people of color, people of other religions, could not be shared by tens upon tens of millions of other Americans?
Do you honestly believe that Americans cannot be so persecuting of scapegoats as Italians, Germans, Russians, Cambodians, or Rwandans have been?
Look at America today, look at how the vast majority of humankind regards America today, then tell me that fascism can't happen here.
Welles would have understood completely what is going on. That's why J. Edgar Hoover opened a dossier on him, that's one important reason why he had to live in Europe much of his later life.
As the hero of THE LADY FROM SHANGAI said to Grisby: "It's a bright, guilty world."
Take a good look at it, Tashman. America is part of that world, no matter how we should like to pretend we are not. More troubling, our leaders believe they run that "bright, guilty world."
Fascism would have it no other way.
Glenn
Function: noun
Etymology: Italian fascismo, from fascio bundle, fasces, group, from Latin fascis bundle & fasces fasces
1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control <early instances of army fascism and brutality -- J. W. Aldridge
-----------------
Tashman: In America, the term of art is "corporatism." We appear to be moving from "a tendency toward" to an "actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control."
Fascism, we'll both agree, is pretty discredited at this point, as a word. Few American politicians or other leadership types are going to proclaim at press conferences: "I stand for the principles and aims of fascism!" We are all (little 'd') democrats here, but as Welles might have said, "A withered italianated rose may smell as rank by any other name." Just as the fascist "cartels" became simply "multinational corporations" during the Cold War, the term corporatism has been proudly used by top members of the present Administration, and I'll grant you, the philosophy has flowered with Globalization in the Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton Administrations, as well. Let's me concede, too, the trend has been onward and upward toward "The Strong Man" for at least 30 years, not five.
Frankly, Tashman, as may have been the case with other members, you lost me in the dark forest of your second paragraph. I'll just point out that Bernstein expresses my thought perfectly when he looks at the newspaper staff Kane has newly bought, and wonders to Jed Leland, how these guys are different now than they were before, just because they are going to work for the Enquirer.
The corrupt have many names, wear many hats.
Welles expresses my thought about Fascism when he shows how a top Nazi war criminal could escape Germany, come by way of South America (with all its ties to Fascism in the 1940's), and be accepted in the bower of a New England Liberal Arts College, marrying the daughter of a Supreme Court Justice!
Have you forgotten all the fascist leaders who found their way into America (or were brought in as "displaced persons" by the CIA) in the years following World War II? A signifcant number were given important governmental, political party or religious positions, and became embarrassments to several administrations from Nixon's time on? Though they may have died off, their teachings have become internalized, and so, we now defiantly justify black shirt, brown shirt, and red guard methods we would have righteously condemned in the last century.
Do you see a pattern here, Tashman?
Finally, forgive me, I gag a bit on the snide derision of your last entry.
Are you telling us that it not possible for Americans, in large numbers, to brand as . . . "liberals" those who do not want corporations to entirely control their lives from the cradle to the grave? Are you saying, that the attitudes Kane or Georgie would have had toward "trade unionists, communists, Jews, gays, the mentally challenged," people of color, people of other religions, could not be shared by tens upon tens of millions of other Americans?
Do you honestly believe that Americans cannot be so persecuting of scapegoats as Italians, Germans, Russians, Cambodians, or Rwandans have been?
Look at America today, look at how the vast majority of humankind regards America today, then tell me that fascism can't happen here.
Welles would have understood completely what is going on. That's why J. Edgar Hoover opened a dossier on him, that's one important reason why he had to live in Europe much of his later life.
As the hero of THE LADY FROM SHANGAI said to Grisby: "It's a bright, guilty world."
Take a good look at it, Tashman. America is part of that world, no matter how we should like to pretend we are not. More troubling, our leaders believe they run that "bright, guilty world."
Fascism would have it no other way.
Glenn
-
Glenn Anders - Wellesnet Legend
- Posts: 1911
- Joined: Mon Jun 23, 2003 12:50 pm
- Location: San Francisco
by Glenn Anders » Mon May 08, 2006 9:19 pm
A fresh note: When I wrote the above, I had not read the reviews of Callow's Hello, Americans, which Jeff provides on his News Page.
Here is my argument about the coming of fascism to America, succinctly stated, quoted in the Independent's review, in the words of the Master:
[Welles] remarked that if indeed the predicted "American century'' did come about, "We'll make Germany's bid for world supremacy look like amateur night. And the invitable retribution will be on a comparable scale."
I had never come across the passionately patriotic Welles' cold-eyed assessment, expressed with such clarity. If he is not speaking of the fascistic will to power, the "triumph of the [American] will," I don't know what he is saying.
Welles was an Internationalist, and he believed and worked hard for cooperation among peoples and nations. That was no more popular in many American seats of power then than it is now.
The phrase that I hear is "It's our way or the highway."
Didn't George Minafer have a similar attitude?
Glenn
Here is my argument about the coming of fascism to America, succinctly stated, quoted in the Independent's review, in the words of the Master:
[Welles] remarked that if indeed the predicted "American century'' did come about, "We'll make Germany's bid for world supremacy look like amateur night. And the invitable retribution will be on a comparable scale."
I had never come across the passionately patriotic Welles' cold-eyed assessment, expressed with such clarity. If he is not speaking of the fascistic will to power, the "triumph of the [American] will," I don't know what he is saying.
Welles was an Internationalist, and he believed and worked hard for cooperation among peoples and nations. That was no more popular in many American seats of power then than it is now.
The phrase that I hear is "It's our way or the highway."
Didn't George Minafer have a similar attitude?
Glenn
-
Glenn Anders - Wellesnet Legend
- Posts: 1911
- Joined: Mon Jun 23, 2003 12:50 pm
- Location: San Francisco
by The Voice of Cornstarch » Tue May 09, 2006 2:15 am
Glenn,
Could you state, once again, the reason why you don't review Ambersons?
Could you state, once again, the reason why you don't review Ambersons?
-
The Voice of Cornstarch - Member
- Posts: 31
- Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2006 8:09 pm
by Tony » Tue May 09, 2006 3:38 am
Didn't know you guys were still nattering away over here... :O
Check out this Noam Chomsky dvd for the current state of America:
http://www.amazon.com/gp....e&n=130
That is, if you can handle the truth!
As for Ambersons: Listened today again in my car to the Ambersons radio program, and more than ever it seems as though Schaeffer and co. used it as an editing blueprint for the release version of the film... ???
Tony
Check out this Noam Chomsky dvd for the current state of America:
http://www.amazon.com/gp....e&n=130
That is, if you can handle the truth!
As for Ambersons: Listened today again in my car to the Ambersons radio program, and more than ever it seems as though Schaeffer and co. used it as an editing blueprint for the release version of the film... ???
Tony
- Tony
- Wellesnet Legend
- Posts: 1014
- Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2002 11:44 pm
by Tashman » Tue May 09, 2006 10:16 am
Tony said:
Didn't know you guys were still nattering away over here...
Yeah, Tashman f-ed up and inadvertently revived it.
Glenn said:
Welles was an Internationalist, and he believed and worked hard for cooperation among peoples and nations.
Agreed. I don't doubt that he kept that principle all his life.
"We'll make Germany's bid for world supremacy look like amateur night. And the invitable retribution will be on a comparable scale."
I would be interested to know the occasion and date for this. Maybe Jeff or someone else (when their book has been "dispatched") can tell us. If the full story of the Final Solution was known at the time, then I would call it one of Welles' less quotable moments. Not exactly surprising that a book reviewer singles it out, because even today with our privileged perspective, it is considered a casual or amusing remark in some circles to compare Western leaders to Hitler. Those who think this a prescient remark, newspaper reviewers or Callow or anyone, should go back and read about Nazi fun and games. Just for a quick dash of cold water. If the suggestion is to extrapolate further with this comparison, there are plenty of examples without any conceivable analogue to give us pause.
Having some sense of the rash fellow of the Callow Vol 2 period, and considering that he showed camp footage in THE STRANGER and made a decision about the ending of THE TRIAL from an awareness of living after the Holocaust, I would guess it should be taken as the somewhat thoughtless words of a younger man, even if he believed them. But one should also consider what the original suggestion of the American Century meant, whether today's scene would be what Welles envisaged when he referred to the American Century coming to life, sensitized as he then was by the startling historical moment going on in Europe. Glenn says it would be. Others can make up their own minds.
Do you honestly believe that Americans cannot be so persecuting of scapegoats as Italians, Germans, Russians, Cambodians, or Rwandans have been?
In the sense the question puts it, that is indeed my opinion. You earlier threw in something about biology, but this is not a biological question. This is not about what human nature is capable of. The answer to this question is quite obviously affirmative because the traditions of our social and political heritage have gradually proven themselves not conducive to disruptions of the scale and organization you reference. If that seems like a controversial assertion, it is so only because we have such a fascist culture here in America that our citizens are in large measure educated to think only ill of themselves! We are educated and cultured to find in your question a point of dispiriting ambivalence at best, or a starker relativism that all societies are equal; that is, equally bad ("the bright, guilty world"). Seizing upon the comparison with Germany as a defining statement by Welles indicates the same syndrome. But, in keeping with your question, it's simply not historical to overlook the superior measure of personal liberties within Western democratic pluralistic society--not perfect, not incorruptible, often playing catch-up, but always adjusting and seeking a better balance. This achievement is encroached upon by other suggestions you've raised, by other factors of history and present reality, but this is nonetheless the general gift we have been granted by history. Our good luck. Seeing to it that this civic heritage successfully evolves and negotiates all the circumstances it encounters might require that one first recognize and appreciate it's underlying worth. It requires no idealism to do this.
Corporatism... would certainly be counted as another danger to our balance and democratic order. I think you are obviously correct in implying that this is one of the harmful influences within the country and in the Republican Party in particular. But theirs is not an exclusive romance, and why this subject makes you especially persecuted as a liberal (what we nowadays term as such), I can only guess. At the same time, though we do seem to have embarked over the threshold of imbalance in this area, I don't pretend to share your sense of it ruling every moment of the waking day. It is an obvious fact of life we can all see and sense the dangers of innately if not intellectually. (It's worth noting too that given half a moment's thought, a "true" conservative would not make allowances for corporatist ingrowth. But then a true conservative would probably be ecologically-minded as well.)
This substitute word for "fascist", corporatist, brings us around to the "dark forest" of my second paragraph... What can I say to that? One does feel the burden of an audience, eyeballs fatigued by overlong extensions of this dialogue. I tried to be as brief as possible and make my exit, having achieved my lone objective of appending a few words from Orson Welles for anyone still actually interested. And I tried not to be too heavy or hostile about it. Debate is only fun when it is fruitful; and I tell you with a cool temperature that we are not going to move this discussion, Glenn. We cannot even agree on terms. My children's story about the policeman and the zookeeper (coming soon to a mega-chain bookstore and Walmart near you) was gently trying to say that we are injudicious in our descriptions of things at the expense of being taken seriously. (Somewhat like Welles' American Century quote in the light of Nuremberg.) More importantly, in the event there is an actual wrong to be addressed, we risk obscuring our options, and thus solutions, when we are fuzzy about what exactly is wrong in the first place.
It's quite acceptible to posit that George Bush has taken national security to a level that exceeds the crisis he was presented, that exceeds what a stabile democracy can give up and still be called healthy. History will decide, but for argument's sake we'll say definitely that he has. Even granting that much, what I cannot accept is the core idea nestled in your language that this transformation has been done merely in order to be a despot--that the five years you track as fascism are merely the pathological whims of the Hobbesian/Machiavellian man or figurehead. NOTE: To the extent these five years represent a concerted drift away from established norms, one could set out to have an intelligent discussion in which two sides agreed upon use of the word "fascist," that it was an acceptible adjective to describe this inclination: a tendency toward autocratic control. But this, in spite of your dictionary citation, is not how you have used the word at all. It is a grab-all. And your every elaboration shows it as mainly representing the first sense I mentioned: the concentrations of power by an aspiring despot.
The despot is an attractive idea because it means we need do no more thinking. He is a single irreducible quantity, which then becomes the presupposition of all analysis. Here then is your backstory to the aspiring despot: The steadily rising corporatism preceding George Bush was a fascistic movement of which he was an active adherent when he took office: he was an old oligarch and a new corporatist. Fascism, as a domestic germ, was fostered in the shadow of the Depression-era fear and disorder, and before that in the capitalist maneuvers of robber barons; given room to grow in the dark halls of the FBI and the CIA and the new corporations, and so on through the Cold War; until 9/11 gave the Bush administration the opening to give full ascendency to this growing wave of corporate-controlled power. From which seat it could then lay claim to the world at large, guided thereon by "neocon" plotters and, oh yes, a revelationist Christian element--because the POTUS is a very special kind of corporatist: he and his henchmen are "Armageddonists," meaning they hope to bring about the end of time.
This is the "fiendish monster" I earlier suggested as being slightly improbable. If only reality, with its real fascists and real problem presidencies and real pitfalls for our democracy, weren't so deadly serious at present, it would be nice to think it was so easily understandable as that despot. There is in the frantic nature of your critiques, Glenn, the implicit notion that The State and its governors have obvious choices before it--that there is a clear correct path, and beside that a series of selfish and destructive sideroads. But really there is only one sure-fire way to avoid the more or less inevitable shortcomings of direct action, by which I mean any political choice (even the choice to be governed), and that is to stand absolutely still and not exist. I would turn your last lines back on you in that sense. I think it is the realists who accept that being part of the world means conditioning expectations of what is possible accordingly. Otherwise one can only be doomed to perpetual disillusionment. Like the true-believers going into Iraq. Or yourself, with everything (at Wellesnet at least) except art and artists. And if that last bit is presumptuous, it at least suggests a noble ideal.
THE END. (For me) -- Cheers, Glenn. Now someone go pick a radio show to chat about. Quick!
Didn't know you guys were still nattering away over here...
Yeah, Tashman f-ed up and inadvertently revived it.
Glenn said:
Welles was an Internationalist, and he believed and worked hard for cooperation among peoples and nations.
Agreed. I don't doubt that he kept that principle all his life.
"We'll make Germany's bid for world supremacy look like amateur night. And the invitable retribution will be on a comparable scale."
I would be interested to know the occasion and date for this. Maybe Jeff or someone else (when their book has been "dispatched") can tell us. If the full story of the Final Solution was known at the time, then I would call it one of Welles' less quotable moments. Not exactly surprising that a book reviewer singles it out, because even today with our privileged perspective, it is considered a casual or amusing remark in some circles to compare Western leaders to Hitler. Those who think this a prescient remark, newspaper reviewers or Callow or anyone, should go back and read about Nazi fun and games. Just for a quick dash of cold water. If the suggestion is to extrapolate further with this comparison, there are plenty of examples without any conceivable analogue to give us pause.
Having some sense of the rash fellow of the Callow Vol 2 period, and considering that he showed camp footage in THE STRANGER and made a decision about the ending of THE TRIAL from an awareness of living after the Holocaust, I would guess it should be taken as the somewhat thoughtless words of a younger man, even if he believed them. But one should also consider what the original suggestion of the American Century meant, whether today's scene would be what Welles envisaged when he referred to the American Century coming to life, sensitized as he then was by the startling historical moment going on in Europe. Glenn says it would be. Others can make up their own minds.
Do you honestly believe that Americans cannot be so persecuting of scapegoats as Italians, Germans, Russians, Cambodians, or Rwandans have been?
In the sense the question puts it, that is indeed my opinion. You earlier threw in something about biology, but this is not a biological question. This is not about what human nature is capable of. The answer to this question is quite obviously affirmative because the traditions of our social and political heritage have gradually proven themselves not conducive to disruptions of the scale and organization you reference. If that seems like a controversial assertion, it is so only because we have such a fascist culture here in America that our citizens are in large measure educated to think only ill of themselves! We are educated and cultured to find in your question a point of dispiriting ambivalence at best, or a starker relativism that all societies are equal; that is, equally bad ("the bright, guilty world"). Seizing upon the comparison with Germany as a defining statement by Welles indicates the same syndrome. But, in keeping with your question, it's simply not historical to overlook the superior measure of personal liberties within Western democratic pluralistic society--not perfect, not incorruptible, often playing catch-up, but always adjusting and seeking a better balance. This achievement is encroached upon by other suggestions you've raised, by other factors of history and present reality, but this is nonetheless the general gift we have been granted by history. Our good luck. Seeing to it that this civic heritage successfully evolves and negotiates all the circumstances it encounters might require that one first recognize and appreciate it's underlying worth. It requires no idealism to do this.
Corporatism... would certainly be counted as another danger to our balance and democratic order. I think you are obviously correct in implying that this is one of the harmful influences within the country and in the Republican Party in particular. But theirs is not an exclusive romance, and why this subject makes you especially persecuted as a liberal (what we nowadays term as such), I can only guess. At the same time, though we do seem to have embarked over the threshold of imbalance in this area, I don't pretend to share your sense of it ruling every moment of the waking day. It is an obvious fact of life we can all see and sense the dangers of innately if not intellectually. (It's worth noting too that given half a moment's thought, a "true" conservative would not make allowances for corporatist ingrowth. But then a true conservative would probably be ecologically-minded as well.)
This substitute word for "fascist", corporatist, brings us around to the "dark forest" of my second paragraph... What can I say to that? One does feel the burden of an audience, eyeballs fatigued by overlong extensions of this dialogue. I tried to be as brief as possible and make my exit, having achieved my lone objective of appending a few words from Orson Welles for anyone still actually interested. And I tried not to be too heavy or hostile about it. Debate is only fun when it is fruitful; and I tell you with a cool temperature that we are not going to move this discussion, Glenn. We cannot even agree on terms. My children's story about the policeman and the zookeeper (coming soon to a mega-chain bookstore and Walmart near you) was gently trying to say that we are injudicious in our descriptions of things at the expense of being taken seriously. (Somewhat like Welles' American Century quote in the light of Nuremberg.) More importantly, in the event there is an actual wrong to be addressed, we risk obscuring our options, and thus solutions, when we are fuzzy about what exactly is wrong in the first place.
It's quite acceptible to posit that George Bush has taken national security to a level that exceeds the crisis he was presented, that exceeds what a stabile democracy can give up and still be called healthy. History will decide, but for argument's sake we'll say definitely that he has. Even granting that much, what I cannot accept is the core idea nestled in your language that this transformation has been done merely in order to be a despot--that the five years you track as fascism are merely the pathological whims of the Hobbesian/Machiavellian man or figurehead. NOTE: To the extent these five years represent a concerted drift away from established norms, one could set out to have an intelligent discussion in which two sides agreed upon use of the word "fascist," that it was an acceptible adjective to describe this inclination: a tendency toward autocratic control. But this, in spite of your dictionary citation, is not how you have used the word at all. It is a grab-all. And your every elaboration shows it as mainly representing the first sense I mentioned: the concentrations of power by an aspiring despot.
The despot is an attractive idea because it means we need do no more thinking. He is a single irreducible quantity, which then becomes the presupposition of all analysis. Here then is your backstory to the aspiring despot: The steadily rising corporatism preceding George Bush was a fascistic movement of which he was an active adherent when he took office: he was an old oligarch and a new corporatist. Fascism, as a domestic germ, was fostered in the shadow of the Depression-era fear and disorder, and before that in the capitalist maneuvers of robber barons; given room to grow in the dark halls of the FBI and the CIA and the new corporations, and so on through the Cold War; until 9/11 gave the Bush administration the opening to give full ascendency to this growing wave of corporate-controlled power. From which seat it could then lay claim to the world at large, guided thereon by "neocon" plotters and, oh yes, a revelationist Christian element--because the POTUS is a very special kind of corporatist: he and his henchmen are "Armageddonists," meaning they hope to bring about the end of time.
This is the "fiendish monster" I earlier suggested as being slightly improbable. If only reality, with its real fascists and real problem presidencies and real pitfalls for our democracy, weren't so deadly serious at present, it would be nice to think it was so easily understandable as that despot. There is in the frantic nature of your critiques, Glenn, the implicit notion that The State and its governors have obvious choices before it--that there is a clear correct path, and beside that a series of selfish and destructive sideroads. But really there is only one sure-fire way to avoid the more or less inevitable shortcomings of direct action, by which I mean any political choice (even the choice to be governed), and that is to stand absolutely still and not exist. I would turn your last lines back on you in that sense. I think it is the realists who accept that being part of the world means conditioning expectations of what is possible accordingly. Otherwise one can only be doomed to perpetual disillusionment. Like the true-believers going into Iraq. Or yourself, with everything (at Wellesnet at least) except art and artists. And if that last bit is presumptuous, it at least suggests a noble ideal.
THE END. (For me) -- Cheers, Glenn. Now someone go pick a radio show to chat about. Quick!
-
Tashman - Wellesnet Veteran
- Posts: 104
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by Jeff Wilson » Tue May 09, 2006 10:21 am
I appreciate the generally level-headed quality of the discussion, but let's please keep it on topic with Welles, per the rules of the board, everyone (ie no politics). This isn't directed at any one person, it's just that I've finally caught up with the thread... Thanks.
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Jeff Wilson - Site Admin
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by Tony » Tue May 09, 2006 4:16 pm
Jeff:
With all due respect, Callow's opus 2 has uncorked the political dimensions of Welles thought, and the guys are discussing it responsibly, I believe, always keeping it in a Wellesian context. If anyone stepped over the line it was me with my link to Chomsky, but that was done tongue in cheek with it's Nicholson paraphrase, though with a direct connection (in my mind) to the Welles quote on America as an empire that's being discussed.
At any rate, I'd hate to see an interesting discussion on Welles's political thought be derailed by my humour, so I apologize for that.
With all due respect, Callow's opus 2 has uncorked the political dimensions of Welles thought, and the guys are discussing it responsibly, I believe, always keeping it in a Wellesian context. If anyone stepped over the line it was me with my link to Chomsky, but that was done tongue in cheek with it's Nicholson paraphrase, though with a direct connection (in my mind) to the Welles quote on America as an empire that's being discussed.
At any rate, I'd hate to see an interesting discussion on Welles's political thought be derailed by my humour, so I apologize for that.
- Tony
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- Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2002 11:44 pm
by Glenn Anders » Tue May 09, 2006 4:23 pm
Dear Cornstarch: Of all Welles' films which were altered or cut, I find THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS the saddest example. The internal cuts remove much of the film's thematic substance, and the tacked on last ten minutes or so turn it into a feel-good soap opera. As I've written, I find Sam Wood's KING'S ROW a better film on similar themes, showing the influence of Welles. On a five star scale, I would have to rate THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS no higher than a three, perhaps a two.
I just have no heart for the effort.
My hope is that Warner Brothers or whoever has the rights will one day release a version similar to the one Roger Ryan has done. Then, I could feel justifification, not just as another detractor.
Glenn
I just have no heart for the effort.
My hope is that Warner Brothers or whoever has the rights will one day release a version similar to the one Roger Ryan has done. Then, I could feel justifification, not just as another detractor.
Glenn
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Glenn Anders - Wellesnet Legend
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