The Beatrice News Watch

[dmolson]

Re: Welles decision/motive to leave the US for South America, stepping away from the final cutting of Ambersons...
Welles was deeply patriotic and a major believer in Roosevelt administration. He also likely was very eager to do his duty, though both flat feet and asthyma eliminated actual armed service.
I've read some items - more knowledgible people may be able to back-up or correct me - that also left Welles the impression that, while working under the request of Rockefeller, he'd still have a major part in the cutting and editing process of Ambersons. It was RKO that cut those strings, with expense and 'the losses of Kane' as their cards to carry out their butchering.
Welles wasn't the only one who took up a US gov't project and live to regret it. A right-wing magnet (and Hoover fan) like Louis B. Mayer backed the idea of 'Song of Russia', a film that was designed to paint a new picture of the Allies' big Bear. Even Robert Taylor, who would be one of the actors to jump up at the chance to testify before the HUAC, didn't put up too much of a fuss, despite it's nuzzling with the 'dreaded Commies'. In fact, the film had barely hit the screen before muttering and accusations began to surface re. a perceived torrent of Communist sympathies.
From a snippet on SOR co-writer, Paul Jarrico...

"According to Jarrico, that MGM film (which starred co-operative HUAC witness Robert Taylor) was written under orders from the U.S. Office of Wartime Propaganda at a time when Russia was considered an ally. But later, as the Cold War loomed, it was viewed as pro-Communist propaganda. Jarrico was always quick to point out that studio boss Louis B. Mayer would never have permitted such a script unless Washington asked for it: "We even had to take out the word 'community' because he felt it sounded too much like 'communism.' "

[blunted by community]

Glenn:
our opinions differ on Ambersons. A lot of people were predicting disaster on Ford's GRAPES OF WRATH. Zanuk had the guts to release it without the preview audience screening. Today we know a preview audience screening is useless.

Kane opened in hawaii because hearst had no pull there. On opening night it sold out and 1,800 people were turned away. Those 1,800 turned up because of all the news jabber connected with the picture. people were bored in the 40s, and would turn up to ANYTHING that had a bit of controversy. ALL THEY HAD AT HOME WAS A RADIO. it could have happened to AMBERSONS. why not? on this topic, one opinion is as good as the next.

Schmidlin has always said Ambersons can't be reconstructed. So what? where ever you turn there is always some one that wants to tell you you something. the world is not flat, and ambersons can't be done. I have a tape here of an Ambersons reconstruction that works. It's a very clinical tape and will not appeal to the masses, which is why a big company will not spend a lot of money to get it done. But it works! it really works!

You can't recreate missing footage, all you can do is represent it in the picture so the viewer gets an idea of what the narrative was. on this level, any movie can be reconstructed if you have the text of what was taken out/not filmed/lost. however, many people can't sit through such a thing. i can, and find it exciiting to boot.

i am a believer of what watching the narrative unfold in context can do for a movie. i have also seen an early reconstruction effort on the stranger, and know that one can be done also. and i saw more than enough materials at lilly to do JOURNEY INTO FEAR. though JOURNEY INTO FEAR might be the hardest one to watch because what was mostly cut out was character gab.

Took me 3 days to get through the Ambersons reconstruction because there was a lot of information to digest. and with each sitting you had to rethink what the scenes that exist now mean. everything changes. I found this 'stills and narrating' reconstruction very exciting, and glad i could get my hands on it. it worked for me. and i hope Schmidlin continues to think it can't be done because that means that the 2 guys with no pony tails that made this Ambersons tape, might get a chance to do it officially.

christopher:
you see! Fat Annie is the provocateur. i'm just a victim of circumstance.

[Oscar Christie]

Blunto,

I agree with your passion for reconstructing Ambersons, but we're really talking about two different ideas.

You're thinking of a Schmidlin-style effort using stills to fill in the blank.

I'm thinking that at some point in the future, who knows maybe 10-15 years from now, the cost of computer generated animation will have fallen enough to make an actual reconstruction of the film possible.

Using the stills and the music and the script, the voices of the actors can be simulated and the film could be re-animated with the missing parts.

But anyway, Ambersons, even in its current form is my favorite film.

[Glenn Anders]

Dear Blunted: I bow to your superior expertise and experience.

One small correction: It was not Schmidlin who said a reconstruction could not be done; it was his professor friend. Schmidlin, as I've recounted several times, said that he was on the trail of a 16mm copy of the entire MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, in an estate vault in Rio. It was his hope that Warner Brothers would finance some kind of major effort, on the lines either you or Oscar has suggested.

Oscar: I think there will come a time when all the great films (and some very bad ones) will be manipulated and incorporated in various other formats, as in other pictorial art. We have seen many experimental examples over the years already.

Regards.

Glenn

[Glenn Anders]

Thanks for the information and encouragement, Jeff.

Glenn

[blunted by community]

glenn:
you bow to my superior blah blah. why so crappy again? i was polite. i said our opinions differ. i'm sorry. i thought we had a bit of fun posting, but you seem genuinely pissed off. if i get the impression that i'm or hurting your feelings, i will avoid any arguments with you. that was not my intention.

if you are trying to start wrestling again for fun, it's too soon. let people get over the last wrestling match. i don't want to be asked to leave.

i don't know, that tale about the legendary 16mm print of welles' ambersons floating around and making secret screenings. it's sort of like the flying dutchman. sounds very mystical, and sounds like a good tale to keep the hopes up.

i can't imagine some corporate studio guy trying to explain that expenditure to his boss. sounds like a good plot for a film. and when the restorer arrives at the house of the eccentric brazilian family that might be able to lead him to a secret screening, it would be like the katina paxinau scene in arkadin! great stuff. hey, HBO made a film about american studios getting pancho villa footage in the silent days, so why not?

fat annie seems to know every square inch of the old board that is no longer around. i'm sure he/she can email you the google address where you can find schmidlin posted that ambersons can't be restored, and he didn't give his professor credit as the originator of the concept.
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[blunted by community]

orcar:
a stills and narration reconstruction works.

a 3-D animated reconstruction is possible now using 3-D Max. i have it with all the extras but have not had a lot of use for it yet, so i don't know it that well, but when i watched a few of the tutotial tapes i have on 3-D Max and saw what it can do, the first thing that crossed my mind was restoring missing footage in ambersons. but not recreating footage, using clip art from the film on like a chess board and moving the pieces around as the narrator reads. it would look nothing like footage. the more you try to imitate footage the more distracting it is.

and i don't think you would need all the voices of the actors. audio books work. the missing scenes in ambersons could be like an audio book with stills, or with animation. also, the stills cache can be augmented by taking clip art from the film and making paste-ups in photoshop. that approach is pretty easy, affordable, and i think pretty darn effective.

what does not work is a lot of reading. in the ambersons, there is so much reading, it would be overwhelming.

also, the copy i have now has herrmann's score from the preamble cd restored. it kicks butt. one of our members here, MTEAL, did all the research, found all the right places to put the stuff, and like i said, it works. no animation, some of it hacked together with 2 vcrs, some of it done in a computer. ragged, jump cuts and all. it worked. i kept coming back to it. now i can't watch the regular ambersons any more. Mteal emailed me, saw that i had posted about it here. he said he would not mind running off a copy for some one.

send him a private message here, get his address, send him a blank tape and sase. if ambersons is your favorite film, you can't live without this incredible reconstruction. the 2 guys that did it are starting the 2004 restoration soon. i was happy with the 2003 restoration, the first complete draft. the whole film all the way till the boarding house. that is the only spot that lost me a bit, eugene getting from the hospital to the boarding house, but that should be easy enough to fix.
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[blunted by community]

oscar, i have more to say:

1) cutting into footage to put in stuff that looks sort of like footage (3-D), i don't know. might be too distracting. would look like a crime scene graphic. the viewer will see the special effect, not the story. but this is only a guess.

2) cutting into footage with stuff that does not try to imitate footage; stills, captures, and story boards over narration works. it's used all the time in documentaries.

3) draw a comic book of the missing scenes. make high resolution scans. use software (STAGETOOLS, or AFTER EFFECTS) that mimics a motion platform, and as the narrator reads, the motion platform moves the comic book.

4) (what i would do) get an artists to make a bunch of dark, stylized charcoal drawings. very generic in detail. not do all those movements like the motion platform, no pans or zooms. assemble it from cuts only. you cut the charcoal drawings to keep pace with the narrator. since the charcoal drawings look nothing like footage, the viewer's imagination would provide the film while charcoal drawings provide a bit of foundation.

5) have a reader on a stool tell you the story. welles himself could have done this in his later years, but not on a stool.

bet you all but #1 would work. and #1 would work but not as well as the others.

[Christopher]

Dear Blunted,

Some miles back on this thread, you assured me you were enjoying your altercation with Glenn, although enjoyment was not the feeling I'd been picking up in your posts. Then you told me, "The only thing in this thread that put me off is you telling me to go elsewhere." I saw that as a provocative remark and decided to let it pass. Since you've alluded to it again in a recent post, I'd like to clarify that I would never tell you or anyone else on this board "to go elsewhere." Who am I, a new kid on the block, to be telling people where to go? What I simply meant was that you and Glenn were getting so far off the topioc -- if you'll recall, you'd begun to throw grammar and writing style at one another -- that your discourse was losing its interest, at least for me. I never had the slightest wish or intention to annoy you or hurt your feelings, and when I said that every discussion needs a provocateur, I meant it positively. I like a quick mind that thinks in a fresh, original way and stirs things up and doesn't fall for the crap. So I hope we will understand each other a little better from now on.

All good wishes,

Chris

[Glenn Anders]

Dear Blunted: You are too much! Can you not take statements at face value? Rather than nitpick small details that might or might not be confirmed, I simply accepted your last transmission, pretty much as it stood.

But then you go that extra step you have taken several times: You tell me that I did not hear Mr. Schmidlin break into a conversation I was having with his SF University host, at the "San Francisco Modern Art Museum Seven Arts Series" presentation of GREED, last year. It was Schmidlin who contradicted the good professor, saying that he thought a restoration of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, similar to the one he had done on GREED, simpler perhaps than what has been discussed here was possible. Then, he added his hopes for finding the 16mm copy in Rio. He claimed that he had an agent working on the project, and that he wanted to discuss the matter with Warner Brothers in the next week.

I have presented this account on two other occasions here.

And so my story was not an urban legend, not a rumor passed on, but my own personal experience. So yeah, when you dismiss it as a pipe dream scenario for movie (a possibile project that I jocularly raised earlier), you do piss me off. In this case, as in several others, but particularly in this instance, you are not engaged in friendly joshing, as you persist in describing your style; you are attacking my veracity and integrity.

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I have read about the restoration work of other Wellsians here, and because I assume that THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS is now in Public Domain, I applaud the private efforts of colleagues here.

Glenn

[Christopher]

Hello, everyone,

I have a question about AMBERSONS I'd like to throw out to the group: suppose Welles hadn't left for Brazil and he'd moved into RKO, working day and night on the final cut. Would he have retained control or would RKO have stepped in at some point and insisted on changes, a new ending and so on? Consider the big picture: KANE had bombed. RKO was in financial distress. Schafter was about to get canned. The movement to oust Welles and his Mercury players was growing and, to top it all off, the pre-release preview of AMBERSONS got extremely negative responses. Isn't it possible that what doomed AMBERSONS was not so much Welles's six-month trip to Brazil as his inability to make a commercial picture geared to a mass audience?

[Glenn Anders]

Dear Christopher: I agree with you, no one should be "asked to go elsewhere" for honestly expressing his/her views on a subject at hand. A modicum of trust, civility, and clarity is necessary. Whenever we question each other's integrity, whenever we engage vituperation which evidently must be censored, whenever we are not clear about what we are referring to, we lose the game.

I trust that we are all capable of seeing that.

At least, we are on the lookout for the latest actions of Beatrice here, I guess.

If not, next someone will be suggesting that one of us IS Beatrice. [Truly, just kidding.]

Forward!

Glenn

[Christopher]

Dear Glenn,

I feel we should all try, as much as possible, to keep our cool. Meanwhile, I appreciated the background details you provided a number of posts ago when the subject of why Welles went to Brazil was under discussion. The patriotic fever that existed at the time, and which you described so well, helped me understand even more why Welles accepted the government's offer. I can only add that if Welles made a mistake, Rockefeller made an even bigger one. If the government wanted a feel-good-about-Brazil documentary, they should have hired Walt Disney.

Regards,

Chris

[blunted by community]

glenn, you must be reading my posts through vinegar glasses. nothing that you found is my post is there. i have no clue what you are on, but it's not helping your comprehension. also, i enjoy verbal sword fighting very very much. now that you know that about me, if you can't stand the heat, don't put your hand in the oven. if you have thin skin you have no business criticizing ANY ONE.

and christopher, we were back on welles till you and glenn started again. like i said, i love verbal sword fighting, but jeff probably does not appreciate it, and i don't want to be asked to leave. glenn is hallucinating about stuff that is in my posts, and you are following the sleepwalker. i suggest you back up and reread this whole thread before you assign blame to me.

when i realized glenn was hurt, i stopped.

my lasts 4 or 5 posts were civil, polite, and welles related, but glenn continues to hallucinate that i'm attacking him. i had an opinion about the 16mm print of ambersons, i commented on it politely, and glass-glenn gets injured. I had an opinion I posted politely. Can’t I do that here? What do I have to do? agree with everything glenn says, congratulate his posts, slap him on the back? What’s the deal? read my last 4 or 5 posts and see if glenn's reaction is warranted.

if you two guys can't start being polite, and stop attacking innocent wellesnet members, i will register my complaint with the bar manager.
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[blunted by community]

some clarifications:

glenn said:
But then you go that extra step you have taken several times: You tell me that I did not hear Mr. Schmidlin break into a conversation

blunted:
several times? i have a $100 bill here i will mail you if you can find just one place where i said that you did not hear something schmidlin said.

glenn said:
I have presented this account on two other occasions here.
And so my story was not an urban legend, not a rumor passed on, but my own personal experience. So yeah, when you dismiss it as a pipe dream

blunted:
same hundred goes out if you can find where i used the word pipe dream. i don't agree with you. so how do i go about not agreeing with you? do i need to email you?

glenn:
(about ambersons print) scenario for movie (a possibile project that I jocularly raised earlier), you do piss me off.

blunted:
i have no way of knowing everything you post. do i need to know everything you post before i post and not piss you off?

glenn:
In this case, as in several others, but particularly in this instance, you are not engaged in friendly joshing, as you persist in describing your style;

blunted:
that $100 goes out if you can find anywhere that i wrote i do friendly joshing. joshing is such an awfull word and i would never use it.

glenn:
you are attacking my veracity and integrity.

blunted:
i don't know you, how can i attack your integrity, and veracity? you have thin skin and should not criticize people because people have a bad habit of replying to you.

glenn:
have read about the restoration work of other Wellsians here, and because I assume that THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS is now in Public Domain, I applaud the private efforts of colleagues here.

blunted:
i don't think ambersons is in the public doamain, but i don't know everything, and i'm not affraid to admit it.

bet you in a week this thread will be up to 1000 views.