Where will it be in 2008 ?
as Stefan Droessler said in his closing words in Locarno - this is still open ...
Locarno Wrap-Up
by Eve » Wed Jan 04, 2006 9:06 am
During the festival there were a few articles by Geoffrey Macnab published in "Pardo News" - concerning various topics. Here are some of them ...
Capturing the "Ambersons"
The ongoing attempt to salvage Welles’s mutilated masterpiece
Flash back to 1942. It is a Saturday night in Pomona, California, and a young crowd is in the cinema to see a preview of what is expected to be an upbeat musical. The movie begins and so do the yawns and catcalls. Thus begins the sorry story which lead to the mutilation of "The Magnificent Ambersons", Orson Welles’s second feature.
by Geoffrey Macnab
Welles always claimed that his own father was the model for Eugene Morgan, the inventor in Booth Tarkington’s 1919 Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the "Ambersons". If this really was the case, that would make Welles the model for George Amberson Minafer, he headstrong and arrogant young man who refuses to accept Eugene as a stepfather. In the movie, George gets his come-uppance. In real life, so did Welles. After that Pomona preview, RKO took the film away from him and re-edited it. Another preview was held, this time in Pasadena. The audience liked the film, but the studio continued tinkering.
“Even in its mutilated form, I’d say the first 30 minutes of it are as good as anything ever done,” says Joseph McBride, the Welles expert who will be discussing the film’s troubled production history at the workshop on the "Ambersons". He points out that Welles was the victim of bitter studio in-fighting.
“It all began with "Citizen Kane", where Welles offended William Randolph Hearst and that caused great problems for Hollywood. That made RKO very nervous about Welles.” says McBride (whose new book "Whatever Happened To Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career", will appear shortly.)
The young filmmaker was regarded by conservative studio bosses as a dangerous, artsy radical from New York. The antagonism toward him deepened after his protector, RKO topper George Schaefer, lost his job. It didn’t help either that he was away in South America shooting It’s All True when the fiercest battles over the "Ambersons" were being fought.
McBride has spoken often with Robert Wise, by all accounts an extremely genial man and a very accomplished filmmaker in his own right. The paradox is that Wise was the editor: RKO’s hatchet-man with the scissors. He winnowed down the 131 minute preview cut to under 90 minutes. Wise has admitted that Welles’s original film was better than the bowdlerised cut that RKO eventually released. Nonetheless, he still stands by his actions.
At least, snippets of the original have been salvaged. Roger Ryan’s 111 minute reconstruction, the centre-piece of the workshop, uses publicity stills, collages and re-worked and copied images from the film. He was guided by a “cutting continuity” document made by RKO of the original 131 cut. McBride calls the reconstruction “an imaginative effort from a fan to put together a film he loves. I was amazed that somebody had the brilliance to do that without any real resources.”
Is there any chance that Welles’s missing footage will ever re-emerge? McBride raises the tantalising possibility that there may still be a complete print of Welles’s missing masterpiece. RKO burned the negative of Welles’s version in 1942, but it is known that Welles took a rough cut of "Ambersons" to South America.
“Officially, he is supposed to have surrendered the print, but it’s kind of hard to believe he would do that,” says McBride. “What we hope is that he didn’t do that and that the print stayed in South America...there have been Welles scholars poking around Brazil, hoping they could find it, Stranger things have happened.”
(Pardo News, 5th August 2005, page 14)
Capturing the "Ambersons"
The ongoing attempt to salvage Welles’s mutilated masterpiece
Flash back to 1942. It is a Saturday night in Pomona, California, and a young crowd is in the cinema to see a preview of what is expected to be an upbeat musical. The movie begins and so do the yawns and catcalls. Thus begins the sorry story which lead to the mutilation of "The Magnificent Ambersons", Orson Welles’s second feature.
by Geoffrey Macnab
Welles always claimed that his own father was the model for Eugene Morgan, the inventor in Booth Tarkington’s 1919 Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the "Ambersons". If this really was the case, that would make Welles the model for George Amberson Minafer, he headstrong and arrogant young man who refuses to accept Eugene as a stepfather. In the movie, George gets his come-uppance. In real life, so did Welles. After that Pomona preview, RKO took the film away from him and re-edited it. Another preview was held, this time in Pasadena. The audience liked the film, but the studio continued tinkering.
“Even in its mutilated form, I’d say the first 30 minutes of it are as good as anything ever done,” says Joseph McBride, the Welles expert who will be discussing the film’s troubled production history at the workshop on the "Ambersons". He points out that Welles was the victim of bitter studio in-fighting.
“It all began with "Citizen Kane", where Welles offended William Randolph Hearst and that caused great problems for Hollywood. That made RKO very nervous about Welles.” says McBride (whose new book "Whatever Happened To Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career", will appear shortly.)
The young filmmaker was regarded by conservative studio bosses as a dangerous, artsy radical from New York. The antagonism toward him deepened after his protector, RKO topper George Schaefer, lost his job. It didn’t help either that he was away in South America shooting It’s All True when the fiercest battles over the "Ambersons" were being fought.
McBride has spoken often with Robert Wise, by all accounts an extremely genial man and a very accomplished filmmaker in his own right. The paradox is that Wise was the editor: RKO’s hatchet-man with the scissors. He winnowed down the 131 minute preview cut to under 90 minutes. Wise has admitted that Welles’s original film was better than the bowdlerised cut that RKO eventually released. Nonetheless, he still stands by his actions.
At least, snippets of the original have been salvaged. Roger Ryan’s 111 minute reconstruction, the centre-piece of the workshop, uses publicity stills, collages and re-worked and copied images from the film. He was guided by a “cutting continuity” document made by RKO of the original 131 cut. McBride calls the reconstruction “an imaginative effort from a fan to put together a film he loves. I was amazed that somebody had the brilliance to do that without any real resources.”
Is there any chance that Welles’s missing footage will ever re-emerge? McBride raises the tantalising possibility that there may still be a complete print of Welles’s missing masterpiece. RKO burned the negative of Welles’s version in 1942, but it is known that Welles took a rough cut of "Ambersons" to South America.
“Officially, he is supposed to have surrendered the print, but it’s kind of hard to believe he would do that,” says McBride. “What we hope is that he didn’t do that and that the print stayed in South America...there have been Welles scholars poking around Brazil, hoping they could find it, Stranger things have happened.”
(Pardo News, 5th August 2005, page 14)
- Eve
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by Eve » Wed Jan 04, 2006 9:10 am
The Adventures of Mr Welles in the Land of the Slavs
"The Other Side Of Welles" tells Orson Welles’ love affair with Croatia
Orson Welles first visited the former Yugoslavia in the 1950s. “It was one of those desolate winters. We were all freezing to death,” Welles recalled, but he soon came to love the Balkans. He worked in Croatia many times, both as an actor and as a director. Oja Kodar, his muse and closest companion in the latter part of his life, was a Croatian.
by Geoffrey Macnab
"The Other Side Of Welles", a new documentary by Daniel Rafaelic and Leon Rizmaul, explores the maestro’s long love affair with Croatia. The filmmakers have unearthed footage of an interview Welles gave to Croatian TV in 1979. They have also spoken to many of the key collaborators in his various Balkan-set-projects, including Jeanne Moreau who talks extensively about her work with Welles on "The Trial" and "The Deep" (both shot in Croatia.) Sadly Oja Kodar herself was unable to take part in the documentary, but there is no shortage of other witnesses to the exploits of the maverick in their midst.
Welles was utterly frank when asked just why he first ventured to Eastern Europe. “I often make bad films in order to live and I’m sorry to say quite a lot of these bad films were made in your country,” he tells his interviewers as he holds court in a Croatian TV studio.
It’s all true: Welles did make some stinkers during his forays to the former Yugoslavia. The documentary includes scenes from the biblical epic "David and Goliath", in which Welles was cast true to type as the bearded, magisterial King Saul, and "The Tartars", in which he gave a roaring performance as a very hirsute-looking warrior leader. By the same token, on the evidence shown here, his performance as the Chetnik senator in Second World War epic "The Battle Of Neretva", was utterly riveting. Moreover, as Rafaelic points out, he made "The Trial", one of his very best films, in Zagreb. He also worked with the great Abel Gance on "Austerlitz" and he appeared in the adventurous biopic, "The Secret Life Of Nikola Tesla".
Welles had an exhaustive knowledge of Balkan history, but some of his pronouncements may raise eyebrows among contemporary audiences. “It’s a self-evident fact that the greatest man in the world today is President Tito,” he declares at one point.
“It’s quite natural that he had a special bond with Tito,” says Rafaelic. “The political climate allowed him to act, direct and to move freely. Yugoslavia for Orson was at that time a great playground.” Welles knew Tito well, having first met him in 1946. Nonetheless, Rafaelic suspects the remark was “half-ironic.”
Throughout his interview with Croatian TV, Welles is open and self-deprecating. “I’m an amateur director in the sense that amateur derives from the word “love”, he says. Nor does he hide his affection for the land of his hosts. “I’ve become such an honorary Yugoslavian that whenever you win a football game or a basketball game, I become excited,” the great man confesses.
(Pardo News, 9th August 2005, page 14)
"The Other Side Of Welles" tells Orson Welles’ love affair with Croatia
Orson Welles first visited the former Yugoslavia in the 1950s. “It was one of those desolate winters. We were all freezing to death,” Welles recalled, but he soon came to love the Balkans. He worked in Croatia many times, both as an actor and as a director. Oja Kodar, his muse and closest companion in the latter part of his life, was a Croatian.
by Geoffrey Macnab
"The Other Side Of Welles", a new documentary by Daniel Rafaelic and Leon Rizmaul, explores the maestro’s long love affair with Croatia. The filmmakers have unearthed footage of an interview Welles gave to Croatian TV in 1979. They have also spoken to many of the key collaborators in his various Balkan-set-projects, including Jeanne Moreau who talks extensively about her work with Welles on "The Trial" and "The Deep" (both shot in Croatia.) Sadly Oja Kodar herself was unable to take part in the documentary, but there is no shortage of other witnesses to the exploits of the maverick in their midst.
Welles was utterly frank when asked just why he first ventured to Eastern Europe. “I often make bad films in order to live and I’m sorry to say quite a lot of these bad films were made in your country,” he tells his interviewers as he holds court in a Croatian TV studio.
It’s all true: Welles did make some stinkers during his forays to the former Yugoslavia. The documentary includes scenes from the biblical epic "David and Goliath", in which Welles was cast true to type as the bearded, magisterial King Saul, and "The Tartars", in which he gave a roaring performance as a very hirsute-looking warrior leader. By the same token, on the evidence shown here, his performance as the Chetnik senator in Second World War epic "The Battle Of Neretva", was utterly riveting. Moreover, as Rafaelic points out, he made "The Trial", one of his very best films, in Zagreb. He also worked with the great Abel Gance on "Austerlitz" and he appeared in the adventurous biopic, "The Secret Life Of Nikola Tesla".
Welles had an exhaustive knowledge of Balkan history, but some of his pronouncements may raise eyebrows among contemporary audiences. “It’s a self-evident fact that the greatest man in the world today is President Tito,” he declares at one point.
“It’s quite natural that he had a special bond with Tito,” says Rafaelic. “The political climate allowed him to act, direct and to move freely. Yugoslavia for Orson was at that time a great playground.” Welles knew Tito well, having first met him in 1946. Nonetheless, Rafaelic suspects the remark was “half-ironic.”
Throughout his interview with Croatian TV, Welles is open and self-deprecating. “I’m an amateur director in the sense that amateur derives from the word “love”, he says. Nor does he hide his affection for the land of his hosts. “I’ve become such an honorary Yugoslavian that whenever you win a football game or a basketball game, I become excited,” the great man confesses.
(Pardo News, 9th August 2005, page 14)
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by Eve » Wed Jan 04, 2006 9:49 am
My Father The Hero
How it felt to grow up with a legend.
In Locarno for the Orson Welles retrospective, the late director’s daughter Christopher Welles reminisces about her father; discusses the book she has written about him, and reflects on her own career as author and inventor.
by Geoffrey Macnab
No specific name is mentioned in Chris Welles’ book, “The Movie Director”, but she doesn’t expect readers will have much difficulty in working out who it is about. “This is not meant to be a literal portrait of my father. It’s a fictive portrait, a work of imagination. The idea is that the movie director becomes a metaphor for the artist working in Hollywood.”
The book includes poetry and dramatic monologues. Here in Locarno, she has been selling copies in aid of the Munich Film Museum, where Orson Welles’ unfinished films are lodged.
Born in the late 1930s, Chris Welles grew up in Hollywood. Welles divorced her mother when Chris was still a very young child, but her parents remained on amicable terms. “They were very friendly. He lived next door to us and was in and out of our house all the time.”
Chris was five years old when she first saw her father on stage, performing as part of “The Mercury Wonder Show” to raise the morale of US troops in the Second World War. This was a magic show featuring lions, leopards, clowns and acrobats as well as plenty of magic tricks from the maestro himself.
One of Welles’ routines, captures for posterity in the propaganda film “Follow The Boys”, especially captivated his young daughter. Every night, he would saw a woman in half. The first time Chris saw the trick performed, the woman in the bid long box was Rita Hayworth. “He would start sawing away and the box would separate. Then he would put the box back together and the woman would come out – and she would be fine.”
Chris clearly shares some of her father’s ingenuity. In 1992, under the slogan “It’s OK to be Smart”, she invented an educational card game called “Brain Quest”. The game, based on information children need to learn during their schooling, has become a bestseller.
Since Orson Welles died in 1985, she notes, many new books about him have been published. Plays are being written in which he is a character. There are many documentaries. Here in Locarno, Chris has learned “something new every day” about her father. In particular, she was inspired by Robert Fischer’s work-in-progress, “Citizen Of America”, about Welles’ radio campaign to bring justice a racist cop. “I loved learning this because not only was m father a great artist but he was a man of high principle who fought for his ideas, even if it cost him personally.”
Her philosophy about how Welles’ legacy should be handled is unequivocal. “I believe my father’s work should be shown at every opportunity, even his unfinished work. Everything should be shown because everything is valuable.”
This is not a view shared by her half-sister Beatrice Welles, who has stopped certain screenings of Welles’ films at festivals and retrospectives. “I’m not in touch with my sister Beatrice and I am not in agreement with what she is doing.” Chris declares. “I am as amazed as you are. I don’t understand it.”
(Pardo News, 11th August 2005, page 4)
How it felt to grow up with a legend.
In Locarno for the Orson Welles retrospective, the late director’s daughter Christopher Welles reminisces about her father; discusses the book she has written about him, and reflects on her own career as author and inventor.
by Geoffrey Macnab
No specific name is mentioned in Chris Welles’ book, “The Movie Director”, but she doesn’t expect readers will have much difficulty in working out who it is about. “This is not meant to be a literal portrait of my father. It’s a fictive portrait, a work of imagination. The idea is that the movie director becomes a metaphor for the artist working in Hollywood.”
The book includes poetry and dramatic monologues. Here in Locarno, she has been selling copies in aid of the Munich Film Museum, where Orson Welles’ unfinished films are lodged.
Born in the late 1930s, Chris Welles grew up in Hollywood. Welles divorced her mother when Chris was still a very young child, but her parents remained on amicable terms. “They were very friendly. He lived next door to us and was in and out of our house all the time.”
Chris was five years old when she first saw her father on stage, performing as part of “The Mercury Wonder Show” to raise the morale of US troops in the Second World War. This was a magic show featuring lions, leopards, clowns and acrobats as well as plenty of magic tricks from the maestro himself.
One of Welles’ routines, captures for posterity in the propaganda film “Follow The Boys”, especially captivated his young daughter. Every night, he would saw a woman in half. The first time Chris saw the trick performed, the woman in the bid long box was Rita Hayworth. “He would start sawing away and the box would separate. Then he would put the box back together and the woman would come out – and she would be fine.”
Chris clearly shares some of her father’s ingenuity. In 1992, under the slogan “It’s OK to be Smart”, she invented an educational card game called “Brain Quest”. The game, based on information children need to learn during their schooling, has become a bestseller.
Since Orson Welles died in 1985, she notes, many new books about him have been published. Plays are being written in which he is a character. There are many documentaries. Here in Locarno, Chris has learned “something new every day” about her father. In particular, she was inspired by Robert Fischer’s work-in-progress, “Citizen Of America”, about Welles’ radio campaign to bring justice a racist cop. “I loved learning this because not only was m father a great artist but he was a man of high principle who fought for his ideas, even if it cost him personally.”
Her philosophy about how Welles’ legacy should be handled is unequivocal. “I believe my father’s work should be shown at every opportunity, even his unfinished work. Everything should be shown because everything is valuable.”
This is not a view shared by her half-sister Beatrice Welles, who has stopped certain screenings of Welles’ films at festivals and retrospectives. “I’m not in touch with my sister Beatrice and I am not in agreement with what she is doing.” Chris declares. “I am as amazed as you are. I don’t understand it.”
(Pardo News, 11th August 2005, page 4)
- Eve
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by Eve » Wed Jan 04, 2006 3:07 pm
A Lament for Merrie England
Orson Welles’ favourite among his films receives a rare screening in Locarno
Many actors have played Shakespeare’s Falstaff as a buffoon. In “Chimes at Midnight”, Orson Welles portrays him as a hero: a benevolent and humorous figure representing an idealised and chivalric old England destined to be swept away by the forces of war and modernity. In one of the most moving scenes in all of Welles’ work, we see Falstaff ultimately cast aside by his beloved prince.
by Geoffrey Macnab
“Chimes at Midnight” inspires a huge affection among Welles enthusiasts. For Adriana Saltzman, wife of its producer Harry Saltzman, this is “the most passionate creation” of the maverick filmmaker: a film which benefits from Welles’ profound understanding of Shakespeare and the strong personal affinity he clearly felt for his material. “Ultimately, it’s the humanity of Orson Welles which comes out in the suffering of Falstaff when his friendship is betrayed.”
Welles’ daughter Christopher also nominates this as her favourite among her father’s works. “It’s a very poetic movie. Normally, I don’t like to watch violence in films, but when I see the battle scenes in Kurosawa, it’s like watching a ballet. In the same way in “Chimes at Midnight”, the battle sequence is so beautiful and so lyrical. That’s one reason I love the movie. The other is that for my father, this was one his great, great roles as an actor.”
Like so many of Welles’ films, “Chimes At Midnight” had a troubled production history. The money ran out during shooting. It was at this point that Harry Saltzman leapt to the rescue. The film was finally finished in time for its screening in Cannes in 1966.
To the dismay of Welles’ enthusiasts, the troubles besetting “Chimes” have continued long after its initial release. The rights isssues surrounding the film are so vexed that it is very difficult to show it. The roots of the problem stretch back to not long after Saltzman rescued the film. He was given world distribution rights excluding France and Spain (which belonged to the Spanish producer Emiliano Piedra.) Saltzman asked another company to distribute “Chimes” on his behalf. This company was subsequently taken over. The new owners thought “Chimes” belonged to them. As the wrangling over ownership intensified, the film was taken out of circulation. When London’s National Film Theatre held a Welles’ retrospective in 2003, “Chimes” was not included.
Adriana Saltzman has been waging a legal battle for seven years to clear up the rights issues. “The action continues and the treasure stays at the bottom of the well,” she observes. For one night only, that treasure is being hauled to the surface here in Locarno. “I hope that this exceptional screening will mark the beginning of the unknotting of all the ties imprisoning this great gift from Orson Welles to our cinematic heritage,” Saltzman wrote in a recent letter to the festival.
(Pardo News, 12th August 2005, page 14)
Orson Welles’ favourite among his films receives a rare screening in Locarno
Many actors have played Shakespeare’s Falstaff as a buffoon. In “Chimes at Midnight”, Orson Welles portrays him as a hero: a benevolent and humorous figure representing an idealised and chivalric old England destined to be swept away by the forces of war and modernity. In one of the most moving scenes in all of Welles’ work, we see Falstaff ultimately cast aside by his beloved prince.
by Geoffrey Macnab
“Chimes at Midnight” inspires a huge affection among Welles enthusiasts. For Adriana Saltzman, wife of its producer Harry Saltzman, this is “the most passionate creation” of the maverick filmmaker: a film which benefits from Welles’ profound understanding of Shakespeare and the strong personal affinity he clearly felt for his material. “Ultimately, it’s the humanity of Orson Welles which comes out in the suffering of Falstaff when his friendship is betrayed.”
Welles’ daughter Christopher also nominates this as her favourite among her father’s works. “It’s a very poetic movie. Normally, I don’t like to watch violence in films, but when I see the battle scenes in Kurosawa, it’s like watching a ballet. In the same way in “Chimes at Midnight”, the battle sequence is so beautiful and so lyrical. That’s one reason I love the movie. The other is that for my father, this was one his great, great roles as an actor.”
Like so many of Welles’ films, “Chimes At Midnight” had a troubled production history. The money ran out during shooting. It was at this point that Harry Saltzman leapt to the rescue. The film was finally finished in time for its screening in Cannes in 1966.
To the dismay of Welles’ enthusiasts, the troubles besetting “Chimes” have continued long after its initial release. The rights isssues surrounding the film are so vexed that it is very difficult to show it. The roots of the problem stretch back to not long after Saltzman rescued the film. He was given world distribution rights excluding France and Spain (which belonged to the Spanish producer Emiliano Piedra.) Saltzman asked another company to distribute “Chimes” on his behalf. This company was subsequently taken over. The new owners thought “Chimes” belonged to them. As the wrangling over ownership intensified, the film was taken out of circulation. When London’s National Film Theatre held a Welles’ retrospective in 2003, “Chimes” was not included.
Adriana Saltzman has been waging a legal battle for seven years to clear up the rights issues. “The action continues and the treasure stays at the bottom of the well,” she observes. For one night only, that treasure is being hauled to the surface here in Locarno. “I hope that this exceptional screening will mark the beginning of the unknotting of all the ties imprisoning this great gift from Orson Welles to our cinematic heritage,” Saltzman wrote in a recent letter to the festival.
(Pardo News, 12th August 2005, page 14)
- Eve
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by Eve » Wed Jan 04, 2006 3:09 pm
Shielded From A Scorching Sun
Oja Kodar on life with Orson
When Orson Welles died 20 years ago, he bequeathed Oja Kodar (his collaborator, muse and companion in the last years of his life) a huge amount of material: unfinished scripts, fragments of films, books, sketches.
by Geoffrey Macnab
An artist, sculptress, writer and filmmaker in her own right, the Croatian-born Kodar is almost as much a polymath as Welles himself. Not that she felt eclipsed by her companion. “I call it being shielded from a scorching sun,” she says of being so closely in his orbit.
Kodar first met Welles when he was in Zagreb filming “The Trial” in the early 1960s. They were introduced by Welles’ cameraman, Edmond Richard. Welles began to ask her questions about her background. Later, he sent a limousine to the suburbs of Zagreb to take her to the set so she could see him work. “The neighbours were all looking, asking what is this car doing in our street. The chauffeur came, picked me up and took me to the set. Orson waited for me, opened the door, and kissed my hand in front of everybody. I wanted to die, I was so embarassed. This was how we started – let’s put it that way.”
For the next 15 years, Welles and Kodar roamed the world (“we were moving around like gypsies”) before eventually setting up home, first in France and then in LA.
The question after his death was what to do with her material. “The cost of keeping it in a proper condition was too much for my budget.”
At the time, she was living in Los Angeles, but she yearned to return to Europe. “Hollywood was a place where I never felt comfortable or happy. The life is easygoing, but without Orson, it was really an empty, empty place.”
Kodar was reluctant to donate her Welles material to an American archive. She had heard rumours that US archivists could be sloppy and disorganised. “That, of course, terrified me.” She briefly contemplated giving the material to the Cinematheque Francais before finally deciding that the Munich Film Archive was the best home.
“You know, the stereotype thinking is that the Germans are very precise, very punctual, very organised. I said to myself maybe I should choose Germany.”
Anyone who worked with Welles was expected to do a little bit of everything. On her movies with him, Kodar was “translator, driver, cook, focus puller, actress, gaffer, you name it,” but she learned a huge amount about filmmaking in the process.
Welles was a consummate teacher. At one stage, he had proposed setting up his own film school in France. He was going to call it “The Jean Renoir School.” When that scheme came to nothing, he considered taking such school to a small town on the Adriatic coast close to where he made “The Deep”. But this was still the communist era and the authorities weren’t ready to support such a venture. Now, Kodar is hoping to set up a film school herself. “This school is not going to be called the Jean Renoir school. It will be called the Orson Welles school.” Munich, she suggests, may be the best place for such a school.
As for the disputes over rights surrounding so many Welles’ films, Kodar says: “it’s so complicated it is a movie in itself. If I told you some of the things going on during and fter the making of certain projects, you’d find it...mind boggling!”
(Pardo News, 13th August 2005, page 4)
Oja Kodar on life with Orson
When Orson Welles died 20 years ago, he bequeathed Oja Kodar (his collaborator, muse and companion in the last years of his life) a huge amount of material: unfinished scripts, fragments of films, books, sketches.
by Geoffrey Macnab
An artist, sculptress, writer and filmmaker in her own right, the Croatian-born Kodar is almost as much a polymath as Welles himself. Not that she felt eclipsed by her companion. “I call it being shielded from a scorching sun,” she says of being so closely in his orbit.
Kodar first met Welles when he was in Zagreb filming “The Trial” in the early 1960s. They were introduced by Welles’ cameraman, Edmond Richard. Welles began to ask her questions about her background. Later, he sent a limousine to the suburbs of Zagreb to take her to the set so she could see him work. “The neighbours were all looking, asking what is this car doing in our street. The chauffeur came, picked me up and took me to the set. Orson waited for me, opened the door, and kissed my hand in front of everybody. I wanted to die, I was so embarassed. This was how we started – let’s put it that way.”
For the next 15 years, Welles and Kodar roamed the world (“we were moving around like gypsies”) before eventually setting up home, first in France and then in LA.
The question after his death was what to do with her material. “The cost of keeping it in a proper condition was too much for my budget.”
At the time, she was living in Los Angeles, but she yearned to return to Europe. “Hollywood was a place where I never felt comfortable or happy. The life is easygoing, but without Orson, it was really an empty, empty place.”
Kodar was reluctant to donate her Welles material to an American archive. She had heard rumours that US archivists could be sloppy and disorganised. “That, of course, terrified me.” She briefly contemplated giving the material to the Cinematheque Francais before finally deciding that the Munich Film Archive was the best home.
“You know, the stereotype thinking is that the Germans are very precise, very punctual, very organised. I said to myself maybe I should choose Germany.”
Anyone who worked with Welles was expected to do a little bit of everything. On her movies with him, Kodar was “translator, driver, cook, focus puller, actress, gaffer, you name it,” but she learned a huge amount about filmmaking in the process.
Welles was a consummate teacher. At one stage, he had proposed setting up his own film school in France. He was going to call it “The Jean Renoir School.” When that scheme came to nothing, he considered taking such school to a small town on the Adriatic coast close to where he made “The Deep”. But this was still the communist era and the authorities weren’t ready to support such a venture. Now, Kodar is hoping to set up a film school herself. “This school is not going to be called the Jean Renoir school. It will be called the Orson Welles school.” Munich, she suggests, may be the best place for such a school.
As for the disputes over rights surrounding so many Welles’ films, Kodar says: “it’s so complicated it is a movie in itself. If I told you some of the things going on during and fter the making of certain projects, you’d find it...mind boggling!”
(Pardo News, 13th August 2005, page 4)
- Eve
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by mteal » Sun Jan 15, 2006 12:36 am
I'd like to see many of those Welles documentaries that were shown at Locarno, especially the one showing OW on the set of MALPERTUIS, apparently giving the crew a hard time. I guess that one's on the Malpertuis European DVD. THE OTHER SIDE OF WELLES looks very interesting too. I get the feeling that his relationship with the Balkans and Middle East in general is unexplored territory.
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