King Lear

[Peter Tonguette]

Everyone,

I know we've established that Welles shot a videotape in '85 to prospective financiers of "King Lear," but Rosenbaum makes reference in the "This Is Orson Welles" chronology of some B&W video tests for "Lear" that OW shot w/ Graver the same year. I get the impression this wasn't a description of the movie, but actual tests.

Have these ever surfaced and/or has anyone here seen them?

Peter

[ToddBaesen]

Peter:

The answer to this question appears on the Wellesnet news page... better late than never!

[petertonguette]

Todd,

Yes, I see that! Although about two years later, I answered my own question when I interviewed Abb Dickson (who was to play Lear's Fool in the film) for SENSES OF CINEMA. And Gary told me about the same B&W tests he described to Lawrence French.

Cheers,

Peter Tonguette
(returning to the board for the first time in a while...)

[Glenn Anders]

Nice seeing you back here, Peter. I remember some of your excellent interviews. May there be more of them.

I can't resist also observing, how exhilarating and truly magical it would be if Todd Baeson and Larry French could sit down, face to face, in your presense!

Glenn

[ToddBaesen]

In looking at Welles comments on Shakespeare and KING LEAR, it was interesting to me to note that Welles who as we know felt Shakespeare was the greatest artist of all time, always seemed to return to four primary works of William's throughout his career. They were, in the order Shakespeare wrote them:

FALSTAFF
OTHELLO
KING LEAR
MACBETH

Welles of course did each of the above roles on both film and stage, and in the case of Lear and Macbeth, on radio as well.

But, besides these four major parts (since Falstaff is a combination of several plays) Welles also did versons of Shakespeare's other plays, primary among them:

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
JULIUS CAESAR
TWELFTH NIGHT

Of course, it seems more than likely that Welles would have loved to tackle even more of Shakespeare's work...

But it's nice to know that Simon Callow discredits Robert Carringer's idiotic queston about why Welles never attempted to do HAMLET.

Given the limited funds Welles had to work with, one well might ask, why he didn't he attempt Prospero in THE TEMPEST? Or CORIOLANUS? and what about PERICLES?
And why didn't Welles do KING JOHN?

[Tony]

He also made those Columbia 78s.

[ToddBaesen]

Yes, the Mercury Shakespeare, consisting of three plays, was edited by Welles and Roger Hill for the Todd Press and later came out via Harper & Row, along with recordings done on record (and now available on CD), that included:

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
TWELFTH NIGHT
JULIUS CAESAR

And in 1940 Welles added:

MACBETH

Welles also planned to make JULIUS CAESAR as a film, annoucing it for production several times - in the fifties, and still later in the seventies.

So throughout his career Welles returned to the same core plays by Shakespeare.

But why no HAMLET?

Oh, well, it surely must have been because HAMLET reminded Welles of how he was responsible for his own father's death...

Now there's dime-store Freud for you, courtesy of Prof. Carringer.

[Glenn Anders]

Todd: If you would ever submit to deep analysis, as Larry French constantly urges you to, you would know that something in your own past prevents you from recognizing that Welles himself told people he felt guilty in the death of his father. But it's okay because back in those days, the late 1920's and 1930's, the Freudian psychologists were making a case that almost every man had harbored a desire to murder Old Dad. As you know, better than most, a whole school of Freudian Shakespeare critics sprang up around this notion.

Confession is good for the soul, Todd.

[Kruel Karl of the Ha-Ra Klub has gone in for his operation. The last time I saw him, he asked for Larry French, but I think that he has, in recent months, confused the two of you. You may be able to absolve yourself at last, by celebrating his complete recovery, seeing as how Karl suggested that YOU -- and your obsession with the perfect Gimlet -- is the reason he had to have the operation.]

Besides, Todd, you forget that Welles produced a two-part version of Hamlet on Radio in the 1930's.

The roots of father hatred, you surely recognize, and the curious tendrils thereof, run deep in the male psyche.

Repent, Todd Baesen, repent!

Glenn Anders

[Store Hadji]

There's a similar statement in Peter Conrad's essay Orson Welles - The Stories of His Life, that Welles COULDN'T play Hamlet due to certain psychological hang-ups.

I guess such authors never heard the two 1937 broadcasts of Columbia Workshop with Welles playing Hamlet. The shows also credit Welles with the adaption, so it's possible that the text was another Skipper Hill condensation, one which wasn't published or recorded to 78s.

[Store Hadji]

One remembers that for the Mercury Shakespeare books, Hill edited the text while Welles provided descriptions of the setting and stage directions and did the illustrations.