Welles at Yale

[Phil Rosenthal]

I am absolutely psyched about the Welles symposium at Yale, beginning tonight. I live 15 minutes from New Haven, so, after having read about so many great Welles events I couldn't get to, I finally get to go to one. I was hoping to see Gary Graver's afternoon showing of rare Welles in Easthampton, MA last spring, but decided it was impossible since I had to get ready for a for a trip the next morning. Some opportunities don't come again. Can anyone who's seen "Filming Othello" tell me if they think it's worth seeing. Sounds like it could be a little dry. I'm trying to decide if I want to go to tonight's showing, or save my energy the rest of the event.

[Store Hadji]

Since I'm a 15 hour drive away and seem to have most of what they'll screen already, I'm not tempted to go. I would like to hear the presentations. Oh well.

Filming Othello is a minor work in my opinion, but interesting. Most of it is Welles in his living room or at his moviola rambling about the film. I do mean rambling. It's like his brain worked so quickly that his mouth couldn't keep up with his thoughts. I find his pace and delivery hard to follow. He always was one to eliminate periods from his dialogue, jam the end of one sentence into the beginning of the next, and maybe insert a long pause into the middle of a sentence. That technique worked when he was a young man, but by the 1970s it just seemed confusing. After the rambling, there's a conversation with Michael and Hilton, with Welles' reaction shots recorded at another location long after the fact. I think visually they stick out, badly. As far back as the Around the World tv series Welles was doing that, removing what he said in the original conversation and filming some new lecture so he could hold center stage, lecture, command and direct the conversation. He sought out people to interview so that later he could recut and refilm it to turn it into him brow-beating whoever it was. I never liked that tendency of Welles much. He was so good in original conversation, I don't know why he saw need to artificially enlarge his part.

I'd still suggest seeing it, but it's not an ambitious project. Wasn't meant to be.

[DexyMan]

Yeah, as I was watching Portrait of Gina I was thinking the exact same thing. Sometimes it seems like he has inserted an entirely different thought into the conversation and just cuts to a random affirmation by the interviewee. I wonder if this was part of why Lollobrigida didn't like this show...

[Glenn Anders]

Hadji, Dexyman, we seem to be going in two direction with Welles on this board, at the moment. One group insists on protecting the genius of Welles beyond any criticism. The other tends to put Welles down for making less than perfect masterpieces in his later career.

I always think of the comparison once drawn between a European view of an artist, and the American one. In Europe, by and large, they expect an occasional failure or journeyman experiment as part of the process. In America, we have tended to put people on pedestals, and when they get knocked off, consider them failures or has-beens.

Welles probably never shot a foot of film which was not of interest, but all his later films have their share of flaws, some his fault and others beyond his control.

I think it fair to say that he never made a film, even "Portrait of Gina," which was not interesting in at least concept.

Glenn

[ToddBaesen]

To Phil and any other Wellesnet people:

Let us know anything you'd like to report about the event, as I'm sure everyone here will be very interesting in hearing about it...

[Phil Rosenthal]

I didn't attend all the events in the Yale symposium, but of what I did see and hear, here are a few impressions:
Stefan Drossler's presentation "The Unfinished European Films - an illustrated commentary" was the highlight for me, as I'd never seen some of the excerpts he presented, and his comments about the problems presented in working with each film were very interesting. Seeing "The Deep" was a little shocking. I expected something in a more finished state, but the physical deterioration of the film (faded, badly scratched) and the problems with the sound (the mechanical sound of the camera drowns out much of the dialog) make it difficult to see how it could ever be successfully completed, at least in a condition that would appeal to anyone other than a devoted Welles fan. And from even the few scenes that were shown, the whole concept of the project seems a little claustrophobic - I can understand why Welles apparently lost interest in finishing it. "Don Quixote" was much more intriguing. There are so many visually wonderful scenes that work perfectly well without sound (such as the scene in the movie theatre), plus other scenes with clearly dubbed dialog, it makes it hard to understand why Welles, who owned the film, never bothered to complete it in some form. (Or did he? Did he assemble any rough, complete versions of the film at any point?) Jonathan Rosenbaum, in his talk "When Will-and How Can-We Finish Don Quixote?" offered the explanation that Welles enjoyed the process of working on it too much to ever let it go. Seems believable, and supports the argument that Welles was sometimes his own worst enemy as far as achieving financial success as a director.
I hadn't seen "The Immortal Story" in 30 years, and the 35mm print that Stefan Drossler presented was, he said, the finested existing print of the film. What a difference from the washed-out looking version I'd first seen. The colors couldn't have been richer, the sound was perfect (the dialog is very clear, for a change, and the use of music is wonderful). It's a stunning film visually, and certainly sets a mood and has an elegant feel to it - but there's not much in the way of narrative or character development, and short as it is, it feels too long.
Anyway, the whole symposium was really first class (as I guess you'd expect at Yale), planned and presented very well, and there was a lot more to it, but those are a few impressions.

[Store Hadji]

Sorry Glenn, put I'm neither worshipping Welles as God nor wiping my ass on everything he did. You should know that by now. If I see greatness or weaknesses, how is it not my right as a human being to voice an opinion? I think the worst thing any of us can do in life is deny the human rights of another. The worst trend on this board has been the subpopulation devoted to screeching "you can't say that." I just did say it, so get over it.

[Tony]

Phil: thanks for your reporting on the symposium; Im sure anything you can add will be enjoyed by other members.

Store and Dexyman:
I really enjoyed your views on Filming Othello and Viva Italia, and it's so rare for anyone to talk about them; still, I must admit I have a somewhat different take on these works. But before I forget, Store: do you know that Jeff posted a complete transcript of filming Othello (courtesy of Larry French, of course)? The next time you view FO, you can bone up for it with this aide:

http://www.wellesnet.com/filming_othello.htm

Store:
Now as regards your impression: I first saw FO about 10 years ago when Gary Graver brought it to Toronto to show along with his other rarities. It was a beautiful print, and I was shocked at the luxurious colour. Then, I and a friend sat absolutely riveted to our seats as we tried to keep up with Welles. You wrote: "It's like his brain worked so quickly that his mouth couldn't keep up with his thoughts. I find his pace and delivery hard to follow. He always was one to eliminate periods from his dialogue, jam the end of one sentence into the beginning of the next, and maybe insert a long pause into the middle of a sentence. That technique worked when he was a young man, but by the 1970s it just seemed confusing." Well, I must differ with you on this point: I find it thrilling, but exhausting. However, it means that as you can't get it all the first time, you must watch it several times. And of course, Welles always did this in all of his movies: people interrupting each other, rapid delivery, sentences jammed together: just like real life. It's a style also used by another genius, Glenn Gould. Now I've been a Gould fan for years, so when I saw FO, it was just "Cool- this is like Gould." I must also disagree with your claim that " by the 1970s it just seemed confusing". For my money, he was just perfecting this in works like TOSOTW, FO and FFF. However I do agree with your complaint about Welles's reaction shots to Hilton's and Michael's statements being poorly matched: I have always found this disturbing, though Gary Graver explained this: it seems that they only had one camera, and so didn't film Welles's reactions at the time; later, when they went to do that, they discovered the film was no longer made. (You probably also know that they filmed Welles in a gondola touring Venice in the early morning and pointing out sites of Othello scenes, but that that film was stolen.)

You also wrote that Welles was. from the fifties, "...removing what he said in the original conversation and filming some new lecture so he could hold center stage, lecture, command and direct the conversation. He sought out people to interview so that later he could re-cut and re-film it to turn it into him brow-beating whoever it was."

I must admit I agree with this comment; however, I think in his mind, possibly, he was just getting as much info in as possible, in the shortest amount of time, which ends up looking like grandstanding. And any 'browbeating' would be artificially introduced by the Welles parts later inserted. I also noticed this in F For Fake during the dining scene in the restaurant: he really holds court there. But the worst example I have found is in a conversation with Razzano Brazzi on a boat in Viva Italia: Welles's later inserts make him look like a crazed egomaniac, and are extremely disconcerting. In in fact, he does this all through the film. This style really only works well if it is done with great subtlety, or when it is part of the very structure of the piece, as it is in The Fountain of Youth.

DexyMan:
You are right, of course, this is precisely what he is doing; but it's always, it seems to me, in order to transmit some info, or to make a point. It's HIS take on Gina, and perhaps you are correct in guessing that this is the reason she has allowed it to be shown only once. But there are still treasures in this show: I particularly like the way he keeps us waiting to see Gina! He takes sooooo long to get to her house, and when he finally gets there, he takes a commercial break. And then he says we're early, so he takes us on yet another digression before we finally meet her. Perhaps he thought she wasn't that interesting (she's not) and so simply delayed getting to her, but it's quite a "shaggy dog" arrival. And the posters he photographs at the are really interesting, particularly if you still them. However, it is a minor work, though as Glenn as noted (and he and I are sympatico on pretty much everything Wellesian) : " I think it fair to say that he never made a film, even "Portrait of Gina," which was not interesting at least in concept."

Store and DexyMan:
I have a strange view of Welles and his TV work: I think it's his most exciting work. As Welles himself said, TV was the ideal story-telling medium, and he was a story teller. When I look at the works conceived for TV: The Fountain of Youth, Viva Italia, Around the World with Orson Welles, Moby Dick, Dumas, Sketchbook, The Immortal Story, The Ambassadors, The Merchant of Venice, Filming Othello, The Magic Show and Filming The Trial, (and might we even include F For Fake, which seems so TV-like to me?) I think of the films from this same period (1955-1980) and a few (such as Arkadin and the Trial) seem less exciting than this wonderfully eccentric list of TV shows. I know we can't see all of these, but the concepts of the missing ones seem intriguing to me. I just wish Welles had worked more in TV.
:;):

[DexyMan]

I definitely am in agreement about all of Orson's work being high quality. I would prefer to see Portrait of Gina and Around the World with Orson Welles over 99% of the movies out there. And I also agree that his television work his highly interesting and radical. Fountain of Youth is one of my very favorite Welles projects. Nice point on Welles delaying Gina's appearence in the show, I did feel that was a nice touch and kept anticpating her arrival.

My only beef with Welles's tv stuff is that by always re-cutting his side of the conversation in order to make his point he seemed a little too pompous. Now I personally enjoy this because I would much rather hear his opinion than Lollobrigida or Burt Reynolds but I think this is also why his interview shows tended to fail in the U.S. This and the fact that anything he ever did was too far ahead of its time for American moneymen...

[Tony]

Dexyman: Yes, I beleieve that's why his interview show was not picked up- he pontificated too much, and didn't let the show breathe.

[Glenn Anders]

Hadji: With due respect, my interest and experience in the work of Orson Welles now stretches back nearly seventy years. I'm afraid that I'm too old "to get over it."

Tony: Thank you for that link.

You know, Rossano Brazzi, in the early 1970's, was involved in the huge scandal which Francis Ford Coppola used as a matrix for his GODFATHER III. Brazzi, though he continued to work, was never after the international star he had been in the late 1950's and 1960's. That may explain why Welles handled him as he did in "Viva Italia" (which admittedly, I have not seen).

I like your idea about the attractive eccentrities of Welles' later TV work. It may be that it is TV which separates your world and mine. To me, CITIZEN KANE, THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSON (God, what a Hollywood ending Koerner saddled him with), THE STRANGER, or THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, on first sight, in a motion picture theater, when Hollywood was the World Standard for motion pictures, was a startlingly original experience.

To see the TV films is interesting, but because few were seen, in their time, on American Network TV, most of those I've seen, aside from Welles' intimate style of narration, are not so different than many we could see today. [I remember my English girlfriend, Rosemary Hayward, telling me how all her friends marked the time for The Orson Welles' Sketchbook, then premiering on the BBC, in the early 1950's.] Because, as Dexyman suggests, these "tabloid shows" were not seen fresh, they have lost some of their currency.

Glenn

[Tony]

Glenn: You could be right, as I was born in the late 50s, and so never knew a world without TV. Actually, for us TV was in black and white till the 70s, so movies were where you saw colour. I remember when my Grandfather first showed me his new colour TV in 1968, my first thought was that it looked just like a little movie.

My point about Welles and TV does involve his narration and story-telling, which I think were the best in the English world, and this, along with his quick cuts and abbreviated style, were ideal for TV, perhaps more than movies. There's a 1974 documentary on 20th century painting which Welles did, and though he did not write it (god knows why- he certainly knew enough about the subject) or direct it (Hmmm...) he still OWNS this documentary: he's really marvelous. Too bad he wasn't Canadian: the National Film Board would have let him make 100 documentaries.

Glenn: I'm not sure about your reference to Brazzi and the Godfather; I though it was supposed to be Sinatra.

[tonyw]

I could not be at Yale so I thank those of you who have reported back to us, especially Phil. I would like to mention that I saw THE IMMORTAL STORY in 35mm in the old Manchester Film Theatre in 1970 and the color was really amazing. It has remained in my mind since.

The VHS version is a disaster and the DVD marginally better but not good enough to capture the tone of the version I saw years ago. Hopefully, Munich may make this 35mm version available in DVD soon.

[Phil Rosenthal]

Regarding the color on "The Immortal Story" - before screening the film at the Yale symposium yesterday, Stefan Drossler explained that, after after going to great pains to restore the color in the film to the vibrant version we were about to see, he had learned from the film's director of photography Willy Kurant that it had been Welles' intention to soften the color somewhat for the theatrical release. Therefore, the Munich Film Archive will be creating a new print with the color slightly muted in keeping with Welles' wishes, and that will be the version used for future screenings. Seems a shame, because the color in the version I saw yesterday was truly magnificent, but maybe Welles' intentions was to give the film a more subdued, dreamlike quality visually.

[ToddBaesen]

It is very interesting to note what Welles told Willy Kurant about the color he wanted, but at the same time Welles was so often changing his mind, it would seem that the best thing to do would be to have both versions available to show, especially if there is ever a DVD release of that print.

There was a similar situation with John Huston's "Reflections in a Golden Eye." Huston wanted the prints made by Warner Bros. in an golden-amber hue, which WB finally did for the recent Marlon Brando DVD box set release, but after seeing the beautiful and vibrant full colors that the regular version contained, it seems a shame WB didn't just release both versions on a two-sided DVD.

So perhaps if "The Immortal Story" ever gets a DVD release, it could join all the other Welles films we'll be able to see in two different versions.