It has been 37 years since Orson Welles took his final bow, but there was no shortage of books, films and other projects for Wellesians to enjoy in 2022.
Lost films, restorations and new appreciations dotted the past 12 months. Some fans were upset to see that Citizen Kane slipped to the No. 3 spot in the Sight & Sound poll of the greatest movies of all time. It is now behind Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles and Vertigo, which may say more about the poll than the impact of Kane.
Sadly, 2022 marked the passing of three close Welles associates, including his “most successful acolyte” — director Peter Bogdanovich, who championed the Welles legacy for decades.
Among the notable happenings of 2022 were:
THE TRIAL RESTORATION: Just in time for its 60th anniversary, StudioCanal released a 4K restoration of The Trial. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May and was recently screened at Film Forum in New York City. Rialto Pictures will soon be taking this polished 1962 gem nationwide. A 4K UHD and Blu-ray release is already available in Europe.
THE ‘LOST’ AMBERSONS: The first exhaustive hunt for Welles’ fabled longer cut of The Magnificent Ambersons got underway in Brazil this past year. Filmmaker Joshua Grossberg is returning to South America to tie up some loose ends before the release of his documentary on the Ambersons debacle and his hunt for the lost print. Meanwhile, Brian Rose was at work through much of the past year painstakingly reconstructing Welles’ original vision using animation to fill in the gaps and deleted original ending. Wellesnet has seen some of his reconstruction and it is quite impressive.
SOCRATES & NOAH: The Welles Estate has secured a copy of the early home video Two Wise Old Men: Socrates and Noah, directed and starring Welles. It comes as the Welles Estate secured the rights to the Peabody Award winning Fountain of Youth and the unsold talk show pilot, The Orson Welles Show. Estate representatives have been talking with streamers and labels in the U.S. and Europe about a distribution deal for all three.
MOVIES ABOUT WELLES: American: An Odyssey to 1947 by filmmaker Danny Wu premiered at the Newport Beach Film Festival in California in October. The documentary focuses on Welles and U.S. politics in the 1930s and ’40s. Meanwhile, Voodoo Macbeth, a look back at an early Welles stage production from a talented team of USC School of Cinematic Arts students in 2021, was recently acquired by Lightyear Entertainment for theatrical release.
BOOKS: Two required readings for Welles fans — What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career by Joseph McBride and Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker’s Journey by Harlan Lebo — were updated at the start of the year. If you have not read these books, what the heck you even doing here? New to book shelves this year was the novel Big Red by Jerome Charyn, which focuses on the marriage of Welles and second wife Rita Hayworth.
PASSINGS: Acclaimed director Peter Bogdanovich, co-author of This Is Orson Welles and a key figure in the decades-long effort to complete The Other Side of the Wind, died in January. Bogdanovich lived long enough to honor his promise to Welles to finish the movie. Mauro Bonanni, who helped edit the unfinished Don Quixote, passed away in June at the age of 73. King Lear director Peter Brooks, another close friend of Welles, passed away in July at age 97. May all three gentlemen rest in peace.
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