The Orson Welles centenary is drawing to a close and there is no doubt 2015 was a memorable year for fans.
There were scores of high profile retrospects and seminars on five continents, beginning with a series at the Film Forum in New York City, which kicked off on January 1. In the months that followed, tributes took place in Welles’ birthplace of Kenosha, Wisconsin; his adopted hometown of Woodstock, Illinois; and his beloved Spain. Events took place in at least 18 countries and 20 states.
Welles’ surviving daughters, Chris Welles Feder and Beatrice Welles, took part in some of the centennial celebrations, as did friends and colleagues like Oja Kodar, Keith Baxter, Peter Bogdanovich and Henry Jaglom to name but a few. Authors and scholars James Naremore, Joseph McBride, Simon Callow, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Esteve Riambau, Stefan Droessler, Josh Karp, Marguerite Rippy, F.X. Feeney, A. Brad Schwartz, Catherine Benamou, and others made the rounds.
It was a banner year for Welles books, most notably Orson Welles’s Last Movie by Karp, Naremore’s revised The Magic World of Orson Welles, Orson Welles Vol. 3: One Man Band by Callow, Young Orson by Patrick McGilligan, Broadcast Hysteria by Schwartz, Orson Welles: Power, Heart and Soul by Feeney, Las Cosas Que Hemos Visto: Welles Y Falstaff by Riambau and Adalberto Müller’s Orson Welles: Banda de um Homem.
Just as 2014 gave us the jaw-dropping discovery of the previously lost Too Much Johnson, Wellesians were treated to a restoration of the 1969 adaptation of The Merchant of Venice undertaken by the Munich Film Museum and Cinemazero (Pordenone).
On stage, Matthew Chiorini’s Orson Welles/Shylock recalled Welles’ unsuccessful attempts to play the lead role in The Merchant of Venice and the surprising and haunting ways that his life overlapped with the character. Actor Erik Von Beuzekom drew favorable notices in 2015 as Welles in Mark Jenkins’ Rosebud.
On the home video front. Mr. Bongo produced Blu-ray releases in England of Chimes at Midnight, Too Much Johnson and The Immortal Story. U.S buyers were treated to a complete collection of the TV series Around the World With Orson Welles and the Chuck Workman documentary Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles.
Online, Wellesnet had its most successful year ever. We tallied 2.3 million page views and 13 million hits in the past 12 month with an audience three times larger than where we were three years ago. Wellesnet hosted its first-ever live chat in July, which allowed fans an opportunity to ask Beatrice Welles questions about her famous father. We look forward to a busy 2016 as we mark the website’s 15th anniversary.
The sole disappointment this year was the lack of progress on finishing The Other Side of the Wind. The much-heralded October 2014 deal between Kodar and producers Filip Jan Rymsza, Frank Marshall and Jens Koethner Kaul unraveled, and the unedited negative remains locked away in a film laboratory outside Paris. It would have been fitting to have seen it completed during the centennial year, but Welles fans are accustomed to such trials and tribulations. We continue to hold out hope the parties can soon come together.
On a far sadder note, we lost some prominent Welles colleagues and admirers in 2015 including Natasha Perry, Collette Marchand, Christopher Lee, Mike Nichols, John Guilermann, Robert Rietti, Ciro Giorgini, Bart Whaley, Harvey Chartrand and Albert Maysles.
Even though the excitement of the Welles centennial is fast becoming a memory, fans have much to look forward to in 2016.
For starters, Janus Films will debut its initial restoration of Chimes at Midnight on January 1. The few scenes glimpsed in the trailer were impressive. It is comforting know that Janus plans to produce an even finer 4K restoration in the years ahead. The Criterion Collection is expected to release the current restoration, as well as Othello, on home video in late 2016.
Welles’ first Hollywood effort, the landmark Citizen Kane turns 75 in 2016 and that anniversary will certainly attract a fair amount of attention.
And who knows what other surprises or lost treasures await us in the months ahead!
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