Folger Shakespeare Library salutes Welles

[NoFake]

https://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-unlimited/orson-welles?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ShakespearePlus24Jan2017&utm_content=version_A&promo=5933

(Not sure why the link function doesn't seem to be working, tho it could be my PC. If it's not a working link, you should be able to copy and paste what's between the [url]and[/url] codes to reach the site.)

[NoFake]

Ah! I see that it just didn't function in Preview.

[Terry]

Wow. That was painful. Welles, the failure, who made cheap, messy movies with shit soundtracks that no one gave a fuck about. And was on I Love Lucy.

[Roger Ryan]

That attitude of "failure Welles" is, fortunately, dying out. As more of his actual directorial work becomes available on home video, the frozen peas and Paul Masson commercials are now being seen, correctly, as amusing footnotes and not the totality of the man's media presence. I'm consistently pleased with how often F For Fake is name-checked as an innovative and influential film.

As to Shakespeare, the Criterion Forum just voted Othello as one of the top five Criterion Collection releases for 2017 and Filming Othello as the best bonus feature for the year. Among cinephiles, his film work apart from Kane (or Touch of Evil for that matter), is valued far more than ever before.

And, personally, I think those "cheesy" Macbeth sets are perfect in how the artifice conjures an elaborate stage setting that the viewer is allowed to enter with the actors. Really, it's not very different than how Olivier uses the empty darkness in his Hamlet to emphasize the stage origins of the play.

[tonyw]

Each time I've run F FOR FAKE in my 400 level classes including during his Centenary, it is amazing how many students express their appreciation of F FOR FAKE, one of his many films it took decades for people to really appreciate.

This comes with a downside. In my classes nobody has now seen CITIZEN KANE, whereas at least some three hands would usually be raised. Cultural amnesia, often deliberately manufactured, is the answer along with an unjustified dismissal of the past. However, after losing my 300 level Film class this semester due to lack of enrollment (and my Chair was going to give it to somebody to show "popular films" next Fall anyway, I'm going to use the radio versions of WAR OF THE WORLDS and DRACULA (used in past 400 classes) in future classes to a new audience of Freshman and Juniors in a 102 FANTASY IN LITERATURE AND FILM class I'm pioneering as a replacement this semester. Prompting the class towards audio-reception will be a challenge. Wish me luck!

[Le Chiffre]

Good luck, Tony. Sounds like a worthy cause. That's strange that more people in your classes have seen FAKE than KANE, especially since older movies are so much easier to see in good quality now than they used to be, and Kane's stature is much higher. Of course, most students these days would consider Fake to be an old film too, but at least that's in color.

I think those "cheesy" Macbeth sets are perfect in how the artifice conjures an elaborate stage setting that the viewer is allowed to enter with the actors.

Exactly, Roger. I think MACBETH is probably the closest Welles ever came to "filmed theater", and yet he does an admirable job of fusing that with the sense of creating a psychological space as well. It's hard to explain the film's ambiguous qualities to begin with, especially to someone who is only prepared to see sets that are "soooo cheesy".

It was nice to hear an interview with the underrated Welles scholar Michael Anderegg, who I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with at the 2016 Orson Welles Creative Arts Festival in Woodstock, IL, where he did a nice lecture on Welles and Shakespeare. But the lady interviewing him on the Folger program lost me towards the beginning when she compared Welles to Paris Hilton: "famous for being famous". Not even David Thomson could come up with anything that dumb.

[RayKelly]

I overlooked this podcast until No Fake kindly sent me an email.
If the interviewer, Barbara Bogaev, and Folger truly believes that Orson Welles' three Shakespearean films are so unworthy as to be described as a "mess," "mixed bag" and "unlistenable," then why bother to profile them in the first place?
For me, this podcast was truly a "mixed bag" -- 30 minutes of a poor man's Terry Gross chatting with the very knowledgable Michael Anderegg.

[Terry]

The irony is that the Folger Shakespeare Library were involved with the restoration of Macbeth and its Scottish accents which Bogaev doesn't like. Do they disown the film now?

[RayKelly]

The irony is that the Folger Shakespeare Library were involved with the restoration of Macbeth and its Scottish accents which Bogaev doesn't like.

I had to look it up to believe it. https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/MovieDetails/25626
Incredible. Thanks for posting that Terry.