What promises to be the definitive book on Orson Welles IT’S ALL TRUE will be arriving in March, 2007 from the UC California Press. Here are some advance details:
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It’s All True: Orson Welles’s Pan-American Odyssey
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By Catherine L. Benamou
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U.C. Berkeley Press – 416 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 39 b/w photographs, 2 maps.
Publication Date:�March, 2007
Described as a work of genius, a pretentious wreck, a crucially important film, a victim of its director’s ego, and much more, It’s All True, shot in Mexico and Brazil between 1941 and 1942, is the legendary movie that Orson Welles never got to finish. In this book, the most comprehensive and authoritative assessment of It’s All True available, Catherine Benamou synthesizes a wealth of new and little-known source material gathered on two continents, including interviews with key participants, to present a compelling original view of the film and its historical significance. Breaking with the auteur-destroyed-by-Hollywood clich�, Benamou locates the premature termination of this cross-cultural project in the complex mix of American foreign policy, Brazilian and Mexican national interests, Welles’ own desire for ethnographic authenticity, a Hollywood system looking for a conventional picture, and the political stakes of a host of players. Definitively debunking many of the myths surrounding It’s All True, this groundbreaking book will challenge much received wisdom about Orson Welles, one of the most important figures in the history of cinema, and illuminate the unique place he occupies in American culture, broadly defined.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Introduction: Locating Orson Welles’s It’s All TrueChapter 1: In Production, 1941-1942
Chapter 2: Toward the Text of It’s All True, Based on the Work in Progress
Chapter 3: Postproduction: The Trajectory of the Film Object,
and That of Critical Discourse
Chapter 4: Almofala: A Wellesian Text
Chapter 5: Labirinto: The Politics and Poetics of a Text-in-the-Making
Chapter 6: Zoom, Pan, and Rack Focus: The Film’s Suspension Examined
Chapter 7: The Legacy of a Phantom Film, 1945-2003
Conclusion: It’s All True, Orson Welles, and Hemispheric History
Appendix 1: Pages from a Research Scrapbook: Jacar�’s Family Remembers
Appendix 2: Fact Sheets for Filmed Episodes of It’s All True, 1941-1942
Notes
Bibliography
Index