1960 Welles interview with Bernard Braden

[Glenn Anders]

Hold your ground, Hadji.

You bring us these wonderful tapes of Welles speaking on his Art and on his life. You make observations about how his body language and gestures give indications of his inner emotions and motivations. And you do it masterfully. Do not let anyone shake the sensitive conclusions brought to you by your own eyes and ears. When Welles tells us something, when his gestures support or belie his words, you are wise not to ignore or deny the insights of your intuition.

As someone has reflected, I've been in the midst of this discussion before. My purpose here is not to become involved in old arguments -- Works of Art as partial reflections of their creator's psyche and experience vs. Masterpieces ex Machina -- but I do support the validity of your observations. It is idiocy to suggest that an artist's life, his strengths and weaknesses, his experience, is not reflected in his or her work. If that were true, men would have no trouble describing the inner feelings of childbirth, nor women the sleepy, depressed spentness which follows male orgasm.

Hadji, observe in particular, the gyres of S. Todd Baesen's logic.

Note how he claims above that those who do not hold his position have never looked at the facts, the records, the evidence, whether they be an Evil Davie Thomson, or even the Callow Simon. They simply have not searched for the correct balance sheet of IT'S ALL TRUE or MACBETH in the Lilly Library. Then, after typical and entertaining meandering observations, he launches forth the astonishing arrow that, "Even if I saw the final cost sheets from Republic Studios that said [MACBETH] had cost over $800,000, I wouldn't believe it for a second."

In other words, he disbelieves opinion about our beloved Welles and his works when it does not support his position, claiming such evidence to be false and unsupported, but if he were presented official "evidence" contrary to his conclusions, he would not believe that either.

Charming and talented as Sweeney Todd Baesen is, valuable to us, and to Larry French -- who has said, "Baesen cannot live without me, and in a sense, I without him" -- he nevertheless gives indications of being an example of that classic Jungian archetype: The Doppelganger.

As Laurence Olivier said of Baesen: "His was the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind."

Many times, the terrible pressure of maintaining paradoxical positions in perfect alignment has caused his reason to temporarily snap. Larry and I have often chased him down Fillmore Street, as he waved a swizzle stick at oncoming traffic, crying in his cracked-emotional voice: "A gimlet, a Gimlet! My collection of lobby cards for a GIMLET!"

And so, Hadji, I don't know what you would find in Toronto, but if you ever come to San Francisco, and should Todd invite you out, keep him at the Ha-Ra Club, where he is among friends who are in awe of his quixotical erudition, and where he swallows his disappointment that there is sometimes not a label on the bottle. Do not allow him to lure you into the Blue Note District, to places he will insist on "a generous gimlet and some snacks." And if you cannot resist his comradeship, under no circumstances, at a beautiful place like the Sheba Lounge, allow him to order the meatballs, which come with tall toothpicks trailing pieces of red thread.

When you establish your authority, be warned, Baesen is liable to rear back with: "——And, by the faith of man,/ I know my price, I am worth no worse a place."

Just tell him, "It may be dollar book Freud, Toddy, but TOUGH CREDIT CARDS! Facts are facts. Six gimlets are enough!"

That simple frankness may save your being transferred, on the Midnight tide outside the Golden Gate, from a dingy, tossing lighter to the slimy, dark hold of a freighter bound for . . . Shanghai.

Glenn

[tony]

Remember, boys, that it is Welles who said it is not important who designed Chartes, possibly the greatest creation of Western civilization.

Don't you remember?

Or would you prefer to read Carrington's "Oedipus in Indinapolis" or Higham's "fear of completion" thesis? Or perhaps Callow's and Thompson's endless speculations on Welles's 'real' motivations, when neither can ever reliably prove anything they speculate about.

Store: notice Rosenbaum doesn't engage in this psycho-nonsense: he sticks to the work, as does Nabokov.

I'm happy to stay in the minority with company like Welles, Nabokov and Rosenbaum: for me, it's a happy minority.

[ToddBaesen]

Glenn:

To quote Jimmy Stewart in ROPE, you've taken my words and twisted them into something I never meant!

The point I was making about not believing evidence re: the cost of MACBETH even if I saw it, was simply a reference to how studio cost figures are often notoriously inaccurate. In the old studio days, they used to say they were spending millions of dollars on a film, when in fact they might have been shooting it as a three week quickie. The low-budget studios were usually the one's who were guiltiest of this overstatement of facts, and that's probably where the $800,000 figure for MACBETH came from in the first place. My main point is trying to obtain the real truth. If somebody said Orson Welles weighed only 150 lbs. would you believe that, just because it appeared in a book or magazine? If somebody says (and many have) that Welles abandoned THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, IT'S ALL TRUE, MACBETH, MR. ARKADIN and TOUCH OF EVIL, do you just automatically believe them? My point is that neither Welles, or his biographers (both good and bad) are 100 % correct in what they say or have written. Which is why those final lines in CITIZEN KANE ring so true.

That is also why I used MACBETH as an example. If you look at MACBETH do you see a movie that cost $800,000? Both Charles Higham (the Bad) and Simon Callow (the good) seemed to think so. But that was my point. How could anyone, pro or anti Welles think that MACBETH cost nearly the same amount as CITIZEN KANE? Just using common sense, it simply can't be possible, although as I say, with added studio overhead charges, it certainly could look that way on Republic's accounting books.

So Glenn, tonight, after you've had your 4th or 5th Martini at the Ha-Ra club, check in when you wake up in the A.M. and have sobered up enough to take a look at MACBETH. Then tell me what you think MACBETH actually cost to make in 1947 dollars.

[Terry]

Some of the psyche-speculation I've read HAS been no better than psycho-nonsense. All of it has been entirely speculative, whether any of the speculations got anywhere toward truth or not, and even if they did we'll never know.

If a unique display of body language correlates to an unpleasant or difficult question asked by an interviewer, while that may be interesting and give us some pause, it doesn't prove anything. The sort of proof these speculations need will never be available, and I can understand them potentially offending people based upon whatever the proposed insight was (Welles as bisexual manipulator of older gay men, for instance) and on the grounds that they aren't provable to begin with.

The entire field of speculation pales in comparison with such hard evidence as a year's worth of RKO memoranda. I'm much happier with critical analyses that restrict themselves to provable facts. The speculative field is an iffy one; sometimes I hate what is inferred; other times the inference seems to gel with my own insights and I'll keep it as an open (unanswerable) question rather than dismiss it outright. Rosenbaum is hardly free from speculation (Robert Arden as Richard Nixon, say.) I doubt any of us are in anything. The pure, concrete, factual analyses will always stand more firmly. The speculative will always be problematical for their inherent vagueries are subjective and not everyone will have the same insights; some will have opposing insights.

Personally, I'd prefer a lot more of the concrete and less of the inferred (especially in the news media.) Any hypothesis which can't be proven empirically may be interesting, but it should never carry any weight or be trumpeted as truth. The problem is how we treat hypotheses. The human race would be nowhere without them, but simply stating something as so doesn't make it so. But denying every hypothesis that will always lack empirical evidence would include denying people their religious beliefs.

I don't care if people speculate about what went on in an artist's head. Why should I? If it seems clever or valid, maybe I'll think about it. If it doesn't, I'll ignore it. If my interest is the work instead, I'll skip over the psychobabble when I find it and keep scanning for the real meat. If there doesn't appear to be any, I'll return the book to the library and do something else. People can babble all they want to. Whether it's good babble or trifling piffle is a matter of personal opinion and taste. People can be as silly as they feel so compelled to be. I'm not going to tell them they can't. So long as I have the freedom to partake or not as I so choose, let them get on with it.

And when Rosenbaum continues to disparage the Drössler/Bertemes cut of Arkadin on the grounds that "they just threw all the footage together," I'll continue to be offended since I disagree, will not desire to Discover Orson Welles with him and will subsequently avoid his book, but I'd sure rather he was free to express any opinion he wanted rather than having them suppressed. I'll know pretty soon whether his is a train of thought I want to follow, and if not he's free to continue while I get on with something else. Live and Let Live.

[tony]

Jeez: I thought I was reading a Todd post for the first 3 paragraphs, and then the last two paragraphs suddenly veer into Store territory.

Of course, who can defend close-mindedness, and I agree with Store on this general point. Everyone wants to be open to new ideas. My point is only that the psycho-babble about Welles is completely useless, and has saturated about 50% of the Welles bios.

But one thing you say, Store, intrigues me very much:

"I'll continue to be offended since I disagree, will not desire to Discover Orson Welles with [Rosenbaum] and will subsequently avoid his book".

I'm actually shocked: could anyone not see Rosenbaum as a writer of the highest order, and one of the very best (along with Bazin) on Welles? This just seems to be a truism to me. So I must ask: are you not buying his book just because he critisized the Drössler/Bertemes cut of Arkadin? This seems a trite reason not to buy a Welles book of great insight, so I'm wondering if you disagree in general with Rosenbaum's approach to Welles, and are therefore not interested in his book.

I'm wondering because I honestly cannot recall any serious criticism of Rosenbuam's book on Welles: perhaps I have missed it.

[Terry]

Just a personal thing. I didn't enjoy his Arkadin commentary or the interview he did that was online recently. I'm not faulting him, his research or his opinions, but since I didn't like what I've heard, I didn't want any more.

I had a strongly negative reaction to Higham, Callow and Thompson's work, so those too are out for my personal consumption.

Like you, I'm interested primarily in the work and in the interviews Welles gave. Those are fodder enough for my own subjective ideas.

Yes, Todd Baesen wrote the first part of my post, until I showed him a photo of Maurice Evans at which point he scurried off to hide.

(I wonder how Welles would have reacted to each volume of the Mercury Shakespeare record sets being appended on their cd releases with excerpts of Evans doing the Bard. I expect with something rather exhasperated.)

[tony]

Well, I can only encourage you to seek out the Rosenbaum book if you haven't already read the articles. I think some of the strongest pieces are "Othello Goes Hollywood, "The Seven Arkadins", "The Battle over Orson Welles", "Orson Welles's Essay Films and Documentary Fictions: A Two-part Speculation" and "Orson Welles as Ideological Challenge". I believe these are some of the best pieces ever written on Welles.

And did you watch the Rosebaum interview on video?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 9941473528

I honestly think Rosenbaum is the greatest living writer on Welles. Who, in my opinion, was the greatest of all? I would have to say Bazin, who I often re-read. Coincidentally, Rosenbaum has written in his book that when he translated the Bazin Welles in the 70s (which was written just before Bazin's death in 1958) he was unaware that the first Bazin book on Welles (c. 52) was a much superior. I dream that someday Rosenbaum can translate the first and present the two together to an English audience.

I'm with you on Higham, Callow and Thompson's work, but must say that the first Higham in 1970 was the first large format book on Welles and contained stills of great quality for the first time. Also, Higham did much good original research, especially on I't's All True'. If he hadn't spoiled the book with the psycho-babble of his notorious "Fear of Completion" idea, then the book would still be repected today. But Higham isn't the first psycho-babbler on Welles: Maurice Bessy has some incredible ideas about Welles's psyche, just as far-fetched as Higham's, but gets away with them because he can never be seen to be attacking Welles; indeed, they were friends. And even Peter Noble ahd some Psycho-scribbling, but again is firmly in the "I support Welles" camp, and also knew Welles. Rosenbaum makes an interesting point that the earlier biographers/writers on Welles often knew him, or at least has interviewed him (like Rosenbaum), so they had varying degrees of a sense of the man. But as time has gone on, increasingly writers have never met him, and increasingly have become attacking, assigning blame and engaging in psycho-babble. I think this is an important point.

As rearding your statement that "Like you, I'm interested primarily in the work and in the interviews Welles gave" I am, of course, in total agreement, and have felt since I was a boy that the very best way to get to know the artist is through primary materials: the artist's work and their commenting on their work. This is how I came to know Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Glenn Gould and others.

I suspected that you and Todd collaborated on that post, just to confuse me. But is it possible that you are one and the same person- or that all of you are Glenn? Or Jeff? Or-gulp-me? :shock:

As regarding the Mercury volumes, I was just thinking yesterday that someone should publish them all together, in replica form with Welles's wonderfull sketches, not just for hisorical purposes, but because the style is so contemporary with today that I think thay could still be used in high schools and by amateur theatre groups.

Thanks for an interesting thread!

[Glenn Anders]

Hadji: I am still with you. Stick with the facts, the work, and the interviews.

The commentators, whoever they are, depend upon insight, which after all, is in the Realm of Art.

And Gad Zukes, tony! You are on to us all, even yourself, me lad. We are each avatars in this traveling cyber roadshow of ours, fragments of stardust settling on the poop deck of the Pequod. But it may be Baesen who pulls the strings!

That's not a spider, not even Captain Ahab, above your head, tony, and those are not cobwebs nor rigging lines from the foretop mast dangling around your ears!

As for you, Baesen, I have not seen you since I left you, supported by Larry French, outside the Sheba Lounge on Fillmore Street. You were shouting: "I am legend! I am Legend!"

I have three brief explanations for your puzzlement at the high cost of MACBETH:

1) Studio "overhead," commonly accepted at the time.

2) Postwar inflation. [It happens after every war. Just wait.]

3) Long (or I should say, large) post production costs. Although Welles shot the picture in 21 days, it was a couple of years of haggling over cuts, reshoots, soundtrack dialects, musical scores, and festival showings (or non-showings) before the picture finally hit the theaters in America.

That's all the kind of stuff that Studio accountants dream of.

You suggest that I have another Martini, Toddy. Alas, all I have is this half-gallon to Tanqueray I had been keeping as a Christmas present for Larry French.

I ask myself: "What would Sweeney Todd Baesen do?"

Ah, well . . . .

Glenn

[ToddBaesen]

I'd just like to clarify for the sake of any innocent bystanders, that while I do agree with Store's post above, I certainly did not write it or see it beforehand. Nor did I see a picture of Maurice Evans! In fact, unlike Welles, I think Evans is quite a good actor. I loved him in ROSEMARY'S BABY and PLANET OF THE APES.

Also, I can't remember seeing any negative comments from Rosenbaum about throwing together MR. ARKADIN. Can you recall where they appeared, Store?

And as for Welles not liking his Shakespeare shows included with Maurice Evans on CD, that would seem to be a trifle in comparison to having his own script for CITIZEN KANE appear in a book where a co-author attacks you for not really writing it. Come to think of it, as Welles was alive at the time, maybe that's another line of attack for his enemies to pursue. "The Citizen Kane book" was largely Welles own fault, because he didn't bother to check on it's contents. If he didn't agee with it, and the specifics of what Kael wrote, shouldn't he have refused to allow his script to have been published alongside her essay?

As for Glenn Anders, he was last seen by me in an semi-intoxicated state in a bar in Sausalito, waiting to finish his last Martini shortly before 2:00 so he could run outside on the pier shoot off his gun and do a little target practice.

[Terry]

In fact, unlike Welles, I think Evans is quite a good actor. I loved him in ROSEMARY'S BABY and PLANET OF THE APES.

He's superb in Planet of the Apes. I'm not sure what Welles' deal was, but he certainly had an issue with Shakespeare via Evans.

Also, I can't remember seeing any negative comments from Rosenbaum about throwing together MR. ARKADIN. Can you recall where they appeared, Store?

In the commentary on Arkadin and in the interview Tony linked above. The comments are brief and offhand, but they're there.

Glenn has locked himself in my closet, threatening never to come out until we all promise never to do it again.

[Glenn Anders]

Just keep these videos coming, Hadji. I'm watching them here in your closet on my iPod. It's more comfortable than being in one of those freighters plowing through a typhoon on the way to Shanghai.

Actually, Rosenbaum only says that the Droessler version of MR. ARKADIN is made up of "bits and pieces" (what film is not?), and how can such a film (which he so well described in "The Seven Arkadins," originally in Cineaste) be called THE COMPLETE ARKADIN?

I thought Rosenbaum's most interesting observation was that among Welles' very best films are ones he was able to complete just as he had intended them to be: CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT, CITIZEN KANE, and F FOR FAKE. He seems to suggest that the many expermental versions of other films were either not of Welles' doing, or pictures he was still working over toward "completion."

Do I hear Baesen cackling outside somewhere? I would hate to end up a frozen meat pie.

Glenn

[LamontCranston]

Store Hadji said
Welles wanted specifics, well, how about refusing to answer George Schafer's phone calls or telegrams when you were in Brazil

Apologies for not having the link with me right this second but I very clearly recall reading an interview with one of the studio editors brought in to butcher Ambersons, or maybe it was an article about the butchering, who said that they were chucking in the bin (without reading them) telegrams Welles was sending and the specially connected direct line telephone (which rang regularly) was being ignored.

[Alan Brody]

In fact, unlike Welles, I think Evans is quite a good actor. I loved him in ROSEMARY'S BABY and PLANET OF THE APES.

He's superb in Planet of the Apes. I'm not sure what Welles' deal was, but he certainly had an issue with Shakespeare via Evans.

I liked Maurice Evans in the TV series Bewitched too, as Samantha's warlock father, opposite Agnes Moorhead as the mother witch, Endora. Good show, too bad the Nicole Kidman film was such a stinker. Evans was Welles's main Shakespearean rival in New York in the late 30's. I'm sure that's the reason for the enduring hostility.

Are you still trapped in the closet, Glenn?

[Terry]

Are you still trapped in the closet, Glenn?

I slipped my iPod containing my complete Welles mp3 collection under the door, so he won't be out any time soon.