Don Quixote law suit settled

[tony]

A while back I heard that a settlement had been reached and Mauro Bonanni was to turn over his Don Quixote footage to Oja Kodar. Might anyone have any info about this?

Thanks

[Wellesnet]

‘Don Quixote’ dispute ends, negative handed over to Oja Kodar:
http://www.wellesnet.com/don-quixote-oja-kodar/

[Jay]

I would be interested in seeing a team of Welles experts--perhaps even the crew who are currently completing TOSOTW--use the forty minutes edited and dubbed by Welles as a starting point for another attempted completion. However, if that proves impossible, a documentary (similar to It's All True) would certainly be of interest.

[MartynH]

As it's been over two years does anybody know what the plans are, if any, as a result of the negative being hand over? Can a proper film be put together?

[RayKelly]

As it's been over two years does anybody know what the plans are, if any, as a result of the negative being hand over? Can a proper film be put together?

I received a tip that a reputable European-based concern was "interested" in doing something with the footage in late 2018 and had reached out to Oja Kodar. I made inquiries then and followed up the following year with Oja's nephew, Sasha, but nothing was happening.
I was in contact with him today and (sadly) there is still nothing new to report.
Sasha noted Don Quixote was one of his favorite films and he hoped there might be movement in a post-pandemic world.

BTW, in the early 1990s, a successful producer -- acting on behalf of Mauro Bonanni -- made inquiries with various studios to see if they were interested in doing something with the footage. He found no interest in the project, partly because of the subject matter and it was a B&W film.

[admusicam]

There is à magnificent french tv interview of Dominique Antoine (producer for TOSOTW) from october 2018 speaking a little about that. When the interviewer ask her about the issue of other unfinished films, she respons "we are trying", as she was involved in some idea. She also begin à phrase about a partner ("cinmate...") and then suddenly stop the word, as someone who don't want to say too much.
It is only few second and few Words, so nothing substantiel. But in this interview I heard thé most intelligent things ever said about Welles art, and all thèse things are coming from the heart and are à beautiful testimony of the impact of Welles in someone life !

[Le Chiffre]

I'd love to see that interview with Antoine sometime. I would need some English subs, though.

BTW, in the early 1990s, a successful producer -- acting on behalf of Mauro Bonanni -- made inquiries with various studios to see if they were interested in doing something with the footage. He found no interest in the project, partly because of the subject matter and it was a B&W film.

Another reason that may have turned the studios off from DON QUIXOTE is the fact that it is an unfinished film; not just that, but unlike TOSOTW, it seems to have been deliberately left unfinished by Welles, with no script and no notes about how to complete it. Studios and other money people may have figured that since Welles himself chose not to finish the film, no one else should either. I would tend to agree, although I would love to see a documentary on the subject using footage from the negative. It could even be a long one; three hours or so, to give the subject its due. Jess Franco's clumsy attempt to "finish" the film was a joke that destroyed some of the film's mystique, but it's better than nothing, which was what we had before.

[admusicam]

The Dominique Antoine interview is on youtube :

https://youtu.be/0mxYB7MwWOI

In this particularl interview, Dominique Antoine speak precesely about what you say about the nature of Don Quichotte, not only the fact it is unfinished but the fact Welles do this film in this particular way. What say D Antoine is we have to change our way of thinking à film with Welles. She say "for him, à film is not an existing thing. It mean nothing. It was Dreams" . She say he had always many films in his head since Hé was born, returning always from one to another like à mosaic.
Please, understand my English is very bad, and I'm absolutly unable to find the good words to traduce the true subtle meaning of what she say.
If a good traducer could transcript what she say, it could be a great ad to Welles testimony art studies !

[NoFake]

admusicam wrote:

"If a good traducer [translator] could transcri[be] what she say[s], it could be a great ad to Welles testimony art studies !" (I'm guessing, "to the study of Welles's work.")

To be sure! Mille mercis, admusicam. I love the way Antoine calls the film "un dernier pied-de-nez à Hollywood" -- what I would translate as "a last raspberry to Hollywood."

[Le Chiffre]

If a good traducer could transcript what she say, it could be a great ad to Welles testimony art studies !

Abolutely. Thanks much, admusicam and NoFake. If either of you or anyone else out there that speaks French wants to translate any more of this interview, we'd be glad to have it.

[Wellesnet]

Jonathon Rosenbaum's 2005 lecture/article might be worth revisiting:

When Will — and How Can — We Finish Orson Welles’s DON QUIXOTE? (expanded version):
http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.net/2018/0 ... d-version/

[admusicam]

Thanks for the article. Yes, it is very interresting to return to it.
I also return to the Jess Franco édition to à very personal way. Putting the all film in an editing software, I cut many little parts to see only portions of the film. I remove for exemple alI parts dubbed by Franco to save only the dialogues dubbed by Welles. I made no final cut, but viewing thé différent sources of the film from the édit window is a very new way to see it.
I have à question about the légitimity of combining the film Don Quichotte with portions of the docu "nella terra di don quichotte", as Franco do it without telling it ! At 1.28.00 séquence, when Sancho want to speak with Welles in the car, it is clear that Welles use the same car of the RAI docu, and construct the images in a same way to have-perhaps-- the possibility to combine them and use the docu image for his own Don Quichotte... As Franco do it. (By the way it is not well done at this précise moment, because the images of Welles in the car with caméra have realy nothing to do with the Sancho ones.) As Franco tell to everybody Hé was using "unknown sources from Oja Kodar" , could it be possible Welles prépared images of his own "nella terra di don quichotte", removing all Paola and Béatrice material, in the idea of doing an "essay" about spain and Don Quichotte ?
It also put to the question of what was precisely in Franco 's hand to do his cutting. With the result only, it is very difficult to know the Orson Welles job. Parts of it are clearly cut by him... But how to know when Jess Franco interfere ? (of course not to speak about the disastrous vidéo effets...)
The same for the narrations and the dubbing of dialogues. Do you know about script material in the hand of Jess Franco for doing this ?
Sorry if these questions were resolved in past discussion, but I can't find the informations.

[Le Chiffre]

Wish we could help you out, admusicam. We do have a few lengthy threads on Welles's QUIXOTE, including info on the 2015 showing in Barcelona of some kind of version of the film different from Franco's, but for the most part, info on this most mysterious of Welles projects is sketchy and often contradictory. At this point, no one seems interested in doing anything about the footage that's been battled over and passed around for years, which is sad. Basically what it all seems to amount to are the ruins of a dream.

I'm not aware of any script material for Quixote, but if there is some I'd like to read it.

One thing that probably could be done fairly easily though, would be to have Beatrice Welles narrate IN THE LAND OF DON QUIXOTE or some kind of abridged version. I don't know if anyone has ever contacted her about doing something like that, but no one would be more qualified, and her recollections might add a lot to the footage.

[JMcBride]

Franco's version is, as we know, a horrible travesty and is
intermingled with parts of Welles's 1964 relatively conventional travelogue about Spain.
But I saw forty minutes of DON QUIXOTE that was said to have been assembled by Costa-Gavras
for the Cinémathèque Française, and it was beautiful
and riveting. This was shown a few years ago at
the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley. The visual style lived up
to what Peter Bogdanovich said to me in 1970, that
DON QUIXOTE is Welles's "most Fordian film." What I saw at the PFA whetted
my appetite for more; the print quality was
superb and as different from the disgracefully dupey Franco
version as you could imagine or hope for. Peter told me Welles
had shown QUIXOTE to him in Rome; he wasn't more specific
about the length of the version he saw. Jonathan Rosenbaum has
probably seen more of the QUIXOTE footage than any
other Welles scholar; it is scattered in different European
archives, and the ownership situation is no doubt complicated. Jonathan
thinks the best sequence is the movie theater sequence shot in Mexico,
which is on YouTube (looking very dupey) and is charming and inventive. It's sad that
this pet project of Welles's languishes without the loving
completion OTHER WIND received. But if anyone has thirty
years to devote to it . . .

[admusicam]

... For sure I will continue to devote thirty years to dream to this film-if I have the thirty years !- The increadible quality of the multiples fragments we have, even in a ruin form, are enough to give us one of the greatest cinematic project to see and live with.