The 2015 Welles Centennial in Review

[tonyw]

Well I hope to arrive in a better timely fashion this year and one Woodstock resident has kindly offered me directions to the Quality Inn once I arrive.

[cinescot]

More details on the BFI tribute:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news ... -centenary

[tonyw]

I would expect no less from the BFI and hope that all the Film Institutes in the world will also contribute to TOSOTW project.

[Wellesnet]

Peter Gill presents an overview of the Woodstock Welles Festival:
http://www.nwherald.com/2015/04/27/wood ... rp/?page=1

[Wellesnet]

Please let us know about them if you go, atcolomb.

Schedule:
http://citizenwelles.org/planned-events/

[Wellesnet]

SIX IN EUROPE, SIX IN THE U.S.:

This certainly could be considered Orson Welles's month on both sides of the pond. Six major Welles fests in Europe, and six in the Unites States. A tribute to Orson Welles as one of the great transatlantic artists of the twentieth century!



In Europe, in addition to the Cannes Film Festival, which starts next week and features a tribute to Welles, there are these five major retrospectives:

Filmoteca Catalunya,
Barcelona, Spain
http://www.filmoteca.cat/web/actualitat ... son-welles

*
Metropolis Kino,
Hamberg, Germany
http://www.metropoliskino.de/index.php?id=28#8

*

Kino im Filmhaus,
Saarbrücken, Germany
http://www.filmhaus-saarbruecken.de/filmreihen/ow100

*
Kino Kunstmuseum,
Bern, Switzerland
http://kinokunstmuseum.ch/themas/show/567

*

Cinemateca Portuguesa,
Lisbon, Portugal
http://www.cinemateca.pt/programacao.aspx?ciclo=466

*



In the U.S., in addition to the celebrations in Welles’s two hometowns of Woodstock, IL and Kenosha, Wisconsin, plus the month-long festival on Turner Classic Movies, there are these three major Welles retrospectives going on:

Princeton Garden Theater,
Princeton, New Jersey
May 6-June 3
Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles, Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, Lady From Shanghai and The Stranger
http://thegardentheatre.com/events.php

*

The Loft Cinema,
Tucson, AZ
May 7 - 28
The Lady from Shanghai, The Magnificent Ambersons, Touch of Evil and Citizen Kane
https://loftcinema.com

*

The Trylon Microcinema,
Minneapolis, MN
May 1-June 2
F For Fake, Mr. Arkadin, Othello and much more
http://take-up.org/series/123/

[Wellesnet]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c ... -1.3074120

Nice writeup at Filmstruck:
http://streamline.filmstruck.com/2015/0 ... e-hundred/

[Wellesnet]

Nice blog entry by Brian Camp on the OW Centennial:
https://briandanacamp.wordpress.com/201 ... #more-2502

Video- Birthday greetings from Maurice LeMarche:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHlqKJs6dA8

Video- Jonathon Rosenbaum on Welles at 100:
https://vimeo.com/126493045

Article- Catherine Benamou on "Orson Welles at 100":
http://blog.oup.com/2015/05/orson-welle ... -birthday/

BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/article ... les-at-100

WSJ:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/on-his-100t ... 1430778332

[Le Chiffre]

A widescreen OTHELLO? :?

[cinescot]

The BFI press release confirms the following titles being screened:

July:
ARENA: THE ORSON WELLES STORY
CITIZEN KANE
THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS
IT'S ALL TRUE
JOURNEY INTO FEAR
TOO MUCH JOHNSON
THE STRANGER
THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI
MACBETH
JANE EYRE
OTHELLO
MR ARKADIN
THE TRIAL

AUGUST:
Arrested development: how Orson Welles tried to revolutionise TV and why TV wouldn’t let him. An illustrated talk by Ben Walters.
AROUND THE WORLD WITH ORSON WELLES
CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT
THE IMMORTAL STORY (+ Person to Person Interview from 1955)
F FOR FAKE
FILMING OTHELLO

There are also extended runs of TOUCH OF EVIL, THE THIRD MAN (4K restoration) and the MAGICIAN documentary

[Le Chiffre]

"Last nights show was great, gained more advocates, really warm and generous response, heart is full....." - Erik Van Beuzekom on last night's one-man performance of ROSEBUD: THE LIVES OF ORSON WELLES"

Rosebud: The Lives of Orson Welles

Erik Van Beuzekom played Orson Welles in Mark Jenkins' 2006 play "Rosebud: The Lives of Orson Welles" at the Woodstock Opera House last night, before an enthusiastic audience that gave him a well-deserved standing ovation at the end. I'm always in awe when I see a one-man (or woman) show, having watched Simon Callow perform his own Dickens and Shakespeare shows. This one was no exception. Eric Von Beuzekom channels Welles very confidently and charismatically, and although he looks more than sounds like him, still brilliantly captures the essence of Welles's restless creative spirit, and his mercurial genius.

Jenkins' play covers many of the highpoints, from Voodoo Macbeth, to the Martians, through Kane, Ambersons, Harry Lime, Falstaff, to his decline as a commercial spokesman. At only 70-80 minutes, it's basically Welles 101, so much is glossed over or ignored, but there is more than enough there to recognize the general trajectory of Welles's career, how varied it was, and to provide some intriguing and plausible theories about what caused his rise and fall. For example, near the end of Act One, Welles, at the peak of his power following the "Citizen Kane" triumph, recalls Hearst saying to him during their fabled elevator ride together, "You think you've destroyed me? You've destroyed yourself instead."

Subsequently we get the political intrigue at RKO that caused Ambersons and It's All True to be ruined, and the opening of the FBI file on Welles as a communist sympathizer. The story implies that, because of the intense resentment of Welles in Hollywood to begin with, he chose the wrong bully to pick a fight with in Hearst, and wound up being victimized from it. But it doesn't let Welles off the hook either. We get the womanizing, the cheating on Rita Hayworth, the overeating (which Jenkins cleverly traces to all those magnificent Viennese pastries Welles discovered during the filming of "The Third Man"), and the unwillingness to compromise.

Some of the best Welles stories in the play are taken from biographies and documentaries, although never verbatim. Jenkins rewrites them cleverly enough that they seamlessly and efficiently blend into one another and sometime illuminate more than one point at a time. Welles's well-known "Italian waiter" story, for example, is rewritten so that it not only illustrates Welles's frustration with the indifference and ignorance shown towards all his post-Kane films, but towards all of his unfinished films and unfilmed screenplays as well.

Above all, it shows how Welles was a showman and provocateur almost from birth and remained one his whole life. As to why he decided to program the old sci-fi classic "The War of the Worlds" for his radio show, Welles reasons with wicked glee that "Jane Eyre doesn't put people in the hospital."

A fun and very entertaining show for Welles fans that would be a terrific introduction for those not that familiar with his life and career. Van Beuzekom is going back to California with the show, and any Welles fest for the remainder of the year and beyond would be making a great addition to their schedules by making arrangements to include it. The three people I was with last night, none of them Welles fans, enjoyed it very much and raved about Mr. Van Beuzekom's performance.

[Roger Ryan]

A widescreen OTHELLO? :?

We've been discussing this in the "New DCP Restoration of CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT" thread (which you've probably been reading) - I was astonished that OTHELLO was broadcast in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio; I have to assume that this was the master TCM was provided with by Castle Hill...or whoever is booking the new restoration. At least it was in HD which, sadly, both TOUCH OF EVIL and AMBERSONS were not (no surprise with the latter, but an HD version of the former has been around for a couple of years now).

[Roger Ryan]

Joe McBride and Roger Ryan will do their Ambersons presentation at Off the Rails Banquet Hall on May 22nd, according to this page:
http://welleswoodstock.com/2015-events/schedule/

Please note that the AMBERSONS event this weekend at the Woodstock Celebration has been updated: a screening of the released version of the film will happen at 7 p.m. at the Off the Rails Banquet Hall this Friday, May 22nd. A presentation and discussion on how the film was altered from Welles' original vision featuring Joseph McBride and myself is scheduled to begin shortly after the conclusion of the film at the same location (approx. 8:45 p.m.).

[tonyw]

Roger, This rescheduling is much better especially for those attending who may not have seen the original theatrical version. It will provide appropriate background for the presentations you and Joe will give. Another kudo is that should there be any delay in arriving I should not miss your joint presentation on a film that one of my students in an evaluation characterized as one of the darkest he had seen (along with THE TRIAL!) This time I should know the way from 0'Hare to Woodstock, Il.

[Wellesnet]

Part 1 of a Welles retrospective near San Francisco starts May 31st:
http://rafaelfilm.cafilm.org/welles-100-part-one/