Wellesnet: The Orson Welles Web Resource

Peter Tonguette's book about Welles, Orson Welles Remembered, has just seen publication, and he sent along the following about the book and why he put it together.

Jeff W.

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My fascination with Orson Welles began when I saw the restored Touch of Evil in December 1998. I was 15 at the time. I soon found myself watching as many of his works as I could. I remember watching The Trial on video shortly after Touch of Evil; at the time, I heartily agreed with the comment by Welles quoted on the video box - that it was the best movie he'd ever made. (Of course, then I saw Chimes at� Midnight/Falstaff a few years later...)����

I also began reading a lot about Welles. It was in books like This Is Orson Welles and Joseph McBride's Orson Welles that I first learned about The Other Side of the Wind, The Dreamers, and The Magic Show - projects I would later devote much time to in my own research.��� A few years later, when I was writing film criticism regularly for several Internet publications, I began conducting interviews with Welles's colleagues. My book - Orson Welles Remembered: Interviews with His Actors, Editors, Cinematographers, and Magicians - collects 30 of my interviews. It has just been published by McFarland & Company.� Many of the interviews relate to the later Welles projects named above. For example, I spoke with some of the key participants from The Other Side of the Wind, such as Peter Bogdanovich, Gary Graver, R. Michael Stringer, Michael Ferris, and Rich Little (among others). But I also included interviews with people from other important periods of Welles's career. I was very fortunate to be among the last journalists to interview Robert Wise about Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. I also spoke with key craftsmen from The Fountain of Youth - editorial supervisor Dann Cahn and editor Bud Molin - who were invaluable in giving me a picture of what Welles was like to work with in the cutting room. I cover Chimes at Midnight in-depth, as well as the 1948 film of Macbeth, the 1955 stage production of King Lear, and F for Fake, among others.���

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The new Taschen picture book on Orson Welles is a major disappointment. While the book does contain many rare stills in high quality reproductions, how could Taschen reduce the importance of the greatest director in cinema history to what amounts to a footnote? ���

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The�size of this book is about half of what they have allotted for many other far less important directors than Welles.�For instance, how could anyone at Taschen justify a bigger volume on�Paul Verhoven, in� this same series? �������

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It's sheer stupidity by whoever was responsible at Taschen. Having published a�beautiful coffee table book on Stanley Kubrick that costs $200. and weights about ten pounds, it seems inconceivable that the same publisher wouldn't want to�do that same kind of coverage for�a book about Orson Welles. Especially given the kind of documentation and multitude of Welles scholars than are available to consult.� But even if they didn't want to make that kind of fabulous book about�Welles - and let's face it, who would be a better candidate - �this volume�has to be considered disgraceful, simply because of what Taschen has devoted to many other directors in their larger $20. picture volumes (which include Roman Polanski, John Ford, Luis�Bunuel, Stanley Kubrick, Fellini and Antonioni). �

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I presume the blame lies at the doorstep of the series editor, Paul Ducan. He apparently cut author F. X. Feeney's original text to the bare bones, leaving only a flimsy two page essay on Welles. But what is far worse, is the failure to identify many important Welles collaborators and co-stars in the picture captions throughout the book. It was obviously a rush job, without any�attempt to even try and identify�anyone in the pictures besides Welles himself. � Among the unidentified: Cameramen Gregg Toland and Russell Metty, actors and directors like Everett Sloane and Carol Reed, etc,�etc.

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Verdict: �A case of sheer editorial incompetence.

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But at $10.00 it's still worth having simply for the great pictures, even if they are improperly captioned.

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A few pages from the book can�be viewed here:��

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http://www.taschen.com/paes5.htm�

There is a new book from Italy on Welles's period in that country from 1947 to 1953, from Cagliostro to Othello, from Lea Padovani to Paola Mori: the book is by Alberto�Anile , and is in Italian:

Web Link

There is a new book on Welles coming on January 15th; it is in French, but may be well worth acquiring even if you don't read that language, as it has many photos and documents: the authors, Jean-Pierre Berthom� and Fran�ois Thomas, aren't sure yet if there will be an English version.��These same authors published a book on Citizen Kane before, back in 1992, titled Citizen Kane.�� Their new book is entitled "Orson Welles au Travail". Here's what one of the authors, Fran�ois Thomas, (who sometimes posts rare information on this site) has to say about the book:��"There are numerous never-printed photographs in the book. There also are documents such as script pages, storyboard pages, sketches, production reports, letters, excerpts from memos and other production documents. The book contains some 350 photographs and 40 production documents, and offers a production history of all Welles films, based on archive research and interviews we did with Welles collaborators."��Here's a wonderful example of a page from the book:�� And here's Fran�ois Thomas, telling the story behind it:�"The two paintings on the right are Welles's. When CBS stopped backing "Orson's Bag", Welles had no money to afford an original score anymore. Composer Angelo Francesco Lavagnino [who had previously scored Othello and Falstaff for Welles] offered to write and record the music of "The Merchant of Venice" for free� or, rather, for a wonderful price: a dozen of Welles's watercolours of Shakespeare's characters from the film. Those are now in the hands of Alessandra, Bianca and�Iudica Lavagnino, the composer's daughters, who gave permission to reproduce some of them for the book. The book also reproduces the first page of Lavagnino's score for the turkish bath sequence of "Othello", revealing the instrumentation is comprised of terzini, mandolins, mandole, mandoloncelli, guitars and bass."��"The two paintings on the right are Welles's. When CBS stopped backing "Orson's Bag", Welles had no money to afford an original score anymore. Composer Angelo Francesco Lavagnino [who had previously scored Othello and Falstaff for Welles] offered to write and record the music of "The Merchant of Venice" for free� or, rather, for a wonderful price: a dozen of Welles's watercolours of Shakespeare's characters from the film. Those are now in the hands of Alessandra, Bianca and�Iudica Lavagnino, the composer's daughters, who gave permission to reproduce some of them for the book. The book also reproduces the first page of Lavagnino's score for the turkish bath sequence of "Othello", revealing the instrumentation is comprised of terzini, mandolins, mandole, mandoloncelli, guitars and bass."��If anyone has seen the interview in "Rosabella" with Lavagnino, they will understand how truly 'sympatico" he and Welles really were, and what a sweet genius the composer was. A terrible loss then is not only the missing reels of 'Merchant', but the possibility of a fourth Lavagnino score for a Welles picture, 'Don Quixote': just before Welles left Italy in haste in 1969 (as his affair with Oja Kodar had hit the tabloids) Welles had been working on the editing and post-production of 'Quixote' with editor Mauro Bonannini, and had asked Lavagnino to score the film. Of course, this was never to be.��

Here's a little info about the authors:��Jean-Pierre Berthom�, a professor of film studies based in Rennes, has written at least five books on the cinema, including a book co-authored with Trauner (the brilliant designer of Othello and many other films), a book on the history of set design, and�books on Jacques Demy and Max Ophuls.��A professor of Film Studies, Fran�ois Thomas currently heads the School of Film at Universit� Paris III - Sorbonne Nouvelle. He devoted his Ph.D. to Orson Welles' sound style in films and its relationship with his radio and theatre work (1997). He teaches film history and analysis and co-heads a research group on alternative versions.��His books include "L'Atelier d'Alain Resnais" (1989), and, together with Jean-Pierre Berthom�, "Citizen Kane" (1992) and "Orson Welles au travail" (2007).��Both authors have written numerous articles about Orson Welles.��Here's where you can find out more about their new book, which was published in France on November 9th, and will be published here on January 15th:��URL: Orson Welles au Travail
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Happy New Year!

Amazon.ca has a new book listed to be released Feb. 28th, 2007: this one is only for those true devotees of the character Welles called "...a Christmas tree decorated with vices [but] the tree itself is total innocence and love."

The book is titled A Critical Edition of Two Modern Plays on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight, by Orson Welles, and the Knight of the Moon, or Sir John Falstaff, by Fernand Crommelynck. Bert Cardullo is listed as editor.

And don't forget:

Peter Tonguette: Feb. 15th, 2007:

URL: Orson Welles Remembered

Catherine Benamou: March 5th, 2007:

URL: It's All True

Jonathan Rosenbaum:May 7th, 2007:

URL: Discovering Orson Welles

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There is a new book on Orson Welles now available by Bart Whaley.� It looks to be chock full of thrills and interesting information and since it's an e-book, it can be ordered and read�in the same day.�

I've just gotten my copy, and while�I've only been able to glance through a few of it's 663 pages, it looks to be a fascinating piece of work, focusing a great deal on Welles'�work (and works) as a Magician.��

A glance at one of four Appendices, "When the credits roll" seems to be a�piece that throughly demolishes books by�those noted Welles authors, C. Higham, P. Kael and D.�Thomson.�

Here,�for example are Whaley's comments on� Thomson's "Rosebud:"

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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

Juan Cobos was the editor of the fabulous Spanish film magazine NICKEL ODEON which I had never heard of until I visited Spain, and while the magazine is now defunct,� I can safely say this is easily the best issue of any magazine I've�seen to date devoted to the films and work of Orson Welles.�Measuring an astonishing 13 x 9 inches, and containing� 400 huge pages, this special Welles issue, while totally in Spanish, is still something for Welles fans to dream about,�simply for the�incredibly rare pictures it contains. Included are many rare scenes from DON�QUIXOTE and THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND which I had never seen before.� Of course, there are also many rare shots from all of Welles released movies, with a heavy emphasis on Welles masterpiece�"CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT."Since Juan Cobos knew Welles quite well, he was also able to include many�of Welles own sketches and costumes designs from "CHIMES"� among all the other treasures he has amassed here. The letter Darryl Zanuck wrote to Welles regarding "CHIMES" is but one of the many treats in the issue.

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The New York Times Sunday Book Review weighs in on Simon Callow's "Hello Americans" with an interesting piece by Gary Giddins.� Mr. Giddins makes some excellent points, and we can also be�quite thankful The Times didn't ask Charles Higgham or David Thomson to review the book.� In fact, The Times review serves as quite a refreshing anidote to the toxic piece written in last Sunday's� L A Times by Richard Schickel.� �

SURVIVING "CITIZEN KANE"�

By GARY GIDDINS��

What is it about Orson Welles that drives his chroniclers around the bend? Each emerges from the great man�s messy life and messier legacy convinced that he or she has found the explanatory Rosebud. The mystery they feel obliged to explain is not how Welles survived as an independent filmmaker, creating remarkable films that were not mutilated by producers; but rather, why the erstwhile genius of radio, theater and movies, friend to presidents and champion of civil rights ended up as an obese TV pitchman for cheap wine. Welles�s biographers mingle like the sharks in �The Lady From Shanghai,� devouring one another.�The reputation of his onetime colleague John Houseman has receded from that of a mighty producer, professional elitist and financial investment shill to that of an unreliable memoirist with an ax planted in Welles�s skull. Pauline Kael�s �Raising Kane� cashiered any respect she might have earned as a scholar, not because she got so many facts wrong but because she refused to correct or acknowledge them. In his psychological broadside �Rosebud,� David Thomson expressed the wish that Welles�s �Don Quixote� not be released because, given its �tattered� legend, �actual screenings would be so deflating.� The British critic Clinton Heylin has written a defense of Welles, �Despite the System,� that is so violently ill mannered as to render his good research indigestible.

Complete review here:� Surviving Citizen Kane �

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Joseph McBride's third book on Orson Welles, entitled "What Ever Happen To Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career" won�t be in bookstores until this October, but in a highly questionable move, it was reviewed today � nearly two months early � in tandem with Simon Callow�s "Hello Americans" in the Los Angeles Times.

Richard Schickel, the author of the review, is the esteemed film critic for Time magazine, and the article has been posted on the message board by Ray Kelly. After reading Schickel�s review, I could only wonder how a major newspaper and a supposedly knowledgeable film critic could commit such an error-ridden travesty to print. But since Mr. Schickel�s review isn�t so much about the books he supposed to be reviewing, but more about his own personal opinions of Orson Welles career, I e-mailed�Joseph McBride the following letter.�

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Simon Callow's second volume on Orson Welles life and career has just come out in it's�U.S. edition.� Details on the book from Viking Press are below, followed by a review from Entertainment Weekly.

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ORSON WELLES Vol. Two HELLO AMERICANS

By Simon Callow

Hardcover | 5.98 x 9.01in | 656 pages | ISBN 9780670872565 |
Aug 17 2006 | Viking $32.95

The highly anticipated second volume of Simon Callow's magisterial biography of Orson Welles

Simon Callow's celebrated first volume of Orson Welles's life concluded with the brash young director unveiling what would prove to be his�and arguably American cinema's�greatest achievement: Citizen Kane. But instead of embarking on an illustrious career in Hollywood, as Callow vividly details in Hello Americans, Welles became increasingly unable to function within the structure of the moviemaking industry.

Hello Americans offers readers a critical look at the years after Citizen Kane up to Macbeth (1947), from his difficult and self-defeating temperament to some of the monstrous personalities with whom he was involved. Callow fully illustrates each film of the period�The Magnificent Ambersons, Journey into Fear, The Stranger, The Lady from Shanghai�as well as Welles's off-screen activities�his dedicated but ill-fated attempts to be a radio comedian and stage magician; his fervent desire to revive spectacular theater single-handedly; his newspaper columns; and his political interests, which he pursued passionately. The result is an expertly researched and elegantly written portrait that will remain the final word on this larger than life genius for generations to come.�

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http://www.upress.umn.edu/

Not sure why Hank's on the cover...however, this book contains a chapter by Catherine Benamou called �Realism as Artifice and the Lure of the Real in Orson Welles�s F for Fake (1973).� It looks pretty interesting...

Tony

The first sustained critique of the mockumentary.

Fake documentaries mimic documentary genre expectations, unraveling the documentary's authority and dismantling understandings of identity, history, and nation.

The interdisciplinary essays in F Is for Phony discuss a broad scope of works and explore issues raised by "fake docs" such as the fiction/documentary divide, the ethics of reality-based manipulation, and whether documentariness derives from form or reception.

F Is for Phony: Fake Documentary and Truth's Undoing
Alexandra Juhasz and Jesse Lerner, editors

Defining the borderline between fact and fiction, the contributors reveal what fake documentaries imply and usually make explicit: that many documentaries lie to tell the truth, and that the truth is relative.

Contributors: Steve Anderson, Catherine L. Benamou, Mitchell W. Block, Luis Bu�uel, Marlon Fuentes, Craig Hight, Charlie Keil, Alisa Lebow, Eve Oishi, Robert F. Reid-Pharr, Gregorio C. Rocha, Jane Roscoe, Catherine Russell, Elisabeth Subrin.

Alexandra Juhasz is professor of media studies at Pitzer College.
Jesse Lerner is associate professor of media studies at Pitzer College.

Visible Evidence Series, volume 17
244 pages | 25 halftones | 7 x 10 | August 2006
ISBN 0-8166-4251-6 | Paperback $20.00
ISBN 0-8166-4250-8 | Cloth $60.00

University of Minnesota Press

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