Wellesnet: The Orson Welles Web Resource

Producer Michael Dawson brought a restored version of Orson Welles' "Othello" to movie-goers in 1992. He has been actively working with Woodstock Celebrates Inc. to organize a proper 100th birthday celebration honoring Welles' legacy in 2015. Dawson took time to discuss the 1992 restoration and future Welles projects with Wellesnet's Mike Teal.

By MIKE TEAL

Last year marked the 20th anniversary of the restoration of "Othello," which you produced in conjunction with Beatrice Welles and the Paola Mori Estate. What are your thoughts as you look back on that project?

I’m glad we did it. It catalyzed an interest in Welles, and turned up the Bunsen burner on studios looking at the other art fare in their archives, polishing that stuff up and getting a restoration industry going. I look at it as hopefully having been the basis for promoting the concept of restoration in general, but it was also a factor in restoring Orson Welles’ reputation, and correcting the misassumption that he went downhill after "Citizen Kane".

How did you get involved in the project?

I had been working on a documentary, called "Citizen Welles," for about two years, and I did many interviews for the film. One of them was with Beatrice herself, who later contacted me regarding "Othello" and said it was one of the few films that she inherited from her mother’s estate. She said that some company in Italy was going to try and release the film, and I said that what she should do to try and stop that is to get a hold of the original elements of the film. (more...)

By LAWRENCE FRENCH

I have recently been talking with Michael Dawson, the producer of the 1992 restored version of Othello, who explained some of the many problems he encountered while working on the restoration of the film. The interview will be published shortly on Wellesnet’s main page, and hopefully may led to a three-DVD reissue of Othello, that would contain three different versions of the film, as has proven so successful with Touch of Evil and Mr. Arkadin.

You can see images from Orson Welles's Othello on our facebook page HERE.

The three versions of Othello that should be be included on the DVD would be these:

First,  Orson Welles’s European cut of the film, which featured spoken titles.

Second, the original 1955 United Artists cut released in America, which replaced the spoken titles by Welles, with printed ones, along with a much re-worked soundtrack, that changed many line readings and added much more of Welles’s own voice over narration.

This was the version that Criterion released to great acclaim on Laserdisc in 1993, and it should be noted that whatever flaws these versions may contain, they were both approved and edited by Orson Welles himself.

Finally,  a newly corrected version of the 1992 “restored” Othello,  that would be most welcome, since the original Academy Entertainment release on both VHS and DVD was seriously flawed, by using the wrong elements for the transfer!

This astounding news became quite apparent to me after I did an  A and B comparison of the little seen VHS tape of Othello that Michael Dawson supplied to me, that was put out by Cinar Video and distributed by the Utah based Feature Films For Families (Shades of Macbeth in Salt Lake City).

Apparently Castle Hill had mistakenly used the “unrestored” elements of the print, which featured white speckles running though out many scenes that is quite common in older films, due to “emulsion chipping and base abrasions.”  What is supremely ironic about this, is that in the restoration documentary on the Othello DVD, it shows how these very blemishes were removed from the film, and then through the incompetence of some unknown person, the “unrestored” elements were included for the actual DVD transfer!

Mr. Dawson attempted to correct this situation, but he was in a position much like Welles was through most of his career, where nobody wanted to listen to him.  The result is that most of the released versions of the "restored " Othello are not restored at all, as they don't represent the expensive digital image correction that was done on the film!  Amazingly, none of the mainstream media critics seemed to noticed this, but that's not so very strange considering how little most of them know about their supposed field of expertise.

This, is no doubt, one reason why the Criterion laserdisc actually looked superior to the botched Academy Entertainment release that was released in 1993 on VHS, and subsequently on DVD.

Thankfully, this can now be corrected with a new DVD release of Othello.  It should also be no problem to include the original 1955 United Artists American release version, because as Mr. Dawson told me, the Welles Estate had no objection (in theory) to the Criterion laserdisc of Othello, except for the fact they had already made an agreement with Image Entertainment that specified they would release the "restored" version of the film on Laserdisc.  Thus, when Criterion opted to release the original American release print of the film, after Jonathan Rosenbaum pointed out some of the  flaws that went uncorrected in the restored version, the Welles Estate was naturally displeased, as they had already spent a lot of time and money on their new version of the film.

Amazingly, the flawed "restored" Othello went on to be hailed by most American critics as a wonderful restoration. Thankfully, Welles experts, such as Mr. Rosenbaum, and Variety’s Todd McCarthy, noted some of the mistakes it contained, which Mr. Dawson was also aware of but was apparently powerless to correct.

Now, however, the Welles Estate is currently planning to reissue Othello, so hopefully they will want to make a truly definitive version by finding a distributor who is willing to have Othello re-issued as a deluxe 3-DVD set, featuring the corrected "restored" version, as Mr.  Dawson intended,  along with the 1955 UA version, and the original European release version.

Needless to say, such a deluxe DVD package would obviously make much more money for the Welles Estate, and there are certainly many extras that could be included, starting with Welles’s own last film,  Filming Othello, and Ciro Giorgini’s Rosabella, a splendid, but little seen documentary that focuses on Welles’s time in Italy, which is where Orson met his third wife, Palo Mori, the mother of Beatrice Welles.

Much of the original Othello promotional material is also available, including the original UA pressbook, the British pressbook, a complete set of 8 11 x 14 lobby cards, and numerous stills and other promotional items.

There was a report on Wellesnet in August of last year,  in connection with the Dax Foundation screening of  Falstaff, that Beatrice Welles had lost the rights to Othello. I recently spoke with a representative of The Estate of Orson Welles who called to tell me that this information was in error and that Beatrice Welles does indeed still own the rights to Othello and will apparently be re-issuing the film on DVD and Blu-Ray sometime in the future.

Here is the statement regarding the rights to Othello the Welles Estate has asked me to post:

"Speculation that Beatrice Welles “apparently” sold Othello is incorrect. Othello is owned by the Estate of Orson Welles.  It is not for sale, and never has been.  The Estate retains all rights throughout the world, and intends to commercially re-release Othello in the foreseeable future."

*****

Hopefully, a new DVD release of  Othello might include all three variant versions of the film, such as has been done with great success for the critically hailed release of both Criterion's Mr. Arkadin and Universal's Touch of Evil.  Since I have a vast wealth of original promotional material on Othello, I am hoping to work with the Welles Estate in providing some interesting extras for the planned re-release of  Othello on DVD and Blu-Ray.

Here is Orson Welles witty Foreword to Micheál Mac Liammóir's diary of the making of Othello,  Put Money in thy Purse, first published in 1952 by Methuen in London.   Photos of  Welles and Mac Liammóir from Othello along with shots of the locations Welles used in Morocco can be seen at the Wellesnet Facebook page  HERE.

FOREWORD

___________

Why is it, I wonder, that most of us who are Micheál Mac Liammóir's friends-–having never been his victims–-are so very certain that at any minute we might be?

‘O that Micheál!' we say, with a knowing, a vaguely apprehensive sort of leer.

What do we think we mean? In company, 'that Micheál' of ours doesn't slash or slaughter, or even prick, but lavishly spreads about him, instead, the pleasant oils and balms of good humor. He is an entertainer rather than a conquistador, a good companion, who could certainly scratch, but who prefers to purr. If he must be excluded from the full title of wit, his lack is ruthlessness and his only fault a preference for being kind.

Why, then, do we think of him as so fatal a swordsman among conversationalists, so perilous a man to meet over a martini? I now reveal his true, his darkest secret. It is simple almost to the point of squalor: he keeps a diary!

The diarist, having arranged a sort of rendezvous with posterity, moves, for all his good manners, in a solid aura of menace. Most of Micheál’s acquaintances don't know why, but this is what makes them so jumpy in his presence. Some of us, of course, have long had our suspicions. For, as a contraction of the pupil is said to betray the dope fiend, so we are warned by a certain glitter, a cold glint of appraisal in the eye of the abandoned wretch who has given himself over to the keeping of a private journal.

I have had diaries myself. But, then, I have known how to leave them alone: an entry or two just for the thrill of it, and then back to normalcy. I count myself lucky. The addiction to diaries, the habitual keeping of a journal, a secret vice like the eating of hashish, degrades the diarist himself to something very like the moral status of a drama critic and, unlike drugs, destroys not only the character of the user but of his friends.

Having exposed Mac Liammóir for what he is, an explanation of this book requires that I make full confession of being myself an inveterate, an incurable snoop.

My friends, such as remain to me, are about evenly divided between those who do not believe that I would stoop to steaming open their most intimate correspondence, and those who, having caught me in the act, have decided to forgive me.

Knowing my curiosity to be such that I am perfectly capable of learning Gaelic in order to read it, Micheal (who not only keeps his daily journal under lock and key, but writes it in the Irish language) has guarded it with such exquisite caution that at long last I was forced into the desperate maneuver of begging him to publish it. This book is the result.

I would have preferred to have been the only reader. Indeed, my portrait emerges from the Mac Liammóir journal as a rather unpalatable cocktail of Caliban, Pistol and Bottom, with an acrid whiff here and there of Coriolanus. I am to be found (the dialogue being rendered in a peculiarly quaint version of Americanese) railing and raging against its author, a veritable force of bad nature, a withering blast from off my own Middle Western prairies.
I must defend myself against this, because the truth is that Micheál's ears, during almost every moment of our daily work together, rang with highly merited praise. A nice reticence withheld him from keeping any record of this success. The rare exceptions, for comic effect, are elaborately dwelt upon. Permit me to insist that if there is an impression that my administrative tactics are just a trifle more thorough-going than Captain Bligh's, only Micheál's modesty is to blame.

It is reported that I addressed him as 'harp'. I ask the reader to believe that I do not use or approve of that special level of slang ('kraut' for German, 'hunky' for Hungarian, 'limey' for Englishman, etc., etc.). For the benefit of those who share my loathing for even the mildest shades of chauvinism, I must explain a joke whose point was in deliberate bad taste:

'Harp', you see, brings to mind that improbable figure, the Irish-American of St Patrick's Day parades, complete with budget-sized shamrock and souvenir shillelagh, and Micheál is something else again. His far-wandering spirit has chosen never to travel without a plush knapsack, plum-colored and chock-full of the more attractive Edwardian airs and continental graces, but no shamrocks at all. Indeed Micheál, who does really look a bit like something Beardsley would have drawn if they'd taken away his pencil-sharpener, is the very last Irishman on the broad face of the earth to be called 'harp'.

So much for that. As they say at banquets, Micheál Mac Liammóir needs no introduction. He has proven himself in every one of the numerous mediums of his choice, and has done so again and again. Well, then, here is a book of his about a film we made together. I have nothing significant to add to the first of these projects, which you are evidently about to read, except to say that I hope it won’t keep you from seeing Othello for yourself.

I don’t think even Micheál would mind.

Orson Welles

Ciro Giorgini has written to let us know that his fine documentary Rosabella is now available on DVD, with new interviews with Elsa Martinelli and Suzanne Cloutier as extras.  It can be ordered from Minimum Fax in Italy For 19. Euros, and comes with the book Orson Welles: Interviews on the art of the Cinema .

CORRECTION:  The DVD is in Italian and  DOES NOT have optional English subtitles, so although it is worth having only if  you understand Italian.

ROSABELLA:  Orson Welles's Years in Italy
A film by Gianfranco Giagni and Ciro Giorgini

Italy 1993; 60 min.

Thanks to Tony for posting these notes to the messageboard that were written by the directors of ROSABELLA:

Rosabella is the absurd name given to Rosebud in the Italian version of Citizen Kane, but it may also indicate the contradictory relation between Orson Welles and Italy.

At the 1948 Venice Film Festival the disastrous criticism of his Macbeth made him declare:  "This film is for an audience that understands. I am not liked in Italy. My love for this country is not returned".

Yet in the same Italy he lived for twenty years, and the life in Italy of Welles left a chain of memories in those who lived close to him at the time.

Thus our seeking of direct evidence became a fascinating journey across Orson Welles' Italian years, far from the folklore of the Dolce vita and the Restaurants of Rome.

Italian years that were mainly relations with cinema technicians (cameramen, editors) whom he involved in his endless projects, many of which - so many times - remained unfinished, often through no fault of his.

Cameramen editors and producers who lived for months or years with him as in a tunnel. After their Welles experiences some no longer worked, some changed their profession, others felt a certain responsibility for the rest of their lives. And his life in Italy was full of private sentiments. From Lea Padovani to his great love for Paola Mori who became his third wife. Then his attachment to Venice and other unexpected places: Tuscania, Viterbo, the castle of Bracciano, the EUR area of Rome, that we find transformed in films he completed (Othello), that remained unfinished (Don Quixote) or remained only projects (Julius Caesar).

Our attempt has been to trace the story of his life in Italy but this is also the story of a number of Italians who narrate how their lives were marked by Orson Welles, the one and only Welles, and how much they missed him.

Includes interviews with:
____________________

Gary Graver (cinematographer and friend of Orson Welles)
Alessandro Tasca di Cutò (producer, Chimes at Midnight, Don Quixote, In the Land of Don Quixote)
Suzanne Cloutier (actress, Othello)
Walter Chiari (actor, Chimes at Midnight)
Arnoldo Foà (actor, The Trial, Narrator for the Italian version of In the Land of Don Quixote)
Francesco Lavagnino (music composer for Chimes At Midnight, Othello, The Merchant of Venice)
Mauro Bonanni (editor, Don Quixote, Merchant of Venice, The Deep)
Renzo Lucidi (editor, Othello, Mr. Arkadin, Don Quixote)
Giorgio Tonti (Camera operator, The Deep, The Merchant of Venice)
Oberdan Troiani (camera operator, Othello)
Roberto Perpignani (assistant editor, Don Quixote, The Trial, In the Land of Don Quixote)
Mariano Faggiani (assistant editor, Don Quixote, In the Land of Don Quixote)
Maurizio Lucidi (sound editor Don Quixote, In the Land of Don Quixote)
Lello Bersani ( Journalist )
Rosalba Tonti (production secretary, The Deep, The Merchant of Venice)

and  ORSON WELLES

Wellesnet members Craig Weinstein and Leigh Gordon attended the Dax Foundation screening of Falstaff on July 30th and provided some interesting news about the event.

Leigh tells me that besides the original promotional material from Falstaff, the Dax Foundation also had the Academy Award Orson Welles won for Citizen Kane on display.

You can see pictures of the Citizen Kane Oscar at the Wellesnet Facebook page HERE.

The Dax Foundation acquired the Oscar directly from Beatrice Welles and apparently also brought the rights to Othello from Beatrice. Which means a new, double or even triple disc version of Othello may now be possible!

Peter Bogdanovich is urging the Dax foundation to consider releasing a DVD of both the original Welles 1955 United Artists version of the film, alongside the restored Castle Hill version, with it's supposedly "improved" soundtrack.

What could even further enhance such a DVD release, would be to include the complete version of Filming Othello, and possibly even the third European cut of Othello, which had titles spoken by Welles.

Below is Craig's report on the Falstaff screening, which was totally sold-out!

Falstaff at the Egyptian

By Craig Weinstein

Arriving at Graumann’s Egyptian Theater on July 30th, 2009 I was just in time to see a great cinematic gem—Orson Welles’ 1965 Falstaff (Chimes At Midnight). I had only seen the film on a Japanese laserdisc dub to VHS in the past and obviously the transfer couldn’t do justice to a film that deserves much better than bootleg viewer-ship in the USA on small television screens. Imagine how happy I was when I got a chance from Wellesnet to see the film projected on a large screen!

(more...)

Joseph McBride has sent along this link to a delightful interview with Betsy Blair, recorded when she appeared at The London Review Bookshop in 2005 to talk about her autobiography, The Memory of All That.

Ms. Blair candidly tells of how Welles called and asked her to play Desdemona, and how she learned only after she got to Rome that two actresses had already preceded her in the role. Also, how Welles asked her to buy her own plane ticket home once he had run out of money, but in reality had already decided that she wasn't quite right for the part!

Blair also talks frankly about the Hollywood blacklist, her husband Gene Kelly dancing in the rain in London, working in Europe with Free Cinema directors Lindsay Anderson and Karel Reisz (who became her second husband in 1963) and why Elia Kazan should never have received a special Academy Award honoring his career.

Listen to the entire fascinating interview HERE

To put Betsy Blair's comments about her work on Othello into context, here are some passages from Peter Noble's The Fabulous Orson Welles and Micheal MacLiammoir's diary about the chaotic conditions that surrounded the making of Othello.

Since Peter Noble's account is second-hand, it contains several inaccurate points, such as Blair meeting Welles at the Ritz Hotel in Paris in the company of Anatole Litvak. In her book, Blair says she met Welles after she flew to Rome and went to dinner with Welles and Alexander Trauner. Welles also told Blair he had cast her as Desdemona after seeing her in The Snake Pit. It also seems more than likely that if Welles had actually met Blair in Paris, he would have probably realized she had a screen presence that was too contemporary to play Desdemona, although Welles's own conception of the part (and one Blair says she discussed with Welles) was to make Desdemona a modern woman in the 15th Century, as Welles himself relates in his essay film, Filming Othello.

(more...)