Wellesnet: The Orson Welles Web Resource

When you ask me if there is a movie I want to make, I have to answer in a very general way; I want to make movies

—Orson Welles

From a rare 1979 Yugoslavian TV Interview at The Orson Welles Museum

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The Wellesnet Media audio page has now been transferred to it's own site, The Orson Welles Museum where you can spend hours listening to various audio recordings Welles did for radio and records, as well as several very informative interviews Welles gave throughout his career.

It's quite a fabulous collection of material, and to any uninformed person, such as so many entertainment writers seem to be - especially those who seem to think Welles did nothing but make Citizen Kane and wine commercials - just point them to this site.

In reality, it's rather incredible to realize just how great the depth of Welles's work was in the medium of radio and the spoken word.

To start out, here is a show I think is as relevant today as when Welles recorded it, over 60 year ago:

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It’s perfectly possible, that we are the ancestors of a great race. This is only possible, if the world doesn’t come to an end, which is only possible if we can put an end to war-making and to war.

—Orson Welles June 30, 1946

So said Mr. Welles, four days before the fourth of July, in 1946, when he delivered a sobering talk about America’s first atomic bomb blast at the Bikini Atoll in the south Pacific. Of course, this wake up call, warning us about the dangers of testing and stock piling of Atomic weapons went unheeded.

I found the whole show to be quite a superb piece of political commentary, that also weirdly anticipates several elements in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. There's even a point where Welles says his wife at the time (Rita Hayworth) had her picture pasted on the side of the A-bomb that was to be dropped – shades of Slim Pickens - although Welles notes it was apparently very much against Ms. Hayworth’s own wishes.

Enter the ORSON WELLES museum and give it a listen!

The recent showing of Stefan Drossler’s rare “Unknown Welles” material at The Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, brought out a large contingent of Bay area film scholars, including Joseph McBride, the author of many books on Welles, Tom Luddy, the former director of The San Francisco Film Festival, and current director of The Telluride Film Festival, Fantoma DVD president James Healy, SF film writer Meredith Brody, and Jonathan Marlow, the director of The San Francisco Cinematheque.

There were also several members of the audience who indicated they has flown up from Los Angeles, specifically for the opportunity to see this rare Welles material.

The two programs Stefan presented lasted over five hours, but I was personally most delighted to see the rough cut of The Other Side of the Wind that was shown in a special "after hours" session for a select group of Welles scholars.

So, in the grand tradition of Arthur Bannister, here is an Auto-interview about The Other Side of the Wind:

Do you think The Other Side of the Wind is a potential Welles's masterpiece?

In my own personal opinion, I would say the answer has to be a resounding YES! There are scenes that far exceed anything in Welles work after Chimes at Midnight.

You must be kidding? I thought it was considered far too experimental, or even worse, quite boring by most people who have seen it.

I've heard the same stories, but I saw the film long after midnight and it held me in awe. It had scenes of lyrical beauty, great acting and is filmed in beautiful color contrasted with rich black and white. Now, you may also recall that Welles's Chimes at Midnight The Trial and Touch of Evil also had the same kind of things said about them. The New York Times for instance thought that Chimes at Midnight was a total disaster! And every studio in Hollywood turned down Welles script for The Dreamers, one of the most poetic scripts I've ever read! So if we let the so-called "experts" like David Thomson decide that The Other Side of the Wind shouldn't be finished, it certainly never will be.

So you you really think it can be edited and shown?

Of course it can! Given the footage I’ve now seen, and having carefully studied the script, which I regard as a brilliant piece of work, I not only believe it can be finished, but I regard it as an artistic crime that it hasn't been finished!

What kind of money is needed to finish the project, and is Showtime still involved?

Showtime has been very supportive of the project, but over the years have run into many unexpected difficulties. Which is why I believe everyone who would like the film finished should certainly write directly to Showtime and voice their support for the project. Needless to say, the executives at Showtime are to be thanked for standing by the project after so many years, despite all the setbacks they have encountered. If the film finally gets completed, I believe Matthew Duda will have a lasting legacy behind him that will certainly make him remembered for a long time.

Oh come on? I can't think of any TV executives who are known to film buffs... Well, maybe one, that stupid idiot James Aubrey who ran CBS in the 60's

Yes, Mr. Aubrey is sometimes remembered, just like George W. Bush will be remembered... but unfortunately, for all the wrong reasons. Welles’s even noted that Aubrey's nick-name was the “Smiling Cobra.” He was also the man who shut down MGM, ironically at the very time Welles was shooting The Other Side of the Wind on the MGM back lot. Shortly afterwards, Aubrey took MGM out of the business of making movies.

Given all the problems Showtime has encountered with the film, why are they still involved?

I'd like to think it's because they realize the historic importance of this project. Which is why I'd like to personally extend my thanks to Showtime's Matthew Duda, who has gone far beyond the call of duty in standing by this film. To be honest, it's quite a daunting proposal. If it does get completed, it may very well be viciously attacked by the enemies of Welles, or those who won't invest the time needed to understand what Welles was attempting to do. On the other hand, if the film is well-received, it's quite possible that Mr. Duda may go down in cinematic history as the Dore Schary of his era. Mr. Schary, of course, was the enlightened head of MGM in the 50's, who brought Welles old partner John Houseman to MGM to produce a series of memorable movies for the studio, including Julius Caesar and Lust for Life.)

How does The Other Side of the Wind compare in relation to the other Welles unfinished projects?

I'd say it's the most interesting and exciting unfinished Welles work out there. The risks in trying to finish the project are great, but I dare say, the rewards will be far more exciting than any other unfinished project by Welles, including The Deep and Don Quixote. As Jake Hannaford says, those other films are "Less than the dust from my chariot wheels."

I'll drink to that!

So will I, when and if the film gets completed! And to help back up my rather grandiose statements, I'd like to present two excerpts from The Other Side of the Wind. The first is from the original screenplay, the second is the same scene from the continuity script, that records the scene exactly as it was filmed and edited by Welles. In most movies, these two documents are not that different, but reflect the small changes in concept that occur when a director shoots what the screenwriter has written. However, in Welles case, he made a great many changes to his own script, due no doubt to the circumstances, the budget, his lack of actors, or simply because a better idea presented itself to him while he was shooting or editing the material.

These two scenes clearly demonstrate the creative genius of Orson Welles, as both a director and film editor, just in case anyone actually needed such evidence.

This sequence also features some stand-out performances from the actors involved, so it should be noted that three of the performers had already won Academy Awards. Huston's was for directing, but he gives a performance that easily surpasses his work as an actor in The Cardinal or Chinatown.

John Huston plays Jake Hannaford
Edmund O’ Brien plays Pat
Mercedes McCambridge plays Maggie

Also giving standout performances are:

Lilli Palmer as Zarah Veleska
Susan Strasberg as Juliette Riche
and
Cameron Mitchell as Zimmer

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Frankly, I don't think anybody's race is anybody else's business. I'm willing to admit that the policeman has a difficult job, a very
hard job, but it's the essence of our society that the policeman's job should be hard. He's there to protect, protect the free citizen, not to chase criminals, that's an incidental part of his job. The free citizen is always more of a nuisance to the policeman that the criminal. He knows what to do about the criminal. I know it's very nice to look out of the window in our comfortable home and see the policeman there protecting our home, we should be grateful for the policeman, but I think we should be grateful too, for the laws which protect us against the policeman. And there are those laws, you know, and they're quite different from the police regulations.

—ORSON WELLES SKETCHBOOK, 1955

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On this historic day, when Barack Obama has been inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States, it reminded me of how far in advance of his time Orson Welles really was.

Not only cinematically, but also politically. Barack Obama in his speech today, noted that 60 years ago his father might walk into a restaurant somewhere in America and be refused service.

However, 65 years ago, Orson Welles was talking about far worse abuses that could (and did), happen to Afro-Americans. Namely, how they could actually be lynched, killed, or lose their eyesight. This is exactly what happened to a heroic black soldier named Issac Woodard and Welles, famously championed his cause against all odds on his radio show on ABC in the summer of 1946.

Listen to it here

Unfortunately, this ultimately led to the end of Welles's radio career in America, even before his career in the movies in the United States was over.

This was all brought into sharp focus for me last weekend when I watched Episode Three of Orson Welles Sketchbook at the PFA in Berkeley.

Stefan Drossler finally got the chance to bring his rare Welles material to the Bay area, and needless to say the show was a resounding success.

I will have much more to say about it in the coming days, including exciting new details about The Other Side of the Wind, but for now, I'd like to present this prescient transcript of Welles comments from his Orson Welles Sketchbook episode, that was first aired in England on May 7, 1955.

It certainly seems like a very good way to differentiate the end of the terror and torture that ran rampant during the last eight years of Mr. Bush's rule over America. In stark contrast, President Barack Obama, has made it clear he will give us a more forward looking agenda that stresses hope and humanity.

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Transcript with pictures at Wellesnet here

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This weekend, the Pacific Film Archive will be hosting Stefan Drosseler of the Munich Film Museum, who will be presenting two shows of his rare UNKNOWN ORSON WELLES material.

Needless to say, this will be a long overdue program to arrive in the Bay area, for which film fans and Welles scholars can give thanks to PFA curator Susan Oxtoby.

Full details at the PFA website

Short article in the SF Bay Guardian
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A restoration is never finished, because it’s always possible that you’ll have a new discovery, get new ideas, or get knowledge that changes something you’ve already done. In the case of Orson Welles, there is always the chance that even more material will surface. For example, the first version we did of Moby Dick was a little bit different. We eventually changed some of the titles, and we cut it down a bit. We didn’t cut any shots, but we made each take a little bit shorter, cutting away some frames. In studying Orson Welles’s editing style, we found that he always took the shortest possibility. In the beginning, we had a lot of respect for the original material, and we even wanted to keep all the clapboards in the film, but it destroyed the atmosphere. I think the version we have now of Moby Dick works quite well. The response at the screenings has been very good

—Stefan Droessler

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Notes on some of the excerpts to be shown:

THE DREAMERS (1982) Directed by Orson Welles. Screenplay by Orson Welles and Oja Kodar, based on The Dreamers and Echoes by Isak Dinesen. Cinematography (in color) by Gary Graver. Music by Erik Satie.

Cast: Orson Welles as Marcus Kleek
Oja Kodar as Pellegrina Leoni

While no other actors were officially cast, Welles was hoping to obtain the services of the following actors: Timothy Dalton as Lincoln Forsner; Oliver Reed as Guildenstern; Bud Cort as Pilot; Peter Ustinov as Baron Clootz and Jeanne Moreau as the notorious Donna Lucetta Boscari, "expert in poisons and aphrodisiacs, and procuress to the high clergy."

Welles wrote the screenplay for this film in 1978 and began shooting short "test footage" of the picture in the garden and interior of his house in the Hollywood Hills to stand-in for scenes in the script set in Pellegrina's Villa in Milan, Italy.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE (1969) Written and Directed by Orson Welles. Based on the play by William Shakespeare. Cinematography by Giorgio Tonti, Ivica Rajkovic & Tomislav Pinter (in Color). Editing by Fritz Muller & Mauro Bonanni.

Cast: Orson Welles (Shylock), Charles Gray (Antonio), Irina Maleva (Jessica).

Welles began this adaptation of Shakepeare's THE MERCHANT OF VENICE intending it to be a full length version, which like OTHELLO before it, was shot in broken intervals where ever Welles happened to be at the time, in this case mostly in Trogir, Yugoslavia, as well as in Venice and Asolo, Italy. Finally, because of problems with money and obtaining filming permits in Venice, Welles decided to make an abridged version (running about 40 minutes), by eliminating many of the major roles, including Portia (who originally was going to be played by Oja Kodar). The negative was long presumed lost, and a major portion of the soundtrack was stolen from the trunk of Welles car while he was living outside of Rome.

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"Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year"

With those simple words, filmmakers the world over, were given a new "cinematic" tool, as edited by Orson Welles in what everyone seems to think is the greatest movie ever made, Citizen Kane.

Now, strange as it may seem, I can't recall this particular editing innovation being used very often in movies after Citizen Kane was released. Maybe it's because I have a New Years Eve hangover from drinking a a few too many Gimlet's with Glenn Anders and Todd Baesen at the Ha-Ra Club (by the way, I told Todd to stop his rant against the new messageboard. Although I don't much like it, either, it's better than having nothing!)

However, to return to "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year," it seems to me it recalls the cut in Kubrick's 2001 where we cover many years in the story in a single cut.

Welles had discovered a very effective cinematic device that nobody else ever seems to be using these days. Maybe it's like the dissolve, and it has simply gone out of fashion, but it's a technique that you would think some hot-shot young director would have picked-up on.

But, speaking of the dissolve, why would should that have gone so out of fashion in today's movies? It's one of the most poetic and beautiful things a director or a film editor has at their disposal. That is why Citizen Kane's opening is so poetic. And just look at the beautiful dissolves in Terence Malick's films.

Maybe it's just because today's young MTV trained directors don't even know what a dissolve is. Could that be why they are so out of fashion?

If that is the case, it's a pretty pathetic indictment of film schools. It reminds me of Welles own comments on what was "cinematic" made circa 1948. He and Jean Cocteau were at the Venice film Festival, and both wondered what the formula was for creating a "cinematic" experience, if only so they could put it into effect in one of their future films. At the time, both Welles and Cocteau had made films from plays they had already directed for the stage. Welles had just done Macbeth, while Cocteau had just started work on Les Parents Terribles.

The point being, "cinematic" was really just a fake description for what critics wanted movies to be. What is really cinematic, would be, as Welles said in 1958, giving the camera to someone who could use it as "an eye in the head of a poet."

So let's have more poets who want to make movies, and less bastards who are raised on MTV and want to become rich and famous!

In any event, here is wishing everyone at Wellesnet a very Happy New Year, and as promised, here is the second part of ORSON WELLES autobiography that was published in Paris Vogue.

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A BRIEF CAREER AS A MUSICAL PRODIGY

By Orson Welles - PARIS VOGUE, December, 1982
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Violinist, pianist...child conductor...

This last was pretty much of a fake. By the time I was seven I was reading through the scores and waving my little baton in the presence of such people as Heifetz, Casals, Schnabel, Wallenstein and Mischa Ellman, when they gathered informally in chamber groups in my mother's house. Her own professional life was frustrated by long illness, but just about everybody was in love with her, so the celebrated musicians, when they came to visit and play, were kind enough to pretend that the midget Von Karajan in front of them was not (as I must truly have been) a damned nuisance.

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