Citizen Welles DVD set - quick first impressions

[Jeff Wilson]

I got the Citizen Welles set today, and it's better than expected, I guess, given the company's track record. The Stranger is the worse looking of the two films; the edition from Roan appears to be in worse shape speckle and dirt-wise, but it's sharper. This new transfer looks too soft and might suffer from too much digital tomfoolery. The Trial looks reasonably close to the Milestone edition. I hope to get some screen captures this weekend to compare. The Dolby 5.1 sound mixes were a waste of time; they didn't appear to be in use for the scenes I sampled, only occasionally popping up in heavy music or sound effects sequences.

The extras: Hearts of Age looked excellent, although Jeffrey Lyons' commentary is forced on you; if you want to watch it silent, you need to mute the sound out. Lyons' comments are fine, nothing too analytical, more just giving some general background, pointing out who the particular actors are. I haven't listened to his commentaries on either film yet. The documentary about the films and their restoration is okay; the first part goes into the background of the films, set to stills and sequences from each film. The second part goes into the restoration effort, which is decent, but nothing scintillating. It's similar to the docu on the Othello DVD. The end features a promo for producer Michael Dawson's Citizen Welles web site, which has since become a generic search engine for the web. All in all, not a total waste of $20, as both films look okay, and The Stranger has looked worse, although it doesn't look too hot here. My main complaint is the soundtrack fiddling. If they want to give us 5.1 re-mixes, fine, just give us the original mono as well. I have no doubt Welles would have loved the possiblities soundtracks could have offered him if he made films today, but he doesn't, and I would prefer they stand as they originally were made.

[sergio]

I must say that I agree with your overall comments re: CITIZEN WELLES though I would add that THE STRANGER really looks very bad indeed overall - there may be fewer scratches, but the images is often horribly soft and ends up looking like a bad VHS dupe half of the time. I think THE TRIAL is on the whole very good, but they both have a lot of stray "electronic colour" (for lack of a better term) which I found thoroughly annoying - a bit like the commentary - there are interesting things in it, and I'm glad to have the disk, but Lyons is incredibly repetitive and sounds as if he recorded the talk completely off the cuff (something suggested by Richard France in his response to a query about his involvement on this site).

If only the lost 20 minutes of THE STRANGER could be found...

[Jeff Wilson]

If you go to the Wellesnet news page, you'll note that I have added pages for comparison of the Citizen Welles set to the Roan Stranger disc and Milestone Trial disc. Screen captures from all discs are included, and may take a while to load depending on your connection. The upshot? Citizen Welles is inferior, and clearly so, in both cases. But do see for yourself. Also posted is a page on Welles' talk show pilot from 1979, The Orson Welles Show.

[Welles Fan]

Thanks for those screen captures. The differences in the two Stanger DVD's were not overwhelming (especially since the movie isn't either), but that FF version of The Trial looked like hell! Glad I got the Milestone version of that one.

[jaime marzol]

hands down, milestone's TRIAL is the one to get. there is a crystal clear version of THE STRANGER that airs on turner, why it's not available on dvd is one of the wellesian type mysteries. though THE STRANGER is considered by most the least of his film, you really need to see a very clear version of it, being that it already is a very dark film, and then it does not emerge as such an OK. it emerges as something more. i was surprised when i saw it. the eye becomes weary of all the tone with no textures that burned out negatives render

[Harvey Chartrand]

The Orson Welles Show seems low-rent, no great loss, arguably the worst of his semi-realized pet projects.
Orson's Bag -- pitched in 1969 -- was a boldly innovative TV talk/variety show concept that the networks should have gone for. If anyone could have convinced Charlie Chaplin, Howard Hughes and Greta Garbo to appear on a talk show, it would have been Welles. (This was Welles' stated intention!)
With The Orson Welles Show, I see a frightened 63-year-old man who is looking to find some cash and comfortably retire. Talk about getting your comeuppance three times over. (Elia Kazan said Welles did the Paul Masson commercials because he was broke.) By 1978, Welles is playing it safe with the talk show format, but the networks still wouldn't go for it. And yes, I cringe when I see wintry old Welles -- the onetime brash enfant terrible with the world by the tail -- adopt that air of stern gravitas, adding a note of 'culture' to The Dean Martin Show or Laugh-In or the Marty Feldman Comedy Machine, or making portentous pronouncements on the directing ambitions of one Burt Reynolds (who says he would have directed Welles in an episode of Amazing Stories if the Great One had lived but a few weeks longer). Oh, the pity of it all. Such a terrible waste (and waist, too; the fat jokes didn't help).

[jaime marzol]

harvey:
what does all this mean? terrific melodrama, but i'm at a bit of a loss.

the welles tv show, with manicured interviews and dolly shots of the audience, was years ahead of it's time; watch any modern day info-mercial, you'll see welles one again pointed the way. there isn't much to enjoy in welles tv show just like there isn't much to enjoy in modern day info mercials.

have you seen orson's grab bag? is it available?