(Editor’s  note: The following interview appeared on the Italian website Quinlan rivista de critica cinematografica on June 12, 2015. The following translation was conducted by Mike Teal and Marc Edward Heuck. The Don Quixote workprint referenced in the article will be screened in Paris again on July 27).

By ALESSANDRO ANIBALLI

Among Orson Welles’ unfinished works, Don Quixote is his most personal project, and also the one that, for a number of unresolved issues, is in serious danger of falling into oblivion. We spoke with Mauro Bonanni, who worked on the editing of the film from April 1969 to March 1970. This interview is dedicated to Ciro Giorgini.

In October of 2013, thanks to the discovery and screening of Too Much Johnson, organized by the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, a new phase of interest in Orson Welles has opened, with particular reference to the submerged world of all his unfinished work. But it also opened for us, Quinlan-like, a path that led us to know Ciro Giorgini, who precisely identified “Johnson”, and immediately shared with us his long experience of this elusive Welles film, as was reported in the interview that we published almost a year and a half ago.

Thanks to Ciro Giorgini, we were able to get in touch with Mauro Bonanni, editor of Don Quixote, which, among all the unfinished films by Orson Welles, is undoubtedly the most controversial, first because Welles considered it his “own film”; his most personal, ambitious and therefore most secret project, and secondly because of the attempted revival wrought by Jess Franco in 1992, Don Quijote by Orson Welles, which completely distorted the Wellesian spirit of the work with a use of replacement footage both arbitrary and unintentionally grotesque.

We met with Mauro Bonanni to talk about the long controversy of Don Quixote and to hear how he worked with Welles.

This interview is dedicated to Ciro Giorgini, who died last April 6.

* * *

The opportunity to work with Orson Welles on Don Quixote came early in your career, didn’t it?

Mauro Bonanni: Actually I had done an underground movie, but cannot remember the title. And then I felt – considering that I was twenty – like one destined to make art films. At the time I was offered only the kind of things – B movies, in short – that made me sick and I refused them, so that for more than a year I had not worked. However, at that time I happened to organize the sound editing for an English friend a couple of times. And I also did the sound editing for a film of Visconti. Then one day I met a friend, Walter Diotallevi, who told me: “Why don’t you come with me to work on a film? There are Americans, there is money.” Because that’s what you used to say at the time, the Americans were full of money.

But I did not want to, because the type of job that Diotallevi offered me would make me go back to being an assistant editor. But as soon as Walter told me that the American was Orson Welles, I said yes immediately. So I went right to the Safa Palatino Center, which was one of the three or four large editing studios at the time, to work for Welles. The owner was the editor Fritz Muller, a relative of Renzo Lucidi, the editor who had worked for Welles on Mr. Arkadin / Confidential Report, and with him as an assistant, there were the following people: Maurizio Gutierrez, the aforementioned Walter Diotallevi, Giorgini, and Nina Roman, who was the sister of Oja Kodar, Welles’s last companion. The first two weeks I worked without Welles, assigned to take pictures.

Almost as in one of his films, where it often happens that a character appears on stage a little later, after some waiting … 

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, a bit so. So after two weeks, Welles returned from Germany, where he had filmed scenes for a special he was working on; a television show for CBS telling – more or less jokingly – the characteristics of various countries: The Merchant of Venice, which was supposed to represent Italy, Brazil with Ipanema, and an Old England Club. Then there was another one set in Vienna with Sachertorte and other pastries that was entitled Carnaby Street, and then he would be back again doing a speech for the England section. In short, he had already developed several films. The project had by then taken the name of Orson’s Bag, but was never completed. Under a shelf, always there at Safa Palatino, there was also the workprint of The Deep, on which later he would be working a bit too.

How were the tasks divided at this stage? 

Mauro Bonanni: We were preparing all the dailies, while Fritz Muller worked along with Welles. The space was divided into two rooms, one with prepared material, and the other in which Muller worked with him. And there were four slow-motion replays, three Italian and one American vertical.

What was the difference between the Italian and American slow motion?

Mauro Bonanni: The American one was small, had a handle to spin the film and a monitor to see the shot. So if you needed to see something fast, he used the American. But Welles absolutely preferred the Italian editing machine, which allowed much more precise work on individual frames that he could maneuver. However, at some point, it happened that they sent Fritz Muller away; I do not know what happened, I just heard screams and I saw him go away. Two days later, Oja Kodar came to me and said, tomorrow we will put you on the assembly with Orson Welles. And in seeing my disbelief, she said: Yes, Orson decided that you’re with him. I was very happy of course, but also shocked, because of all the editors, I was the one who knew the least material.

Why do you think he chose you? 

Mauro Bonanni: Because I was the youngest. He always chose young staff, like Roberto Perpignani, who was named by Welles to make The Trial. At the time I still did not really understand why I had been chosen. It is upon reflection that I did later.

So from that moment ]your job changed completely?

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, Orson began to teach me how you worked with him. He was making marks on the film clips that were to be scrapped, while the parts that had no markings were good. Thus, for example, all the good takes took up the first editing bench, all the takes of good reverse shots and good ones of wide fields. Each of these groups were brought together and then each was put on a different editing bay, which could at times be less than four, always depending on how much money there was.

Italian editing machines, specifically, were very appropriate to assemble these parts. And then it worked like this: I went out on the right side as he entered from the left side and I stood next to him. He signaled that something was to be cut and I intervened. It was all very strict and precise. Then he put himself at the center of the room and, with a cigar in his mouth, he controlled the situation from there. At times he indicated things to change, to adjust or to put back in the edit. It was like a waltz, with its timing, its precise movements, and a series of rituals

Was he the only one working  this way? 

Mauro Bonanni:Yes, no one else worked well this way. I picked up the habit of assembling the takes of the same shot – and I still do now with digital editing – for example, when I cut action scenes. Or, in general, when I have to handle so much material, we adopt this system, because sometimes it’s hard to know if it is all really good or not. If you attach the same type of shot one after the other, as he did, then you understand what will you actually choose and why. Perpignani also works well this way, since he began with Welles.

So the first thing you edited with Welles was the television special, Orson’s Bag? 

 

 

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, but with him you started with one thing but didn’t always stay with that. He more or less arrived at ten in the morning and went off at about five-thirty in the afternoon. Maybe it began with Old Club and then, during the same day, he tired of that and then said, now let’s do The Merchant of Venice, or Ipanema.

To get you some concrete examples of how we worked, I am reminded of the case of the Old Club, the episode set in a club of English aristocrats. Well, at first there were only two old characters – both played by Welles – who told of their adventures in India. Then one day I found that he had introduced a third gentleman, and a fourth – always played by him – then added the waiter, and the whole assembly was made in such a way that it seemed that they were all within the same room even though they were all shot in very different places. Incredible!

But when you worked with Welles, even when it was going well, he was never satisfied. I remember another episode, Ipanema. This fragment was based on Oja Kodar strolling and everyone turning to admire her beauty, material that was then partly reused for F for Fake. The music was “Girl from Ipanema” which, transferred to tape, we changed the speed of according to the needs of the images. And this process was stunning. The way that he could reshape what he had available was a constant surprise, quite a shock for the things that he could come up with. Sometimes I think that, to say he was a genius was nothing compared to what I can testify I have seen him do. With him you could really see what being a director is. It makes me angry to think of all the things that unfortunately failed to get finished.

So, one day he came to the editing room and said that the TV special was now his, because CBS had unfortunately decided not to continue to fund it. And then he began to run short of money. And that was precisely the time when we also started to assemble the footage of The Deep, which contained black film stock (marker for missing scenes) because it was necessary to add the scene of the explosion of the yacht. That sequence was still to be shot, and then we saw that the money was missing, so I wondered how he would do it. So in those days, to afford to continue to pay for all of these projects, Welles agreed to do the narration for a German documentary on the Vatican [Barbed Water, by Adrian J. Wensley-Walker]. It went that way, where he often did small parts in films, such as in spaghetti Westerns, to get the money to go ahead with his plans.

Looking at Welles’ films, it is impressive to see how his way of filmmaking had changed much over the years. In particular, it is understood that editing tended to become an increasingly important aspect in the process of his films. It is perhaps fitting that from Othello onward, it becomes the central element of his films, including the need to carry it out himself because he was forced to film it over four years and in very different locations.

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, it’s true. Although we had never spoken about it directly, I could realize it very well. Already in that very moment when CBS dropped him and the special, he began to have a completely different approach. That moment he had become his own producer, and the material was experimented with excessively, with a whole series of shots, like a pastry which is always in a state of rising. So as he became director and producer at the same time – which happened previously with Othello – he realized all the thousands of possibilities for the evolution of the material. He always said that no frames had to be thrown away.

And Don Quixote? 

Mauro Bonanni: One day he said, “Tomorrow I present my son.” I thought to myself, I know that Welles has a daughter, so I knew that was wrong. Well, you know that his suitcases were listed as immigrants when they went to the North? The day after, Welles came with these two suitcases which, using cardboard and some cheap leather, he kept shut with string. Inside were all the boxes which contained Don Quixote. So we started working on it.

What was the material in 16mm? 

Mauro Bonanni: We’ll start with this story, because there are already so many people who have insisted on saying that it was all 16mm. Not true, it was all in 35mm. The only things I know that he shot in 16mm were tests that were made at the beginning of the summer of ’55 with Mischa Auer, before he cast Francisco Reiguera. Then, when in the early ‘60’s he did In the Land of Don Quixote for RAI, he also took the opportunity to film Don Quixote. For example, there is a scene from In the Land where you see his third wife Paola Mori. Well, we also had that same shot, only it was just Welles instead, along with the little girl who played Dulcinea. And then Welles decided to also remove his appearance so, during final assembly, only Dulcinea was left.

However, I can prove to you another way that all this material was in 35mm. Besides the fact that the editing machines were all 35mm, there was a particular style of cutting that he loved to do: “velocizzava” segments, which meant cutting a few frames here and there to give a rapid-motion effect. And with 16mm this could not be done. So, if you had a shot at 24 frames per second, he made it go down to 12, and the frames were spliced together by us with tape. It was also a method to create an eccentric motion when the film was speeded up, moreover.

But it was an expensive procedure, which could also become an expense that was not justifiable. And at that time he could not afford the additional investment cost, so he used this method of cutting frames from a positive print by hand. And because it was a work of extreme precision, sometimes it could happen that some frames broke, so there were huge boxes full of all these frames and loose cuts. He would waste words, yes, but he did not throw away film ever.

Why do you think that so many have talked about this issue of 16mm versus 35?

Mauro Bonanni: Because already twenty years ago I had a big discussion about this issue when the Spanish company El Silencio produced a film by Jess Franco, who then did that terrifying alternate version in ’92 called Don Quijote de Orson Welles. They said that the material used on that was 16mm. In fact, the 16mm they had was not part of the material that I worked on myself. Those elements in 16mm they had taken from Suzanne Cloutier, who played Desdemona in Othello, who had been in contact with Welles for many years.

But why did she have these elements from Don Quixote? 

Mauro Bonanni: She told me by phone that Welles had left them to her as a token because he owed her money. Suzanne did not want him to, but he insisted.

And this material in 16mm she eventually gave to the production company El Silencio?

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, they made up a false story to fool Suzanne. I know because I was with her. I had immediately recommended to her to not give that material to Jess Franco, because in the meantime I had already had discussions with him. Suzanne, however, told me that Oja Kodar had told her that Welles had written in his will for her to do so. And eventually Suzanne succumbed because they went to her and said falsely that I myself had delivered my elements. At that time I was working outside Italy and so Suzanne was unable to contact me. She eventually was persuaded by them. Later, when I returned to Italy, we talked over the phone and she told me everything, but unfortunately it was too late. Incidentally, Suzanne also had the so-called black book; that is, the script of Don Quixote.

Really? And she also gave them the black book, the script?

Mauro Bonanni: No, not that.

So in theory that would have still been with her? 

Mauro Bonanni: Eh, but she died. Who knows, maybe one does have some relatives.

But you never saw this black book? 

Mauro Bonanni: No, I’ve never seen it.

And this material that Cloutier had, you’ve never seen? 

Mauro Bonanni: No, not even that.

But how do you explain this fact, that there was also the material in 16mm of Don Quixote? 

Mauro Bonanni: Welles had a 16mm camera, which was his property. Perhaps over the years he filmed something with that. But I do not know for what purpose he would use it, because there was no point mixing it with 35. At the time there was a means to blow up the 16mm up to 35mm, but back then a big difference could have been seen in any case.

On Don Quixote you worked mainly between April ’69 and March ’70, right? 

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, that is true.

And at this time, on which parts of Don Quixote did you work? 

Mauro Bonanni: About all of them. When working on Don Quixote, it was just me and Welles, nobody else. There were no other people. And the only one who, at the time, came to look at the scenes of Don Quixote was Peter Bogdanovich.

It was the same period when they were working on the book-interview?

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, probably.

But even then, the material had this problem, in which different parts were without sound, right?

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, there was little sound. One such example was a scene Welles had called “The Dentist”, which is a sequence present in the version by Jess Franco, and you could see that Don Quixote went into a sort of caravan, because remember that Don Quixote was set by Welles in contemporary Spain. In short, in this sequence Don Quixote had a toothache and Sancho removed one of his teeth. And that was a sequence that Welles had dubbed himself, doing the voices of both Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. However – and this is amazing – he never watched the scene in the dubbing room. He watched it on the editing bench, made a reservation for a sound room, and then he recorded the dialogue. You will not believe it, but ninety times out of a hundred times his sound fit perfectly. I attached the sound to the images and there were always very few corrections to make. And, in fact, among the various things that I said to the executives of El Silencio – just before I broke with them – was that they should try to find an English-speaking deaf-mute, who could read the lip movements. But they did not give me a straight answer and they did a terrible dubbing job later, completely reinventing the dialogue.

But why was there not more direct sound? 

Mauro Bonanni: Because the sound tapes were lost. The shooting of the film, after the auditions of ’55 with Mischa Auer, was started in ’57 and we were still working on the editing more than twelve years later, between ’69 and ’70. Also consider that Welles continued to film even in those days, in Rome. In fact, you could find not only the clapperboard in English but also in Italian, which toured with Giorgio Tonti. For example, the scene of the sheep had been made with him.

But the audio track was lost because it was damaged? Or was it just lost? 

Mauro Bonanni: No, I think that Welles lost it. Considering that he often went away suddenly from places where he was, because he found himself without money and maybe had to go somewhere else where he was paid to do some work for others. So he always left something behind. Think, for example, of the fact that he had come to leave footage of Don Quixote with Cloutier.

And a little was left even when he went away from Italy?

Mauro Bonanni:

Yes. When the news of his affair with Oja Kodar came out in March of ’70, he was in the editing room, angry, and said: “You Italians! You Italians!” And I did not understand what he meant. He then explained: the article said that “while suffering Paola Mori, Welles made merry at the Hilton with Oja Kodar.” But the photos of Welles and Kodar had not been made at the Hilton as we were led to believe. They were made right there where we filmed. Welles pointed to the bricks that were seen in the background of the photo and you could tell very well that they were those of Safa Palatino. In short, Rizzoli, the magazine, was responsible for creating the story. Welles was their big scoop.

So Welles left immediately? 

Mauro Bonanni: That morning he came to tell me that, at 10:30, he had already woken up both Oja and Nina. He had canceled the room at the Hilton for three or four days and slept in the dressing room of Safa Palatino. I brought him tea in the morning, and once I also brought his pants from the laundry. They were impressive: they were giant! Then he went to an Anglo-American hotel and remained there for another ten days. Then he left.

He had not taken anything away? 

Mauro Bonanni: No, later the other material I did with him I sent to Salzburg.

Was Don Quixote among the things that you brought there? 

Mauro Bonanni: No, there were all the episodes of the CBS special, including The Merchant of Venice, which at that point was almost finished. It was mixed and everything, even with the music of Lavagnino. I think Lavagnino, given the close working relationship and friendship he had with Welles, had not wanted to be paid. So Welles had given him all his drawings and miniatures.

Why did you not also bring Don Quixote? 

Mauro Bonanni: Because Welles was afraid of the train journey. In fact, to bring all that CBS material I had had to travel by train at night. It was all illegal material, since at the time, to be able to travel, the film had to be stamped, for example, with the emblem of the Italian Republic; both the beginning and end of the film.

And then the work print of Don Quixote was delivered, afterwards, to his daughter, Beatrice? 

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, we met in Rome, at the Piazza del Popolo, and I gave it to her. I put everything into the suitcases. But I do not remember how long after that happened. Consider that was a lifetime ago.

(Wellesnet editor’s note: Beatrice Welles disagrees with Bonanni’s recollection, saying only she met with him in  1991 at his request to see if there was interest in completing Don Quixote).

But in Salzburg how did it go? 

Mauro Bonanni: Welles had called me to tell me: we’ll get you into a villa and also hire an Italian chef, so we can edit in peace. So I had arrived with all the CBS footage. But after less than a week, I had to go to Rome because my father was dying.

And in those few days you worked on some things? 

Mauro Bonanni:  No, because we had begun putting the material in place, which was a mess. We cut only a little bit of The Merchant of Venice, because he wanted to put his hands on it again, even though for me it was finished. But things never end with him. You know, for example, because of The Deep being there, he wanted to work more on it? But I told him one day at lunch – it was just me and him – “Can you imagine, Welles, the day when the movie comes out, there will be a few reviews, and they’ll all speak only of the leading actress, Oja?” Because of this, there was deathly silence on his part … and that was why we did not do any more work on it. There were still scenes with her that didn’t work because, unfortunately, at that stage of her career, she was having trouble. And I, as a young naif, I said such a thing to him. Shame on me.

But the workprint of Don Quixote was almost final?

Mauro Bonanni: No. Besides the fact that there was little sound, and that I would not have been able to do anything about it, that version was also a kind of puzzle. In fact, he had this peculiarity that, while reels were normally about ten minutes, which corresponded to approximately 270 meters, on the contrary he kept Don Quixote separated into short sequences, which were individually inside cans of 120 meters. Each of those sequences then was even less than 120 meters long. They were from 40 to 60. It was written on the head leader, for example, “Sheep”, “Pamplona”. And so the day he went away from Italy, we did put in the queue, at the close of each of these sequences, what the scene was that had to go after. For example, if it was written on the head “Dentist” and inside was the scene of the tooth, on the tail was written “Sheep” and therefore you knew what to attach later. And then maybe in the queue Sheep was written as Pamplona, and so on.

So could you at least assemble it? 

Mauro Bonanni: No, because a single roll was still not finished. However, later, when the Spanish company arrived on the scene and took over, I told them it is crucial to recover the workprint, because on it is at least indicated the order of the sequences. In addition, it must be said too, that Orson was not using the takes that we gave him.

But do you think he did it on purpose because he did not want then someone replacing his hand without his approval, in memory of the other films that had been cut and reassembled by the producers? 

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, in my opinion, yes.

So, technically, the last time you put your hands on Don Quixote was when Welles had to go away from Italy? And you think after that he could be successful working on the film on his own? And how was your relationship then continued after this unfortunately short experience of Salzburg? 

Mauro Bonanni: No, we did not see each other more and I do not know how I could have worked with him again. We still did some more work together, but after he left Italy, we worked only by phone. And, since he did not like talking with the handset, there was almost always Oja Kodar, who acted as intermediary. Among other things, for a period I could not find the film. And this happened when I tried to tell him I wanted to search for the negative of Don Quixote. I knew it was in Paris, but I could not find it. Then one day he called me from Los Angeles and I was able to say, “look what I got: the negative of Don Quixote.”

And when you said this thing about Don Quixote, what did he tell you? 

Mauro Bonanni: He thanked me and told me that of course he would send the Prince Alessandro Tasca – who was his best friend – to come and get it. But it was only years later that there was a way to give him the material.

And, so far the presence of Welles on screen as the narrator? 

Mauro Bonanni: In the scene in Don Quixote?  He was not there. There was only his apparition in the carriage, which was then removed. I speak of course only of what I saw.

So anyway, there was still years of work left to do? 

Mauro Bonanni:  No, I guess he would never have finished. I’ll give you another example: In The Merchant of Venice, Shylock was going around looking for the character of Jessica. A normal scene: he looks at a letter that she wrote, leaves, walks four steps and arrives. But then Welles turned to Centro Palatino for a scene with masked people and then added that passage in the middle of this short sequence. Then he added a scene where I appeared myself as an actor, I’m a charlatan …

Ah yes, now that you mention it, I remember seeing your appearance somewhere. 

Mauro Bonanni:  Yeah, it was very fun, because it was the first time I saw Welles on a set. However, Shylock first found himself meeting with all the acrobats. Then Welles added, as intermezzo, a scene with the regatta of Venice. Only those shots had all been made during the day, and he then decided it should have a night effect, so he then recovered a shot of fireworks, and I went with him to a workshop called Videogamma because they could create an artificial fireworks effect during filming the race. To do this, it was necessary to pass from the negative containing the effects, then you did the interpositive and returned to the negative. The interpositive was nothing but a positive fine-grained, soft, light color, more malleable then. He passed the material on this Truka editing machine himself. And so the colors of the different fires he could reconstruct himself directly.

And he did this? 

Mauro Bonanni: I told you he was a genius! He knew how to do everything. And there was one worker present, named Giulio Cecchini and from that day on I did not speak anything or tell anyone about it, but he frequently told how Orson Welles made a scene from only the optical effects. Every time he remembered this thing, just seeing Welles at work, he really understood how he did the special effects and he said it with pride. This is because Welles had a total knowledge of every aspect of production.

But you spoke with Welles often? Of how he planned to finish the Don Quixote for example, or other things. 

Mauro Bonanni: He spoke little, in order to work hard. If he spoke, it was those times that we went to lunch. On those occasions we talked about everything. He talked of how he did not sleep for example, and through the night would read and write. He also said he hated the Americans, because he said that they were children. There was talk of cinema. The only thing we went to see for four consecutive nights was De Filippo, who he adored as an actor. One evening we went instead to hear Amalia Rodrigues, the Portuguese singer. Then, at the table, sometimes he did some magic tricks.

And he always spoke in Italian?

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, except when he was angry, then he spoke in English. Oja often scolded him because he spoke in English. He said: I’m in Italy, speaking Italian. Sometimes, however, it happened that morning came and he spoke English, and then said: excuse me Mauro, today I forgot the Italian under the sheets. And after a while he was beginning to speak in Italian. Then, for example, he was terrified of getting a cold and immediately sent someone home if he could see that they had a sneeze or a cough.

But at that time he had already started to work on The Other Side of the Wind? 

Mauro Bonanni: No, that started later. Then, much later, shortly before he died, he called me again, because he wanted to make a film in Italy, The Cradle Will Rock, which was eventually not done. He called me about getting a price quote, and was happy because in Italy all costs less. And on that occasion, a short time later, I also met with Prince Tosca, just to talk about this new film that Welles wanted to do.

It is very interesting that there is – visually, stylistically and thematically – an almost unfathomable distance between The Other Side of the Wind and  Don Quixote. 

Mauro Bonanni:  Yes, I think about the simplicity. He told me that the clouds were the set of Don Quixote. Still, the same thing about different styles that you’re saying is something I would see before me in the months in which I put Don Quixote together with him. In fact, for example, we worked simultaneously on “Carnaby Street”, which was a short little story on Swinging London and had a modern and very fast editing style, and The Merchant of Venice, which was much more solemn and slow. In this he was always like a boy, always in search of new things. It is not surprising that at the same time he could also pull out of the hat a movie like Wind, which was more similar to Easy Rider.

So what about the negative of Don Quixote that you have kept for years. Was it in a warehouse?

Mauro Bonanni: No, there were five bins of negative, which were taken to Vittori, a laboratory of development and printing, where we also had the negative of the CBS special. So the negative of Don Quixote was held by Vittori. Then, when Welles started cutting a single scene from the Quixote negative, then he had to pay the deposit. There was this unwritten law respected by all, to the effect that if a film, three months after the deposit, had any of the negative cut, then the unedited part of the negative was considered garbage and was sent through the shredder. Because of this clause, therefore, Vittori wanted to send everything through the shredder and just keep that sequence. They kept it for a bit and then were really willing to throw everything away.

And this happened even if you had cut only one sequence of the negative. The rest was considered trash. And, in the case of Don Quixote, we had just cut a five minute scene because we did make some pickups, which were fine in positive and then we cut also on the negative. Therefore Vittori wrote that the owner of the material was unavailable and had defaulted on payment. I tried to call Welles with the only means of contact I had, but I could not find him. At the end I gave eight hundred thousand pounds to Vittori to satisfy them. I took the negative and put it in a warehouse. There I also paid storage. More or less it was the mid-seventies when this thing happened.

And now where is this material? 

Mauro Bonanni: Now it is in the studio laboratory of Cinecittà. But what happens now? Every year, I was doing this thing, that in slang is said to advance the negative. That is to say that you take it out of the boxes, wind it back and forth on an editing bench and then put it away again, so that by airing it out it will be protected from wear and, above all, from the possibility that the film will stick.

And can you do it again? 

Mauro Bonanni:  No, I cannot do it again right now because there is the pending litigation with Oja Kodar. I also did tell the court through my office, that I’m willing to do this conservation work on the material again. Well, they never answered.

I decided to spontaneously put it under sequestration, because I thought, if anything happens to me, then no one knows where the Don Quixote material is? So they well know, but apparently they have abandoned the film to its fate.

But it is impounded since the case began with Oja Kodar? 

Mauro Bonanni: Let’s say the whole case started when she came to me on the production of El Silencio’s version in the early nineties, saying she wanted it back badly. The first answer I gave to her was: I will not give the negative at face value, especially if you do not pay me everything there is to pay. And then this guy came up with the story of the film being 16mm, he wanted the material in 16mm. And I told him that what I had was only 35mm. They did not want to believe that, so at that point I turned immediately to a lawyer. We met with their counsel, and I brought a piece of 35mm film negative. The envoy of El Silencio was appalled, saying that they had only material in 16mm. Then he asked me how I wanted to pursue the matter. And I told him, feeling as a moral heir of Don Quixote, I wanted to participate in the editing. I was told, however, that the work would be done completely by Jess Franco.

At that point, I concluded: okay, I’ll be an assistant to Franco. But El Silencio was not convinced because they said Oja had signed a contract stipulating that Franco would be the only one to see the printed copy. I was left speechless: how can Oja, who has lived for years with Welles, and knew how much he cared about Don Quixote, sign something that completely delegated the job to someone else? Evidently she had been offered a lot of money. Then the envoy asked me what was needed and I told him that, first of all, it was necessary that the negative material be printed so that they could recover the right exposures. They had to do a job of revitalization of the footage and in this regard I added that, as far as I knew, there was a lab in Germany that had specialized in this type of transaction and were therefore the best.

For the audio material, for the dialogue, I advised him to go to a lab in France. This person seemed to welcome all my proposals. So I went to Seville to meet Jess Franco, about whom I had read somewhere that he had been called one of the ten worst directors in the world, but I did not think it was the same person. I thought I had heard wrong. When I went there, he introduced me to some of the films he had done and I remained speechless: they were much worse than the hackwork I myself had originally done. In fact, after Orson Welles, I had given up my “authorial” ambitions and found myself accepting that type of work that, at the beginning of my career, I tended to decline. In short, seeing that Jess Franco made films much worse than I was doing, I was worried. However, I pointed out a few things at once: first, that there was need of the workprint. Second, that there was need of the black book, the script. He told me that those things were not there. I told him that because, the assembly of Don Quixote had been very long and difficult, something could happen – and it happened – which would affect the perception. So the negative that I had was indispensable – and still is – to remedy these failings of the workprint.

 

And what did Jess Franco say about this? 

Mauro Bonanni:  He told me he did not need it, the only thing that was needed was the novel by Cervantes. But it was nonsense, because Welles would not have worked twenty years on Don Quixote if he wanted to do just a simple adaptation of the novel. However, I returned to Rome far from convinced. We made a deal, which gave me a bit of money and the rights to the Italian market. And, from the economic point of view, it was fine. It was everything else that did not convince me.

Then I said, ok, I am sending you the positive print looped and edited, so he could not take possession of the negative material. It was the same thing you do today when they send the DVD with the writing on screen to prevent those copies being sold illegally. So I told him: assemble the material, both yours and mine, then we’ll cut the negative in Italy and then you’ll return to Spain with it. And in this way would be made the print. At the end of all this talk Jess Franco comes out saying you do not trust me? And I answered: not much. In fact, this has happened very often. So, after I made a public screening at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome of their version, a screening organized by Ciro Giorgini, everyone who saw that projection was appalled by the quality of their material. Then El Silencio offered me 800 million lire if I would give them everything. I said no.

Ah, and then were different court cases? 

Mauro Bonanni: No, it was and is a single case, because Oja had sold the rights to El Silencio. Now the third court hearing I’ll probably lose, because I’ve already lost the first two.

Why are you sure that you’ll lose? 

Mauro Bonanni: Because the judge does not understand. He does not understand what my contribution was.

At the time there was this public screening, organized by Ciro Giorgini in 1992, at which you said, I hope that there is a convergence of intent to save Don Quixote. Since then there have been more than twenty years and nothing has changed.

Mauro Bonanni: Yeah. In fact, it was what I said back then: that to have Jess Franco work on Don Quixote did not serve it well, the film needed a more cultured coverage. It would serve the film well to have the intervention of all international Welles film scholars, led by Jonathan Rosenbaum, who among Americans has been the only one who has written well of me; and Costa-Gavras, who supervised the version of Don Quixote presented at Cannes in 1986 and to whom I had spoken at that time, plus Italians like Ciro Giorgini and Enrico Ghezzi. What I’d say is we agree with the work of these people, we’ve checked them out, we reason with them, listen to their advice. There should be 4 to 5 recognized scholars who oversee everything, as if they were the director. But this they have not wanted to do.

Even after you made this public request? 

Mauro Bonanni: Nothing happened. Excluding Ciro Giorgini. I tried to get anybody. Once, in one of those meetings, in which Rosenbaum and Bertolucci were present, I intervened, saying it is useless to do round tables, talks, etc., We talk about Welles, while I’m the only one who says, does something about it, so let us all do a joint project to safeguard the Don Quixote, save this material, we should set aside all the hatred, they should all work close with me to reconstruct the movie trying to get as close as possible to the intentions of Welles. Exactly as he wanted it would be impossible, but we should at least try to preserve the memory by trying to get closer to his will. Nothing, no one has ever done anything. This project has never been done.

Why did even Rosenbaum, who also would have the power and the specific prestige to do it now, do nothing? 

Mauro Bonanni: Why? I do not know. Perhaps because everyone likes to talk, but then no one actually gets things done. Before El Silencio, among other things, there were other occasions to try to save the material. One was from those who had restored Abel Gance’s Napoleon, but they could not agree with Oja Kodar. After this, I think what else happened: I was doing a film project with Mario Cecchi Gori and Pasquale Squitieri, editing a film directed by him. Squitieri at one point said to Cecchi Gori, you know that Mauro has worked with Orson Welles? And Cecchi Gori’s son, because he said that Welles was his favorite director, asked me to tell the whole story of Don Quixote. He was interested and said we should organize something, and I will participate! But even then I could not agree with Oja.

What will happen in the end then, in your opinion?

Mauro Bonanni: I will lose the case, they will take the negative and all this is over. And I do not know who will take this negative, because there is a further problem, namely that the Spanish El Silencio say that the material is theirs, as Oja has ceded its rights in perpetuity, even though apparently she says it is no longer true that they own it. I do not know how that will end.

And the copy that is at the Cinémathèque and that will be screened on June 29, on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Welles ? 

Mauro Bonanni:  Well, if you already can obtain and show it, then that version was well under way. What it is is the last edited attempt on which Welles himself worked. I repeat, I give up every claim on the material, but let me be there when you work at the bench. Let me stand there before it, so that at least it may be that at that moment I will remember something. But, no, this problem has not been able to be solved.

But when they come to me to talk about Don Quixote, why do they all make this sad face and then still nothing is ever done? Think of it the way I myself think about it. I forget all the physical and economic damages, and the way I have been treated over the years. It is the relationship with Welles that I have tried to keep alive. If you knew how many times I have thought: Mauro, why did you save this film, and not just let it all go to waste? This is something that in the end is just about me and my memory; I did it in memory of Welles, and the memory of what I went through for this film. No matter what it means to anyone else, it is not because of what is written somewhere that I have put together the Don Quixote of Welles, I do not give a damn about that.

Finally on Don Quixote, I ask a thing of Ciro Giorgini, because now that he’s gone, it further diminishes the remaining hopes that we can resolve this situation. 

Mauro Bonanni:  Now that Ciro is gone, on matters of Orson Welles it is as if I was now missing a leg. From now on I will have to walk on a crutch. On Welles I can say he was a solid joint that never breaks. And I’ll tell you why: I was greatly fascinated by Welles, but in just knowing Ciro, I learned to love him. Often we spent whole days talking about him. And Ciro lit up on a lot of things, and sometimes knew more than me, so I was always discovering new aspects of Welles, as if my story was sometimes superficial, as if I had not understood myself, and Ciro he did understand, because he dug deeper and deeper.

Then he had an incredible eye to memory, almost faster than mine in storing images. As he saw something, he’d immediately stored it. And the one thing on which he always insisted was to know everything about the human side of Welles, the way he worked. And those who worked with Welles remained marked. Like the cinematographer of Othello, Oberdan Trojani, who after Welles, almost did not want to work anymore. This is because the memory of Welles remained so strong with you, the memory of all the things he was able to teach. And I myself, for a year and a half I had not done anything more in film, but then I had to start over again, because otherwise I would have starved.

But how many times, when I was with the directors that I’ve worked for after, I thought, “But how can anyone say that this guy does the same job as Welles?” I should have quit these trashy projects because he would have too. And the fact that I had worked with Welles was something I had not told anyone until I met Ciro. I did not say anything to anyone, I thought it was something that had to stay with me. And Ciro said, tell me everything, do not forget anything. This boundless passion of his convinced me that it was necessary to talk about it. Then sometimes he would scold me because I said good-naturedly: but how is it that every time you remember it done differently? How come every time you remember one more thing?

When did you meet Cyrus for the first time? 

Mario Bonanni:  I was working on a TV series dedicated to the great pairs of cinema, stars in love. A strange series, which had a first and a third part with archive material, while the central part had fictional reconstructions. In short, there was one on Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth – I think it was in the early 90s – and one of the researchers of the program, there was one who was a friend of Ciro’s. They needed photos of Welles and so they often called him. So on the day in question, I called the producer and looked at the photos that Ciro had brought. There was one in particular, that I took a look at and said, this is not the time period that we need, this is earlier. Ciro remained silent for a moment, looked at the picture, then looked at me and said, “How do you know?” And then I told him that I had worked with Welles. He then said to me, “When can I talk in depth with you about this?” Whenever you want, I answered. From there was born our friendship. The next day we met, we had lunch and we ended up talking until seven at night. And then he followed me step by step in the history of the Spanish filming, and he organized the meeting at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni.

For me the material of Don Quixote was not mine, it was mine and his. Ciro was obedient as a dog. The last time we met was by chance. He was on a Vespa, and we were talking for hours. How I loved him? No, I love him still. For me it is not over, I know how much he suffered. All the words that you can put together do not make Ciro. Ciro was all. His life was devoted entirely to film. Well, I do the editing, but it is a job and I do it in the form of which you want it to surface. He instead, went to dig in the ground, and he never stopped for nothing. Most editors live on one side and think of their work as something we need to just do and then take the money. He did not. He supported himself with that; the work was his lifeblood, its proteins. Always he encouraged me. All the steps I have done I have done with him. Now what? I will miss the comparison, I will miss the other leg.

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