By RAY KELLY
Brian Rose’s nearly five-year labor of love – a reconstruction of Orson Welles’ truncated The Magnificent Ambersons using animation to fill in the lost scenes – is seeking a proper festival premiere.
Rose’s work has drawn the attention of journalists on both sides of the Atlantic with coverage on National Public Radio and in The Guardian in Britain. Rose, who graciously allowed me to preview the final minutes of his reconstructed version during a lecture I gave at the Free Library of Philadelphia in July, is now looking for just the right festival to premiere his scholarly reconstruction in its entirety.
Rose made a 4K scan of his copy of the RKO Radio Pictures release print, which runs just 88 minutes and includes the studio-ordered happy ending tacked on by editor Robert Wise in Welles’ absence. Using the March 12, 1942 cutting continuity of Welles’ lost, longer cut and surviving frame enlargements as a guide, Rose has crafted at 131 minute and 45 second version of the film with voice actors and storyboard-like animation filling the numerous gaps. In addition, Bernard Herrmann’s score and appropriate sound effects accompany those missing scenes.
In the course of his research, Rose calculated that of the 73 pieces or scenes shot by Welles for his original cut, only 13 scenes survive essentially unaltered in the 88-minute release version. Twenty one scenes were completely deleted, or reshot; and 39 scenes were shortened or in the case of one scene – the apothecary – replaced by an alternate take.
As Wellesians await its first public screening, Rose fielded a few questions about the reconstruction process.
I understand you have reached out to the rights holders. Ideally, how would you like this reconstruction of The Magnificent Ambersons to be seen?
I very much would like this film to be paired with the theatrical cut in some way, so viewers can compare and contrast both. I sincerely hope that it could be possible to screen it in theaters, and ultimately make it widely available.
It’s been a very long journey since you first conceived this project. Can you recap what went into it?
The whole project took just under five years. One year was spent doing research, and rebuilding the sets digitally. One year devoted to doing roughing in all the animation via pencil outlines. One year of “ink-and-paint” filling in those outlines with colors and detail. One year animating faces. Eight months revising the animation. Three months sound mixing and color grading.
Besides using the surviving frame enlargements as a guide, what went into animating the lost scenes?
I relied upon the original cutting continuity for the long version, which contained a detailed breakdown of every shot including durations, a description of the action, camera movements, dialogue and music cues. I also looked to production correspondence and diagrams for further insight into how the scenes were constructed and edited. And most importantly, was recreating the originals sets. They are the Rosetta Stone of this film. When rebuilt, when you can virtually navigate them, and you can compare against surviving frames, and the cutting continuity descriptions, it becomes very clear how scenes played out, and possible to recreate them with a high degree of probability they are true and accurate.
Why did you choose the style of animation you did?
The animation style was inspired by the film’s storyboards, which were a dreamy mixture of pencil and charcoal. I wanted to emphasize the unfinished nature of the film, by contrasting the film footage with the animation.
What proved to be the biggest challenge?
The individual shots in the original were tightly paced and choreographed, and it took several attempts with actors and the animation to get the timing just right, so that the shot was the correct length and fit the description, but also felt organic to the story, and not too slow or too fast in terms of pacing, and recitation. One shot in particular, I redid no less than three times, because it was so challenging to capture correctly for maximum emotional impact.
During the process, you went back and fine tuned scenes. What new information turned up during your research?
In some cases, the cutting continuity could be ambiguous as to meaning, and in one case, my interpretation of a shot as it was composed proved to be incorrect when a new frame enlargement turned up showing what it actually looked like. And there were multiple scenes where I added further detail, or revised faces for better emotion and verisimilitude.
What did you learn about The Magnificent Ambersons over the course of the past five years?
I truly believe this film was as good as everyone believes it to be. It’s the film that proves Orson Welles was the real deal, and Citizen Kane was not just some fluke that owed its success more to its collaborators than to Welles. Because Ambersons has many different people involved, yet feels of a piece, and contains things like camera work, music and acting, that I believe surpasses Kane.
(Follow Brian Rose’s reconstruction work at instagram.com/theambersonsproject)
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