ORSON'S BAG - Unfinished TV program from the late 60's

[Le Chiffre]

Nice webpage by Larry French on Wellesnet Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 198&type=1

DAVID FROST: You're working on a television show now–which do you find more exciting, films or television?

ORSON WELLES: The trouble with a movie is that it's old-fashioned before it's released. You try to make a movie that's “now” and and by the time it's cut and processed and out it's not really fresh any more—it's not an accident that it comes in a can! But this great box that takes us everywhere and also inflicts so much misery on so many captive people—it's still an enormously exciting medium. My regret is that I haven't done more of it. I've hardly ever been on it. But now I've been given this marvelous chance, an hour and a half with a contract such as I haven't had since I made CITIZEN KANE, in terms of freedom, because, you know that built into television is the “committee system.” Not for your kind of show, where you own the store, but there's always two hundred guys with button-down shirts. I know because I was on radio for years and television is just a continuation of that misery. Mike Dann (CBS Head of programming), who with the courage of the world, has sent me away and said, “Make it and when it's finished, show it.” I don't have to tell him what it is. I've never met anybody like that! And if it's no good there isn't anybody to blame except me. Which is a kind of nice limb to be out on. It's going to be called ORSON'S BAG.

[Le Chiffre]

John Michael Koroly (From Facebook): That still from his "Merchant of Venice" film is strikingly like the orgy sequence in Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut." Any chance Stanley could have seen the footage on Orson's show?

Good question, although we'll probably never know. I also recently took another look at Robin Hardy's THE WICKER MAN from 1973 and was struck by the weird masks of the pagan revellers, particularly the policeman disguised as a grotesque, chicken-beaked, hunchbacked Mr. Punch:

[ToddBaesen]

Actually Kubrick could have seen THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, since ONE MAN BAND came out in 1995 right around the time Kubrick was working on EYES WIDE SHUT. However it seems more likely that the masks in EYES WIDE SHUT were simply based on the Venetian style of masks that you see all over the place in Venice.

[tonyw]

Dainah, la metisse (1931) directed by Jean Gremillon is also a possibility but the Venetian explanation is probably the most plausible.

[Le Chiffre]

Here are four more images from Welles's MERCHANT:

[Le Chiffre]

Dainah, la metisse (1931) directed by Jean Gremillon is also a possibility

Thanks for the tip on that, Tony. I'm not familiar with Gremillon, but that looks like my kind of movie. From imdb it sounds like DAINAH LE' METISSE (which translates roughly as DAINAH, THE MIXED-RACE GIRL) is another butchered masterwork, like AMBERSONS:

Director Jean Grémillon disavowed the released version, which included only 1400 meter of the originally filmed 2700 meter

[tonyw]

Gremillon is one of those neglected talents whose work very rarely appeared outside France (like Andre Cayette). The Eclipse series has recently released a 3 DVD collection of his films mad4e during the Occupation that are both outstanding and stylistically different from the one we are discussing. Maybe Orson was a frequent visitor to Henri Langlois Cinemateque while in France and saw many films that interested him?

[Wellesnet]

Interview with actor/director Jonathon Lynn about working on Orson's Bag:
http://www.wellesnet.com/british-actor- ... rsons-bag/

I asked Orson what we were shooting the next day

“Some of The Merchant.”

“I gather you’re doing all of Shylock’s scenes?”

“All except one. I’m cutting the scene with Tubal.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to make an anti-Semitic film..."

I didn’t immediately answer him, because I didn’t know whether Shakespeare meant the play to be anti-semitic. My own view was that he probably didn’t give it much thought, one way or the other. Jews were conventional villains at that time. I managed what I hoped was an ambiguous nod.

He wouldn’t let it go. “You see, this is for television. This isn’t just going to be seen by sophisticates in London and New York. This is going to be seen across America, by people who’ve never been to a theatre, people who’ve maybe never even heard of Shakespeare, rednecks, everyone. I don’t want to present Jews in that light. So I feel I have to cut the scene, don’t you agree?”

“If that’s what you feel,” I said.

“But don’t you agree?”

He was demanding my opinion. I felt that I couldn’t lie. I had seen O’Toole’s great performance of Shylock at Stratford. I knew that it could be played with sympathy. “Well,” I said, “losing Jessica is a big moment in the play. Isn’t it an important scene? She stole from him and she betrayed him. She has married out, she married one of the Christians. She’s already dead to Shylock. So if you’re right that Shakespeare didn’t intend to write an anti-Semitic play, maybe there’s a way to make it work within your interpretation.”

His face clouded over. He sighed deeply, looked away and frowned. Then he ordered another Bellini for himself but – significantly - not for me. My heart sank. Why had I opened my big mouth? We sat in silence. The only sound was loud rhythmic hiss of the cicadas. His Bellini arrived. He picked it up, grunted goodnight, and plodded off to his room.

When I came down for breakfast crew people were sitting there in the dining room. Bill and Irene were there too. “What’s happening today?” I asked Dorian, looking for straws in the wind.

“I don’t know. He hasn’t told me yet.”

At that moment Welles hove into view. He sat down. Everyone looked at him, waiting for the day’s plan. He cast a brief glance in my direction, waited until the waiter poured his coffee, sipped it, and nodded in my direction. “Jon was needling me last night,” he said.

“No, I wasn’t, really…” I interjected.

“Jon was needling me last night," he boomingly insisted. “He thinks there’s must be a way to make the Tubal scene work within my interpretation. He thinks I shouldn’t cut the scene. He thinks it’s a mistake to do that.”

“That’s not what I said.”

Quick as a flash: “That’s what Jon thinks.” He looked around the table, waiting for a response. Nobody spoke. Everybody averted their eyes. They were all wondering who should drive me to the airport. Orson continued: “And I think Jon’s right. So today we’re going to shoot the Tubal scene. And Jon’s going to play Tubal!”

And he smiled at me. From that moment on I could do nothing wrong.

[Wich2]

Great story - thanks for sharing it.

-Craig
(aka stage and radio "Antonio, the Merchant.")

[Le Chiffre]

You've played in a production of Merchant of Venice, Craig? Very interesting. Would you consider it an anti-semitic play?

Welles seemed to think the scene with Tubal made it anti-semitic since Shylock declares he would rather have his daughter dead and have his jewelry back, making him seem heartless. I'm certainly no expert on the play, but one website said that some modern productions of Merchant use the Tubal character to try and emphasize that Shylock does not represent the Jewish community, but only himself. For example, one TV production of it - not the Olivier; I forget which one - has Tubal give Shylock an appalled look during the trial scene as Shylock prepares to cut the pound of flesh out of Antonio. But Shakespeare's play gives no indication that Tubal is even in the trial scene. I guess there are all kinds of liberties that can be taken with the plays. Welles certainly did may times.

"Why the World hates the Jews" - by Michael Medved:
http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelm ... s_the_jews

[Wich2]

You've played in a production of Merchant of Venice, Craig? Very interesting.

Yessir. Jay Stern's NYC stage production:



(Clyde Baldo as Shylock, meself as Antonio.)

Would you consider it an anti-semitic play?

Well, it's called one of The Bard's "problem plays" for many reasons! First of all - hard as it may be for us today to see it this way - he considered it one of his Comedies, probably seeing Shylock as a fairly stock ethnic character. And of course, many of those throughout dramatic history have been in the broad meaning of the term, "racist."

I guess there are all kinds of liberties that can be taken with the plays.

Indeed. Most commonly, extensive cuts - and of course, how the text is cut shapes the message of the piece. In fact, starting over a hundred years ago, Shylock was turned by many producers into not only not the villain of the piece, nor even a comic figure, but actually the martyred hero of the play.

I don't think that was Shakespeare's meaning. But on the other hand, he was such a good writer, and such a great man, that even the characters which fulfill a dark or comic role in his plays, are rarely w/o sympathetic, human and humane threads.

For those interested, my Quicksilver Radio Theater production of the show, with much of the same creative company of our stage version, is available from -

Your obedient servant,
Craig

[Le Chiffre]

Thanks Craig. Was there supposed to be a link there somewhere?

...extensive cuts - and of course, how the text is cut shapes the message of the piece. In fact, starting over a hundred years ago, Shylock was turned by many producers into not only not the villain of the piece, nor even a comic figure, but actually the martyred hero of the play.

Interesting review of the 2004 Pacino film mentions that idea in the 1974 production with Olivier:
http://www.bostonreview.net/alan-stone- ... ng-shylock

The only way to redeem such a play after the Holocaust was to turn Shakespeare’s comedy into a tragedy, with Shylock, the Judas Iscariot caricature, as a tragic figure. That, of course, is what modern versions of the play try to do. Shylock becomes a victim of anti-Semitism, not a justification for the audience’s prejudices. Olivier did that kind of Shylock in the 1973 filmed version of the theatrical production directed by Jonathan Miller. They made a sympathetic Shylock in the likeness of Benjamin Disraeli—a Jew envied for his wealth rather than hated as a Christ-killer. Olivier customarily cut other characters’ lines to privilege his character’s own in his Shakespeare productions, and his Merchant of Venice treats Shylock as the main character. In fact Shylock has only some 360 lines in the standard editions and is the third or fourth leading role.

Orson Welles appears to have cut just about everything from the play except for the story between Shylock and Antonio .

"I am not Jewish, but we are all Jewish since The Holocaust" - Orson Welles, Filming the Trial

[Wich2]

Thanks Craig.

'Welcome.

Was there supposed to be a link there somewhere?

Nope. Our MERCHANT is not online right now. (But interested parties can PM me about how to hear it.)

"The only way to redeem such a play after the Holocaust was to turn Shakespeare’s comedy into a tragedy, with Shylock, the Judas Iscariot caricature, as a tragic figure."

The reviewer misses the fact that that impulse preexists the Holocaust.

As a student of Stella Adler's (as well as by natural prediliction), I'm more of the inclination of leaving the spine of a piece intact, honoring its origins and its era. Then, we can vigorously discuss both its merits and its flaws in the light of our own times.

Best,
-Craig

[Le Chiffre]

The reviewer misses the fact that that impulse preexists the Holocaust.

Yes apparently it was Edmund Kean, shortly after the Napoleonic era, who gave the first sympathetic portrayal of Shylock that became famous across Europe. That was no doubt a product of the zeitgeist of that time:

Following in the wake of the Napoleon Wars (1804-1815) in which Napoleon conquered much of Europe, came the emancipation of the Jews of Western Europe. For hundreds of years the Jews had been economically and politically marginalized and physically confined to the ghettoes of Europe. After Napoleon, the Ghetto walls came down and the Jews of Western Europe were free to enter European society for the first time. For better and for worse, this represented one of the greatest periods of transformation for these Jewish communities. These new freedoms allowed the Jews of Europe to prosper and have tremendous impact on European society, but also led to a wave of secularization, assimilation and even conversion to Christianity.

Henry Irving, much later in the 19th century, had a resounding success with his "dignified" portrayal of Shylock, and is said to have played the role over a thousand times. Interesting that the TV production with Olivier changes the setting of the original play to around this time period, perhaps to reflect the building anti-semitic backlash that was soon to come - The Dreyfuss Affair, for example. BTW, here is Welles reading Emile Zola's famous speech in defense of Dreyfuss:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDy-2lRk_fU

Also interesting that the literature of the time had already produced other iconic characters that were villainous Jews, including two later portrayed by Welles: Svengali from "Trilby" and Fagin from Dickens' "Oliver Twist".

[Wellesnet]

Dainah Le Metisse (complete film, in French with Spanish subtitles):
https://ok.ru/video/90161416906