Italian interview with Jonathan Rosenbaum (translated)

[Wellesnet]

Discusses DQ, Wind, TOE and other topics. Done sometime this Spring. If any of our Italian-speaking friends would like to offer corrections to this translation, feel free:
http://quinlan.it/2015/07/24/intervista ... rosenbaum/

INTERVIEW WITH JONATHAN ROSENBAUM

Jonathan Rosenbaum is one of the most important scholars of the films of Orson Welles, advisor for the full 1998 version of Touch of Evil, and editor of the Bogdanovich/Welles interview book. We met him in Bologna, for the 29th edition of the Cinema Ritrovato to talk to him about Don Quixote, The Other Side of the Wind and other unresolved issues around the work of Welles.

Seeing the workprint of Don Quixote on June 29 in Paris, we were amazed by the fact that it lacked the first sequence of the film, in which Don Quixote destroys the movie screen with his spear, thus updating the sense of the famous windmills. A sequence that you yourself, on the basis of a short text by Giorgio Agamben, have defined as the six most beautiful minutes in the history of cinema (here’s the link). The only explanation that they were able to give us is that Welles had cut this scene because he had decided to remove all the parts with Dulcinea, starring Patty McCormack, who over the years had become an adult and therefore was no longer suited to the role.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, it seems to me the only explanation.

However, as things stand, it seems inconceivable to have a possible full version of Don Quixote that does not contain that sequence.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Of course, because there is not one unique version of Don Quixote, there are many. The only time I met Welles he told me that the film was almost finished. But then he changed his mind, because we know that he still had reassembled it. So I think the best solution by far is to let out all the existing material on DVD, putting it in sequence, without any kind of intervention. Brazilian scholar Adalberto Muller, who is among the leading experts in the Don Quixote of Welles, proposed to take all this material and show it in a traveling installation in various museums around the world. But today every solution is difficult, both for the litigation, and also because the footage of Don Quixote is deposited in different places.

In fact there is a working copy in Paris, which the editor of the negative, Mauro Bonanni, had, now impounded in the courtcase with Oja Kodar [Welles's last companion], and then there seems to be other material to Madrid. Do you agree?

Jonathan Rosenbaum: I also was told that there was more material in Madrid. But it was not true, I went there and all I found was the wreckage of the disaster caused by Jess Franco with his version of 1992, which unfortunately is currently the only version available on DVD. In fact in Spain there is other material, but it is not in Madrid, it is in Barcelona.

And I can imagine very well in fact that the workprint in Paris is only one of the possible versions of the Quixote. Also because it is far from accomplished. There are some perfectly assembled sequences, but there are also many with the repeated takes.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yeah, but the rest can only be so because it is an unfinished film and that's how you have to look at it. I think it's important that people know that the version of Jesus Franco is fake, this is first and foremost our mission. Then everyone must understand that it is a good idea that someone wants to try to finish the film. I have a theory on Don Quixote - I do not know if you know - I have set out in a conference in Valencia, of Don Quixote and the cinema, organized by Carlos F. Heredero, the director of Caimán Cuadernos de Cine, a great Spanish magazine. On that occasion I also presented for the first time in Spain just the sequence of the film. However, one of the hypotheses that was argued there was that perhaps Orson Welles did not finish the film because he could not find a way to stage the death of the character of Don Quixote. It is an essential part of the novel and I think Welles failed to find a solution that pleased him.

Yes, so much so that at one point he had assumed as the finale an atomic explosion, actually a very drastic solution. However, according to you there was then other blocks in finishing the project, and not just around problems of a technical nature, such as the fact that Welles at some point had lost the original audio track.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, I think so.

In any case, in Paris we had the opportunity to finally be able to hear those passages in which Welles dubbed both Don Quixote Sancho Panza, of which we had talked about in many, from Ciro Giorgini , but we had never been able to hear.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yeah, it's a wonderful thing. Because you can clearly hear the different accents on which Welles worked. An upper class English accent for Don Quixote, while for Sancho he used a working class accent. And this thing is very evident in the fragments that Oja Kodar showed at New York University. Material which I think is now in Barcelona. Perhaps the Munich Film Museum has something [Oja Kodar deposited all the material left unfinished by Welles to the Munich Film Museum years ago], but I do not consider the material that they have to be as important as what they have in Barcelona.

Yes, because now there is a retrospective in Munich and I checked the program. They will be showing only a few minutes of Don Quixote.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yeah. Concerning this, I think it's fortunate that the material you have is in Barcelona. Because perhaps Stefan Drössler, director of the Munich Film Museum, is not the ideal person to restore the unfinished films of Orson Welles. I believe what happened is that, when Oja Kodar visited the Munich Film Museum for the first time to visit the archive and consider whether to leave Orson's unfinished work there, there was a person I know very well, Robert Fischer, who was the manager pro tempore of that institution. He also invited me to help him open other boxes of Welles material when it arrived in Munich. So when Oja went there for the first time and brought along a few boxes, she saw that Fischer was really moved so much that he burst into tears at the thrill of being in front of that material. Therefore, Oja was very impressed by this and decided to leave everything there. But since then, Robert has not been able to work and so Stefan Drössler, who has completely different ideas of ​​what to do with the various restorations, arrived. And Stefan, for example, thinks that "The Other Side of the Wind" should not be restored. Maybe he's right, I do not know. This is a real problem, deciding what to do with the movie. It is a very sensitive issue.

In recent months, there has been a lot written – especially in America – about "The Other Side of the Wind" and the attempt to bring it to completion. The film tells the story of an old director, played by John Huston, who dies the same night of his 70th birthday. Welles had designed the narrative according to an alternation between the long night of the birthday party and film segments that the old director was filming. Do you know how this crowdfunding operation to finish "The Other Side of the Wind" is actually going?

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Well, let's just say I can only tell you what the signals are in this regard. I'm supposed to be a consultant for this project, but what I understand from Oja and from other sources is that, at this time they have still not collected all the money needed to complete it. And there is also a problem of contracts that should be negotiated again. The operation is the first of Frank Marshall, who is a producer and has produced many films by, among others, Bogdanovich and Spielberg, so he should already be rich enough. But things still have not been unlocked, and I do not know how much this fundraiser is bearing fruit.

And what about the fact that the fundraiser says that Peter Bogdanovich would be the best person to oversee the final editing of the film?

Jonathan Rosenbaum: I have doubts about that. Oja thinks the same, that Frank Marshall and Peter are the people most suitable to finish the film, but I'm not so convinced. You know, part of the problem in relation to "The Other Side of the Wind", comes from the fact that Oja worked creatively on it, not just because she cooperated with Welles in the drafting of the screenplay and because she plays a role, but also because she directed a sequence.

Really?

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, I think so. She does not actually admit this, but there is a sequence at the end of the film that I think was conceived and directed by her. A very successful sequence, the next to the last in the film, set on a beach, in which John Dale - the protagonist of the film-within-the-film who the old director, played by John Huston, is infatuated with - comes face to face with a huge phallus made - I believe - of paper-mache, a phallus that is falling.

Fantastic!

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yeah, at least that is what I remember, and since this scene is seen after John Dale has left the screening of Hannaford (the character of the director played by John Huston), it is unclear whether this sequence belongs to the film-within-the-film or whether it can be considered his fantasy. However, here comes the problem, because every time Oja is involved creatively, people are afraid of her. She really hates the world of show business, hates this environment and the money that goes around the cinema. And, you know, it is reciprocated. For example, there is a book written by Josh Karp about "The Other Side of the Wind", which was released in May of this year in the United States; a book that Oja was not able to approve or even say if she was in agreement with or not. Well, there she is treated in the story as if she were the bad guy and Welles as if he were the damsel in distress. Oja can be a difficult person, but she is very honest. I've known her for a long time and always defend her. And I also know that she is very repentant about what happened with the version of "Don Quixote" of Jess Franco, and of the fact that she hired him to work on the Welles material. But we must not forget that at that time, in the early nineties, the war in Yugoslavia was breaking out, and that she and her parents found themselves in serious difficulties.

As you know, there was for the restoration of "Touch of Evil", for example, more than forty pages written by Welles himself with all the information needed to reconstruct it. As far as I know, there is no such thing for "The Other Side of the Wind".

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, that's true. We are trying to recover all the material written by Welles on The Other Side, but the question in this case is much more difficult, because it is not just a problem of what was filmed. We have read several versions of the script, but that does not help you to understand how to edit the film. The only certainty is that the film-within-the-film has to have equal importance in the film itself. And I know some people think that the audience might get bored seeing so much time devoted to the movie-in-the-movie, and so they then have the desire to cut it. My work as a consultant however, is to represent Oja's wishes, which is primarily just that: to support the film-within-the-film as equally important.

When did you meet Welles?

Jonathan Rosenbaum: In Paris, while he was working on the assembly of F for Fake. We had lunch together once, and that's all. And I talked to him about the unrealized project of Heart of Darkness by Conrad [that would have been the first film of Welles]. Then I met Oja for the first time not long after Welles was dead.

To return to Don Quixote, Welles it seems, at some point thought of turning it into a film-essay, like F for Fake.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, not only because of F for Fake, but also because he had done Filming Othello. It was a road that he had thought to take at some point.

But it seems that, after the failure at the box office in America of F for Fake, he decided against it.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yeah, that's what it says and that's what he says. But I'm not sure that’s the way it went. Welles often changed ideas, practically every day. It is so hard to see what his final decision would have been, not only of Don Quixote, but in respect of any project that he left unfinished. He also said in an interview that, after the death of Francisco Franco, for a sort of paradox he thought that Don Quixote and Sancho Panza would not have survived in a post-Franco Spain. And I think that, in his opinion, this concept should be central in a possible adaptation of the film as a film-essay.

Another of the problems of the working copy of Don Quixote viewed in Paris is that there is a beginning. Editor Renzo Lucidi said in Rosabella: The Italian History of Orson Welles, the documentary by Ciro Giorgini and Gianfranco Giagni, that initially the opening words would have to be a sort of introduction, in which Welles himself outlined the idea behind the film.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, this was a part where there was also Patty McCormack, and therefore it could no longer be used, at least according to the idea of Welles. And it is also why - given the importance of the sequence in question - any version of the film on DVD should also include the material with McCormack.

But then Renzo Lucidi, in the film Rosabella, admits that he told Welles that the beginning, in his opinion as editor, was not working. Welles at the time was furious, but then decided he was right. He imagined and then polished a new opening intro: a costume party in which at one point Don Quixote and Sancho come. The other guests congratulate them for the disguise, but the two confess candidly to really be Don Quixote and Sancho. Do you know if Welles filmed something of this sequence?

Jonathan Rosenbaum: I think so, I think that something was filmed. It says, among other things, that Welles for this occasion may have reused the set of The Leopard, in particular the location of the large living room where the ballroom scene was. That was the plan, I do not know if he did it and I do not know what has actually shot. You know, not long ago were registered, all the notes of Alessandro Tasca, a friend and producer of Welles, where among other things he speaks very own processing of Don Quixote. These cards are now in Michigan, I've seen recently. There you will find several matches with what was said by Welles. There is a lot of material there that would probably solve some mysteries about the movie, but you have to study it carefully. I also met Tasca once in Los Angeles, many years ago.

About recent discoveries, what do you think of the book by Henry Jaglom published two years ago in the United States and a few months ago in Italy under the title A Room With Orson? It seems to me a very unpleasant task, because we understand clearly that Welles could not be registered.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: I agree with you. I think it's very regrettable that this book was published, because it was not authorized. Welles died shortly before he realized that Jaglom was recording and he had spoken with people who were close to him, including Barbara Leaming [author of the biography Orson Welles: A Biography] and Oja Kodar. I think there are some interesting passages, but few, and I think it is a kind of betrayal of Welles. There is a book out recently that truly is a book of conversations between Orson Welles and Roger Hill, A Friendship in Three Acts, but it unfortunately got a lot less attention than that of Jaglom. A project that we have now in the United States – we still do not have a publisher, but we hope to find it - is to publish a series of books with scripts and other material written by Welles. He wrote, for example, fragments very similar to the beginning of an autobiography, and these things are part of the material donated by Oja. And then there are two scripts that I have already published in the past and I want to republish - both with the cooperation of Oja. They are The Cradle Will Rock and The Big Brass Ring. And then the intention is to publish other screenplays of Welles as well as a collection of his essays. But it is not easy to find a publisher, it was not even for the Welles interview book of Peter Bogdanovich [entitled in Italian I, Orson Welles].

To go back to the book of Jaglom, it must be said that it is full of negative judgments by Welles of his colleagues; it is almost the main theme of the book. And we know that Welles, although he tended to speak ill of the other directors, then repented and preferred that certain opinions were not to be published.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, I know Jaglom, I worked with him at the time when we published the screenplay for The Big Brass Ring. I think one thing Jaglom did for Welles was to collaborate on the publication of the script. Everything else of his I do not like. And I do not even like the person who edited the book, Peter Biskind. He does not seem particularly bright, but he is one who has very good relations around, especially with the world of Hollywood. He has written books on the independent directors and also a volume on Warren Beatty. But he is not a serious scholar, he is more of a yes man in Hollywood.

In fact, I found very annoying the introduction written by Biskind for this book. Among other things, for example, he says that Touch of Evil is a bad movie, because it would be "full of too disparate elements." Why waste time working on a book on Welles if you have such superficial judgments on him!

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yeah. I remember, among other things, that Biskind in his introduction to the book of Warren Beatty wrote that many directors such as Orson Welles made only one important movie in their careers, while Warren Beatty has scored five. Unbelievable!!

Yeah, ridiculous! But, beyond what Biskind says, I still feel that Touch of Evil has never been sufficiently appreciated in the United States.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Before it was so, but now it's different. Since we re-edited the film, it has been very successful.

I also remember the book of James Naremore, Orson Welles, or The Magic of Cinema. He too seemed to me to underestimate the importance.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: That's true, but now he has come out with a new edition - the third - of his book, where he changed his opinion.

It seems that, incredibly, even Charlton Heston did not have a good opinion of Touch of Evil, although there had starred.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yeah, I remember well what you said of Touch of Evil, because it was in a public occasion where I was present, too. It was a meeting of the Director's Guild in memory of Orson Welles who had just died. And on that occasion, when Peter Bogdanovich said that Touch of Evil was a masterpiece, Heston objected: "I would prefer to say it is the best B-movie that's ever been done!" [Laughs]. Charlton Heston was a bit 'naive, but has always been very loyal to Welles. I tell you something that I had to remove from the edition of I, Orson Welles because I thought it would put too bad a light on Chuck. While Welles was doing the interview with Bogdanovich, then in the early seventies, Charlton Heston contacted him to tell him he had a great part for him, and asked him to do Falstaff. It was embarrassing because Heston did not know that Welles had already made Falstaff in '66! So Welles told Bogdanovich that he did not know what to say, how could he tell him "Chuck, I've already made the movie!"

But it is possible that the consideration to Touch of Evil is - or has been - so low because it was the last American film of Welles and the ultimate reason of his departure from Hollywood?

Jonathan Rosenbaum: That's true, but one can also say that there was never a real theatrical release of the film at the time, so it was treated as a flop - something that has happened in many other occasions - even before it was distributed. It is a typically American practice, and I believe that, if done intentionally or not, Welles was challenging the Hollywood system; an ideological challenge, so it was felt then. So people felt - and still partly feel - that Welles should be condemned for his attitude; on the contrary, it is necessary to condemn Hollywood for it's attitude towards Welles. But things are much more complicated than that. I think the industry still perceives the issue in this way and, although it was Welles, if for them the film was a failure there was no escape. I saw here in Bologna the documentary "Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles" and it was not bad. It is a serious project, A Welles film is not something that has an economic value or not, confronts him as a real person, real, and speaks of all films made and therefore not part of the things we are saying here.

Seeing the working copy of Don Quixote, without many parts of the sound, I also had the impression at times that could be considered a silent film.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: As far as I know, that's how it was conceived by Welles at least in part. And, of course, most of the sequences were improvised on the spot, just as they did in some examples of silent film.

And that reminds us of the importance to Welles of that moment in the history of cinema, because in the end those were the years when he grew up.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, and the reference to silent film to me is connected to the element of nostalgia for the past, which was a major feature of the cinema of Welles. And you can also see that in a good section of his television special "The Magic Show" [filmed between '76 and 85, The Magic Show is a project in which Welles gave free rein to his passion for magic], a part that unfortunately Stefan Drössler has not included in the compilation of assembly that he showed, for example, in Locarno, when - in 2005 - there was a retrospective of Welles. There is a whole section of homage to slapstick comedy, and it is much more beautiful than what was included. Welles had conceived these scenes with a piano accompaniment just like in the silent era.

We hope to see it soon then, because in fact currently the only concrete evidence of the silent films to Welles is the fundamental discovery of Too Much Johnson, made through Cinemazero and the Silent Film Festival.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yeah. But to fully understand that operation, keep in mind the work of Welles in theater, because it's the theater that was the reason for Too Much Johnson. We must not forget, by the way, that Welles also did filming for the stage adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days, when - ten years after Too Much Johnson – he thought to replicate the same task of introducing each act by a filmed sequence. These homages to silent films he also made in other theater productions, for example for a show in Chicago with John Barrymore in 1939, The Green Goddess.

What do you think then of Too Much Johnson?

Jonathan Rosenbaum: It is very charming. It's not exactly like another unfinished film of Welles, because it was part of a theatre show, but I think it was a very important discovery. I do not know if he had ever seen the movie in episodes of Feuillade, because I think that part of the chase on the roofs is not something that comes from the American silent cinema. That sequence, in fact, reminds me rather of French things, like Fantômas or Les Vampires. Welles, however, he said it very often, was a big fan of Keaton and Harold Lloyd. It is also said that at a young age he may have seen that form of entertainment, as his first theatrical film, what in America we call low comedy, as opposed to the high comedy, namely the sophisticated comedies. The low comedy we could define as the working class comedy. And then he also loved vaudeville, had a genuine longing for shows like these.

Even Don Quixote has this nostalgic element, and then we have this feature which in my opinion is crucial: Don Quixote is the symbol of defeat, like Falstaff, but also as with Buster Keaton.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, I believe that Don Quixote is very close to Falstaff, but also in The Magnificent Ambersons, the way there describes the gradual disappearance of the old America. And then for sure, Keaton was a loser. But the appearance of nostalgia is essential, in my opinion, and this is also part of the discourse on defeat, of course. It was a longing for an America gone, something that Welles also found himself in Shakespeare: the nostalgia for an England that was gone, an ideal England, the so-called Merry Old England. And likewise also in Cervantes is a regret to Spain of the past. And all this is transformed by Welles in a nostalgic attitude towards the Middle Ages, for the report that there was at that time, patrons who would reward artists with grants. It is a condition that has never been repeated with the same importance in any other historical period. So, from a certain point of view, we can say that Welles wanted to work in the Middle Ages.

Yes, and in fact, Welles was also fascinated by the codes of the aristocracy. Mr. Arkadin, for example, is in some respects a (failed) contemporary aristocrat.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, it's true. Although, not to exaggerate the nostalgic appearance, do not forget that Mr. Arkadin is a film about Stalinism, and the obsession with control. Moreover, about the ability of Welles to succeed in telling the world of his time about contemporary issues, even with the period film, I'm thinking a lot lately about Othello, about the fact that - indirectly – it can be considered a film about the communist blacklist. It's all focused on treason, conspiracy, paranoia, and it was done in exactly the same time that there was the McCarthy commission.

Ah, it's true.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: And then - this is more subtle - but if you want you can play the whole story of the black list as something that has been ruled by one side as a form of racial envy toward blacks, for their emotional intensity, but also from a form of jealousy towards Jews in Hollywood, who had control of the money flows. In my opinion, Welles also speaks indirectly of this in Othello.

Yeah ... That his swing between the contemporary and the ancient brings to mind, among other things, that I find it absolutely incredible that Welles, almost at the same time, was working on both Don Quixote and on The Other Side of the Wind, two projects in their own way antithetical, even stylistically. The first archaic and primitive, the second extremely innovative, almost experimental.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, it's true. I must say that I like both, but I prefer Don Quixote. I saw almost two hours of The Other Side of the Wind, and, beyond the innovative style, one of it’s most interesting qualities is that, in my opinion, it is the only feminist film of Welles, because it revolves around the concept of the macho man and his ridicule. And the fascinating thing about the character embodied by Oja is that she plays a Native American, an Indian, and does not say a single word throughout the film, and her silence is antithetical to this talk of the male characters. And then there is the speech that males are basically gay, all of which probably came from the involvement of Oja in the writing of the screenplay. I think that this is a contribution by her, because the film is a kind of integration between a story written by the Oja and the script of Welles that initially concerned an elderly fan of bullfights secretly in love with a young bullfighter.

I think there is a relationship between the last film by Nicholas Ray, We Cannot Go Home Again, and The Other Side of the Wind, because both enact the death of macho or, rather, the death of a patriarchal figure.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, it's true, you're right. And both enact the death of the director.

And then, whether in one film or the other, the central figure is that of the director, who is surrounded by young, students, who end up 'killing' the Father. So, if you will, we are also on the '68 film.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yeah, I agree. And, by the way, something that has created confusion in the opinions that people have made about The Other Side of the Wind is that Welles, in the sequences of the film in the movie, planned to parody Antonioni. If that was his goal, however, I do not think that he has hit the target because those sequences do not look anything like Antonioni. For example there are the nude scenes of the kind in Zabriskie Point, but it seems to me that they don’t have a lot to do with it, they were filmed in a completely different way. I think that Welles was someone he knew so well from knowing their personality how to be able to take something that he hated and turn it into something else that was more his style. This is what he did.

Yes, in fact he said just like that, that he was fascinated by the idea of making a film as if it were a film of Welles, but shot by someone else.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yeah, the same thing, more or less, also was said about F for Fake, where his intention was to not make a typical movie with Wellesian shots. And it is also interesting, more about The Other Side of the Wind, that only the film-within-the-film is shot in 35mm. All the other parts of the film - the party - are in 16mm or video.

Oh really?

Jonathan Rosenbaum: I'm not quite sure, but I think so. In any case, as you read the script [published in 2005 on the occasion of the retrospective of Welles in Locarno], there was nothing written of the film within the film. It was all improvised on set.

I suppose you've known Gary Graver, cinematographer of all the latest part of the career of Welles, from '70 onwards.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, he was a wonderful person. I do not think he had the knowledge of what was good and bad in the work of Welles, and that you can see from his documentary Working With Orson Welles. But he was still a really generous person and helped me a lot with editing I, Orson Welles. For example, he showed me all his work diaries, so I was able to reconstruct exactly the days when Welles filmed The Other Side of the Wind and in which location. I do not know if he was necessarily a great director of photography, but he is the person who made it possible that there might be the whole second part of the filmography of Orson Welles.

Yes, I believe by the way that some of the last things that Welles shot at the end of his career are wonderful, perhaps the most beautiful he’d ever done, but unfortunately unfinished. I refer to the amazement of those five minutes that reads the first pages of Moby Dick.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: I agree, although one of the last things I love literally was what he was able to film for The Dreamers. And in the end I prefer those few minutes to A Story Immortal [both inspired by tales of Isak Dinesen, also known as Karen Blixen]. I think the point is that Welles continued to make what I have called an ideological challenge against Hollywood, because at the end of his career he proved to be totally indifferent to the film industry. And what, for example, people are just beginning to consider is that F For Fake is politically much more radical than Citizen Kane. Because it reflects the fact that the real challenge that every artist puts to you is to make you somehow decide what is great art and what is not. This makes me think of when I was in Paris to attend the premiere of F for Fake and there was Lotte Eisner [author, among others, of the famous German expressionism book, The Haunted Screen] who worked for the Cinematheque Francaise. At the end of the screening I said: "This seems far from a normal film of Orson Welles", and she countered dramatically: "But it's not even a movie!!" This is an example of how it took a lot of time before people understood the importance of F for Fake.

Yeah, and F for Fake is one of the great testimonies of how important editing was for Welles. About this, I have the impression that the real turning point, with the approach of Welles towards the assembly, began with Othello. It is from then that being in slow motion was for him to become an increasingly essential part of the processing time of a movie.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, I agree. Because it was the only way for him to be free and Othello was the first film that he managed to create in complete freedom, even at the cost of great effort. However, Stefan Drössler thinks otherwise. In fact, when Stefan presented three versions of Mr. Arkadin/Confidential Report [to know more about the many versions of Mr. Arkadin, see the interview with Ciro Giorgini], he completely ignored the editing by Welles, saying simply, "I think it is better like this" and this is how he did his edit. But I think this was a mistake and I said so publicly on one occasion in Michigan; I told him that I did not agree with what he had done. Yes, of course, like that it was more commercial, more "digestible" for the public, but this was just the way Hollywood was thinking in addressing the work of Welles, as in everything else. I think Stephan is very good at treating the restoration of films, but with other films and other directors who are not Welles. I really loved the German version of Lola Montes restored by him.

Yes, it was very nice. I saw it myself, in Udine, a gaze of the masters, several years ago.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yeah, I saw it on that occasion.

And what do you think of the film Orson Welles: The One Man Band which Oja Kodar directed in the mid-nineties?

Jonathan Rosenbaum: She really should not have made the movie. This was another misunderstanding. She wanted to direct it alone, but Manufacturers Gliel'hanno prevented that and so dictated that there was to be another director, Vassili Silovic. It was a problem just like Don Quixote, because Oja had not had the strength and stubbornness to fight to the end.

Ok, but for me, for example, it was very important to see it. Because at the time, it would be about ten years before there was a retrospective of Locarno in 2005, and many had never seen the materials of the unfinished film of Welles, such as The Other Side of the Wind, The Deep, The Dreamers.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, it is true, but they could have done a better job with it. I met the other director, who had shown me the workprint in the film and I gave him some advice, but he did not follow any of it. The problem, among other things, was that he was not very familiar with Welles and that ultimately, could not appreciate that material enough. But in the end, we must say that the result is not terrible, just not the film as I would have wanted to see it. Then you know, there's a whole very perverse story in which Peter Bogdanovich reassembled the film, took away most of the things that people had never seen before - things like The Deep - and replaced them with fragments from movies like Citizen Kane. And it was ridiculous!!
But how is your relationship with Bogdanovich?

Jonathan Rosenbaum: We know each other, but we are not friends. I put together the edition of “I, Orson Welles” because it was Oja who hired me. So at the time, I worked with Peter. We did agree on a lot, except that we had a discussion on some of the material that I wanted to include but which he did not want me to put in, and it was just some of the things that Welles said about other filmmakers. Then Peter did not want to put the word "negro" in, which in those days was still considered acceptable, and wanted to cut the criticism that Welles had made against the Israeli policy. I did not agree with him about these cuts, they seemed meaningless, because Welles often spoke of people who, at the time of their conversations, were already dead. For example, he called Joseph von Sternberg, "The king and queen of camp" and said something to the effect that John Wayne was fascist. Things like that. I am skeptical when Peter says that Welles told him to finish The Other Side of the Wind. I'm skeptical because Peter said this several years after the death of Welles. But at the same time, Oja thinks he's the best person to work on The Other Side. And of this I have nothing sure to argue.

Yes, because in the last years of Welles’s life, from what I have read, relations with Bogdanovich were very bad, indeed.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, and this is due to the fact that Peter had also promised that he would produce a film, but then he did not. He had also made a film he wanted Welles to direct. I am referring to Saint Jack, which Peter filmed in '79. It was a project of Welles, which he wanted to do with Dean Martin as the protagonist. The actress Cybill Shepherd, however acquired the rights to the novel, which she had discovered the existence of thanks to Orson. She had just won a lawsuit against Playboy that had published photos of her naked and then, thanks to this disposable income, bought the rights to the novel Saint Jack, written by Paul Theroux. But instead of giving it to Welles, she gave it to Peter.

In theory Welles and the New Hollywood would have to be very close, especially because of the so-called ideological challenge that Welles had brought against the old Hollywood.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yeah, but Orson actually preferred directors like John Ford, Leo McCarey, and Howard Hawks.

But his preference was not limited to the directors of the older generation. Later in life, Welles found himself regretting also the producers of the older generation, such as, ironically, Harry Cohn of Columbia.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yeah, because Harry Cohn had destroyed and reassembled The Lady from Shanghai, but it was a film he was still allowed to do. And Welles was also a friend of many of other studio heads. They knew each other well and they regularly went out. Although they speak evil, he was, in the end, for example, also a friend of Darryl Zanuck.

And Welles was also often impatient with the youth of the New Hollywood, because they were a bit selfish and had trained themselves solely by watching other movies.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yeah, absolutely. And The Other Side of the Wind also speaks of this. The performance of Bogdanovich as the young director is very powerful here, but that role is a satirical portrait of Bogdanovich himself. This is also the case with Henry Jaglom, because that character is very rich, just like Jaglom. However, I think Welles made many mistakes about which people to hang out with in the last years of his life, and this is one of the reasons why he had so much trouble finishing his latest projects. I have a feeling that, time after time, he would tell different people, whoever he met: you are the only one I can trust. And as a result they may have found themselves to be suspicious of one another.

About the overt enemies of Welles, I want to ask you something about John Houseman, the producer who worked extensively with Welles in the first phase of his career, from the radio to the theater, to the early days in Hollywood, but with whom he ended to argue.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, the relationship with Houseman is one of the issues that I dealt with Welles about the one time I had lunch with him. I had just read the first edition of the autobiography of Houseman where he dealt in great detail about the work they did together in radio, and where he spoke very negatively of the Heart of Darkness project. Welles told me that John was not in a position to speak in that way of Heart of Darkness, because he had only incomplete knowledge of the work that had been done at the time. Then he added that Houseman was the worst friend one could have because he was always very nice to everyone, so all had the immediate temptation to stay on his side rather than that of Orson. Then I added: "Yes, and it is a shame that the best account on your radio career has been done by him". After I said this thing, there was a long silence on the part of Welles who then added laconically, "It is so". But beyond all that, I believe that the break between the two of them was a real shame, because Welles needed someone like Houseman. In fact, during subsequent productions, when he had at his side the replacement figures for Houseman, such as Richard Wilson and Alessandro Tasca, they were very helpful, but proved not to be equally adept. They proved to be not up to Houseman for an infinite number of reasons, none of them having to do with unscrupulousness on their part. The time I spoke with Pocket, they confirmed to me that, among other things, Welles did not have a good relationship with money, so much so that he did not even know how to write a check. However, when I met Welles, I realized that, contrary to what many think, he was in my opinion not lying a lot. Maybe he did sometimes, but I think he did everything possible to tell the truth about everything.

When did you decide that Welles was very important to you?

Jonathan Rosenbaum: I think it happened when I saw Citizen Kane for the first time as a teenager. Like the majority of people, especially in America. And then I also saw Othello in TV and it hit me a lot.

But now you prefer The Magnificent Ambersons. I read your recent top ten most beautiful American films in cinema history that you did for the BBC.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, it's true. But I change my mind every time. I also love Falstaff, but it’s not my favorite. Oja thinks it is absolutely the most beautiful film of Welles, or at least it is what she prefers. Joe McBride [another very important film scholar of Welles] thinks so. However, still on the subject of rankings, when last year they asked me what was the best new film of the season, I said Too Much Johnson.

Oh really? Fun! What do you think about the finale of The Magnificent Ambersons. Do you think you can find it in the end?

Jonathan Rosenbaum: No, unfortunately, I think it's impossible. We have directions on paper, but all the footage was destroyed. Through the information we have, it is still possible to imagine the film as it could be, but unfortunately there are no shots, so you cannot do anything concrete. The one time I met Welles, of course I asked this thing, but he told me he was sure that everything had been destroyed.

I remember Ciro Giorgini telling me that he hoped it would be possible to find the missing material of Ambersons.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, we still hope to very much, and there were also other unfinished projects with it, but I have followed them all and I think that there is nothing left to be done. As you know, in “This is Orson Welles” I entered the pages of the script corresponding to the parts of footage that have been lost, but we don’t even have all of that.

And you know something about the script of Don Quixote? In your opinion does it exist or has it existed?

Jonathan Rosenbaum: The so-called black book? My impression is that there has never been one. I think there are a lot of loose pages, fragments for individual days of shooting, but not a real script. I do not think that there is one, because the project was changed so many times over the years.

[RayKelly]

I double checked the translation Mike Teal did because some bits disturbed me. Here are just five:

1). ...perhaps Stefan Drössler, director of the Munich Film Museum, is not the ideal person to restore the unfinished films of Orson Welles.

OK, I'll bite. Who is better qualified? I think Stefan did a fine job on the comprehensive Mr. Arkadin and The Dreamers short. He is obviously familiar with the material in Munich. I do not share Stefan's opinion of The Other Side of the Wind, but that is not his project anyway.

2.) ...there is a book written by Josh Karp about "The Other Side of the Wind", which was released in May of this year in the United States; a book that Oja was not able to approve or even say if she was in agreement with or not. Well, there she is treated in the story as if she were the bad guy and Welles as if he were the damsel in distress. Oja can be a difficult person, but she is very honest.

I don't know of a respected journalist who gives someone approval of their final work in exchange for an interview. I didn't do it as beat reporter 30 years ago and I don't do it as an assistant managing editor. Josh Karp did impeccable research and interviewed 80-plus people. Complaints about Oja's dealings were voiced by Showtime and the attorney for the Boushehri family. She declined to be interviewed unless she had control over the product. And I don't think it is accurate to say Karp portrayed "Welles as if he were the damsel in distress. "

3.) [Re: TOWOSTW and Oja:] And there is also a problem of contracts that should be negotiated again.

Please, don't tell me that after signing a rumored seven-figure deal last fall Oja now wants something more? Good Lord.

4.) I am skeptical when Peter says that Welles told him to finish "The Other Side of the Wind". I'm skeptical because Peter said this several years after the death of Welles. But at the same time, Oja thinks he's the best person to work on "The Other Side". And of this I have nothing sure to argue.

That's a very polite way of calling Bogdanovich a liar. Pretty strong stuff.

5.) [The Jaglom book:] I think it's very regrettable that this book was published, because it was not authorized. Welles died shortly before he realized that Jaglom was recording and he had spoken with people who were close to him, including Barbara Leaming [author of the biography Orson Welles: A Biography] and Oja Kodar.

It's unfortunate that ALL of the people who Orson complained to about the taping were silent when this book came. The late Gary Graver was very vocal about this years before his death. Jonathan Rosenbaum is correct that Todd Tarbox's wonderful Friendship was overshadowed by this book.

[Le Chiffre]

3.) [Re: TOWOSTW and Oja] : And there is also a problem of contracts that should be negotiated again.

Please, don't tell me that after signing a rumored seven-figure deal last fall Oja now wants something more? Good Lord.

I don't know exactly when this interview was done, but since the interviewer asks Rosenbaum how the Indigogo campaign is going and also mentions the June 29th DQ showing in past tense, it would have to have been done between June 30th and July 6th. Pretty recent, in other words.

It's possible that the above is mis-translated, but then you said you double-checked it. Yes, I thought all that contract stuff was behind us, and all they needed was money to go ahead and do it, hence the Indigogo campaign. They said about four weeks ago...

http://www.wellesnet.com/producer-editi ... n-2-weeks/

...that editing was scheduled to begin around July 20th, so I'm assuming (hoping?) that it's already begun. But since then there's been another pretty stony silence coming from the Wind people. I know they probably want a certain amount of privacy while they complete this important task, but it would be nice to have at least a bit of reassurance that the editing of the negative is finally proceeding.

[RayKelly]

It's possible that the above is mis-translated, but then you said you double-checked it. Yes, I thought all that contract stuff was behind us, and all they needed was money to go ahead and do it, hence the Indigogo campaign.

In various translation programs it comes out as contracts that may need to be drawn up again... negotiated again... or awarded again.

Remember, this is JR talking based on conversation(s) he has had with Oja before July 7. It may not accurately reflect her current thinking.

That said, based on the portrait painted by past TOSOTW deal makers in Josh Karp's book, I would not put it past her to maneuver for a better deal.

As one of the 2,858 donors, I would find it sleazy if -- while fans were donating their hard earned cash to the Indiegogo campaign -- she was plotting on demanding a better deal in the 11th hour.

[mido505]

This interview is absolutely bonkers. I don't know where to begin, especially since Ray Kelly has already drawn a decent amount of blood, but I'll add my two cents.

The only explanation that they were able to give us is that Welles had cut this scene because he had decided to remove all the parts with Dulcinea, starring Patty McCormack, who over the years had become an adult and therefore was no longer suited to the role.
Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, it seems to me the only explanation.

I have just dealt with this nonsense, again, over at the DQ thread. I will only add that, if this is the Cinematheque's official line, then Oja likely forbade the use of the McCormack footage in a contract with them, as she did with Jess Franco and the Spaniards. Thanks again, Oja!

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Of course, because there is not one unique version of Don Quixote, there are many.

This is an assertion, not a fact. Rosenbaum may be right, but it is important to note that Mauro Bonanni, one of Orson's editors on the project, vehemently denies this. It is also important to note that, although Welles talked about various conceptions of DQ, no evidence exists that they were filmed. Audrey Stainton and Bonanni both insist that the McCormack footage was included in the work print in 1971, when Welles left Italy. Given that the McCormack footage was the primary structuring device of DQ, and that no other "structuring footage" has surfaced, it makes sense to leave that footage in. Also, as I have shown, none of the other editors who worked on DQ after 1971, until his death, discuss a major re-conception. Instead, they state that the film was nearly finished, and that Welles just wanted to tweak things.

And what about the fact that the fundraiser says that Peter Bogdanovich would be the best person to oversee the final editing of the film?
Jonathan Rosenbaum: I have doubts about that. Oja thinks the same, that Frank Marshall and Peter are the people most suitable to finish the film, but I'm not so convinced.

There have been enough problems over the years with Oja without Rosenbaum hissing his doubts in her ear. I wonder how much he has had to do with her recent disses of the project?

You know, part of the problem in relation to "The Other Side of the Wind", comes from the fact that Oja worked creatively on it, not just because she cooperated with Welles in the drafting of the screenplay and because she plays a role, but also because she directed a sequence.

Really?

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Yes, I think so. She does not actually admit this, but there is a sequence at the end of the film that I think was conceived and directed by her.

This is an embarrassing statement coming from "one of the most important scholars of the films of Orson Welles". How does Rosenbaum know Oja directed a sequence in TOSOTW? He guessed! It must have been a gas working with him on the TOE restoration.

And I also know that she is very repentant about what happened with the version of "Don Quixote" of Jess Franco, and of the fact that she hired him to work on the Welles material.

Yet Oja allowed a DVD to be released in 2008, after claiming that she would forbid it, and that she had the legal power to do so. For someone that Rosenbaum insists is indifferent to Hollywood lucre, Oja seems completely obsessed with it, and Hollywood power games, as Karp's book shows.

The only certainty is that the film-within-the-film has to have equal importance in the film itself.

Again, that is an assertion and not a fact. Joseph McBride and Peter Bogdanovich would beg to differ (and they were on the set), and Welles said different things at different times to different people.

My work as a consultant however, is to represent Oja's wishes, which is primarily just that: to support the film-within-the-film as equally important.

I am glad to see that Rosenbaum is finally admitting his blatant partisanship. My understanding is that a scholar should be disinterested. Everything that Rosenbaum says or writes about Welles should be taken with a grain of salt. He was particularly hysterical and disingenuous on Beatrice Welles's restoration of OTHELLO.

When did you meet Welles?
Jonathan Rosenbaum: In Paris, while he was working on the assembly of F for Fake. We had lunch together once, and that's all.

At least Bogdanovich lived with Welles for a couple of years, and participated in the conversations with Welles that Rosenbaum edited into a book. McBride was on set for some time, and wrote the first really good study of Welles's work. Jaglom ate lunch with Welles every day, set up meetings with studio execs, and often accompanied Welles to them. Rosenbaum has gotten a lot of mileage out of that one lunch.

And I do not even like the person who edited the book, Peter Biskind. He does not seem particularly bright, but he is one who has very good relations around, especially with the world of Hollywood. He has written books on the independent directors and also a volume on Warren Beatty. But he is not a serious scholar, he is more of a yes man in Hollywood.

That's rich, coming from Oja's publicist. And Biskind's EASY RIDERS RAGING BULLS is a hilarious, well-researched, and refreshingly unscholarly classic.

Jonathan Rosenbaum: I agree, although one of the last things I love literally was what he was able to film for The Dreamers. And in the end I prefer those few minutes to A Story Immortal

Let's just slobber over Oja, shall we? That footage, filmed in Orson's living room and yard, is mediocre at best, primarily because of Oja's amateurish acting.

And you know something about the script of Don Quixote? In your opinion does it exist or has it existed?
Jonathan Rosenbaum: The so-called black book? My impression is that there has never been one. I think there are a lot of loose pages, fragments for individual days of shooting, but not a real script. I do not think that there is one, because the project was changed so many times over the years.

From Audrey Stainton, who typed script pages for Welles during the filming of DQ during the second "Italian" shoot:

He never began at the beginning of a script and worked through to the end; he went straight to the heart of the drama and gradually developed it outwards from the core. Or lost interest and dropped it almost at once. The curious thing is that he insisted on my using a new carbon for every page that I typed. This small but significant fact leads me to wonder if he was more orderly than he allowed anyone to know. Even when he was finally satisfied with any single page of a script, he would let no one see it. But somewhere, hidden away, he kept an immaculate carbon copy of everything he wrote, a habit in striking disaccord with the legend of a man so untidy that he even lost his own films.

Jonathan Rosenbaum, scholar...

[JHillan]

Rosenbaum has worked on at least 3 book projects for Oja Kodar. He chaperoned her at the recent symposiums, talked her up like she was more than Orson's girlfriend, and is likely plugged in to what she is planning.
If its true she or her legal team want to renegotiate her contract and this late date -- that's simply outrageous and I hope its NOT the case.
If Oja really signed a contract in October 2014, which is what she told the New York Times, Frank Marshall should sue her for breach of contract and seek the negative in lieu of cash damages. I bet it will be alot cheaper than paying her the 1 million dollars or whatever she is getting.

[Le Chiffre]

Hold on everyone, we don't know that that's the case yet. For all we know, everything is already settled and the negative is being worked on right now. It would be nice to have some confirmation of that, though. The silence, as I mentioned before, is getting a bit ominous again. Hopefully we'll hear something in the next week or two.