David Thomson on Ambersons old and new

[Jeff Wilson]

How carnival led Welles astray.
David Thomson.
1-20-02

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2002 Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd.

Just over 60 years ago, Orson Welles flew from Los Angeles to Rio de Janeiro, and nothing was ever the same again. More than his own come-uppance began that night; it was the end of the magnificence of the Ambersons. As Welles went to Rio, full of vague ideas about a documentary film to improve relations between the US and South America, but actually anxious to make Rio before Carnival, he left the finished footage of his second film, The Magnificent Ambersons, to be assembled by his editor, Robert Wise.

This melancholy story came to mind last Sunday in America as the A&E channel showed a new version of the Booth Tarkington novel, directed by Alfonso Arau (he made Like Water for Chocolate), with the tendentious credit "based on a screenplay by Orson Welles".

1941 had been a busy year for Orson Welles (still only 26). He had opened Citizen Kane, survived the boycott by Hearst papers, and moved on to shoot Ambersons, the second film in his innovative contract with RKO.

"Innovative" because the newcomer had been given so many freedoms: what to shoot, how to cast it, final cut. On Kane, RKO had been remarkably loyal to Welles, despite outside pressures to dump the controversial picture. But when they suffered financial losses on Kane, they revised the terms on which Ambersons was based. Orson was no longer the wunderkind or a free agent. He should have seen what that meant, and adjusted his travel plans accordingly.

But Orson Welles was a lot like George Amberson, the young hero in the Tarkington novel: he loved to have his own way and to ride roughshod over sensible advice. So Welles gave himself up to Carnival, and to the women dancing in the streets, and RKO became more intrusive. They reckoned Ambersons was too long and gloomy. They took the film away from the Welles group; they shot a new ending and cut about 40 minutes of the story Welles wanted - and later they dumped the negative off the Pacific shore.

So it is that The Magnificent Ambersons has become one of the great "lost" films in history. I put lost in quotes because some hope lingers that we may yet discover more than the script and a few stills - the sole record of the last tragic act of the story. Yet in 1992, when Sight & Sound did its poll on the best films ever made, just as Kane was number one, so the "ruined" Ambersons still made the top 20. As well it might; until the last few minutes, it is what Welles intended and it is beautiful.

Thus, the curiosity last weekend as RKO made noises about making amends. Empty noises. Their new version has little to do with Welles's wishes. Far better to call it a new dramatisation of the Tarkington novel - and a bad one.

Let no one dream that Welles's script has been followed. At this remove in time, it's hard to see how it could be.

Welles shot in black and white (the cameraman was Stanley Cortez, famous later for The Night of the Hunter), and the look is as original and emotional as that of Citizen Kane. Whereas, Arau, working for television, had to use colour - though he added to that burden by having the colour seem drained, or enervated. You kept thinking the film had faded.

Welles had his own actors - including Joseph Cotten, Anne Baxter, Agnes Moorehead (haunting as Aunt Fanny), Ray Collins and Tim Holt as George (a part Welles played himself when they did Ambersons on radio). Arau had a fair cast: Madeleine Stowe's Isabelle is actually better than Dolores Costello in the original. But he permitted horrendous over-acting in other parts - notably Jennifer Tilly as Fanny, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers whose George seemed like an adolescent John Malkovich on cocaine.

And so The Magnificent Ambersons lives on as what the French call a film maudit - damaged, wounded. No matter. There is enough to see to make us conjure up the rest. And there are those of us who have lived half a lifetime in the Amberson house hearing the echo of its people. Ghostliness is oddly becoming to Orson Welles, and who knows if he didn't escape to Rio with the fatalistic delight of the true self-destructive?

[Harvey Chartrand]

Man, can that Thomson guy ever write!
It just breaks your heart to read such a fine article and ponder what might have been. Perhaps 50 films directed by Welles instead of 10. No Dean Martin roasts. No Paul Masson wine commercials. No European exile or cameos in lumbering, badly-dubbed costume epics. Yes, the Rio Carnaval came with a hefty price tag and the entire course of world cinema was altered.
How ironic that this lament for a great (but flawed) man is written by someone named Thomson. [Okay, the spelling isn't exactly the same as Thompson from News on the March, but it's still kind of spooky.] Also gives one pause to think that Welles died at 70 — same age as Kane.

[Jeff Wilson]

Well, Thomson can lament the ruination of Ambersons and Welles with all the rest of us, but I daresay Welles would have ended up the in the same situation at some point down the line had he stayed in Hollywood instead of flying down to Rio. His way of working was too idiosyncratic, too anti-authoritarian (which you can read as self-destructive as well) to succeed in the studio system. Had he stayed behind, how can we know that Ambersons wouldn't have been cut anyway? Welles may have been around to plead his case, but he was going to be fired no matter what, once RKO's ruling cabal changed, and whether he was in Rio or Hollywood doesn't matter much, it seems to me. Maybe Ambersons would have been saved, maybe not.

[jaime marzol]

tend to agree with jeff, welles could never have worked within the system. sooner or later, like huston, he would have dug his own grave with the studios.

people like welles, and huston, didn't kiss ass well, and were probably not capable of exhibiting the type of sub-serviant behavior needed to fit in with the other fish at the studio.

though huston DID have an uncanny ability to always land on his feet. also, huston was able to walk away from anything without ever looking back, which is where welles failed. had welles been able to turn his back on projects more often, he might have fared better. IT'S ALL TRUE sunk him in so many ways. not only loosing AMBERSONS, and his contract at RKO, but after he was fired from RKO he insisted on finishing this vague documentary, he traded his 10% of KANE as partial payment on the IT'S ALL TRUE footage. he defaulted on the sacond payment, and lost control of IT'S ALL TRUE.

so there were no KANE royalties, no AMBERSONS, and no IT'S ALL TRUE.

had welles had access to this board in 1941, it's still doubtfull he would have been able to alter his fate.

[Jeff Wilson]

And even if Welles had been able to somehow scrounge up money to finish It's All True, and he had leads at various points that failed to pan out, does anyone think that it would have been a success in commercial terms, which is the only thing that would have gotten him more studio gigs? That was one of Welles' prime weaknesses: a complete lack of understanding as to what made up a commercial hit, as well as just having a eye for business and money. That's fine for us in retrospect, because we didn't get crap made to appeal to mass audiences, but to Welles' idea of what he thought a mass audience wanted, which is rather more interesting.

[jaime marzol]

that is interesting, jeff, what welles' idea of an audience picture was. when welles made LADY FROM SHANGHAI, in his eyes, he was selling out and making a standard programer. he never really conected with an audience till after he died. now he's popolar again.

[nathan_h]

It seems a disservice to Welles to suggest that he ran away from Ambersons to pursue another project "by choice" in the sense that he was made an offer by Washington and (Rockefeller was it?) that essentially couldn't be refused: the US was at war, and it was his patriotic duty to accept and begin. That is, he was doing a "good deed" and it did him in.

Or so a mildly charitable reading of the situation -- something Thomson doesn't seem to give it -- would imply?

[Welles Fan]

I also think O.W. would have ended up an independent even if the Amberson debacle had shaken out differently. Even if Ambersons had survived the Draconian cuts and reshoots, I think it would still have bombed at the box office. Hell, Kane pretty much bombed (didn't turn a profit), and there is no way RKO was gonna keep him on to make non-profitable 'art' films (though in fairness to O.W., the Hearst boycott of Kane didn't help).

Read the memos from George Shaeffer to Orson during Kane: they're almost like love letters. Then read the letters after that first Ambersons premiere. You can tell that he is now disappointed that he has realized that the wunderkind may make 'art' films, but they are not gonna make money. You can also smell the fear in his voice. He must've risked his word and reputation in assuring RKO that in Welles they would be getting 'quality' and 'profitability' by signing him to a sweetheart deal. Had Orson somehow managed to get the final cut on Ambersons, we would no doubt be the beneficiaries of his genius. But I still think it probably wasn't 'commercial' by the standards of the day. And Orson, up to his movie career, had somehow managed to be both commercial and arty at the same time in radio and theatre.

Had Orson survived Ambersons and remained a 'mainstream' director, I think we would have seen an endless parade of movies along the lines of The Stranger. I don't think he would have ever gotten an OK on movies like The Trial, Othello, and Chimes at Midnight.

I, for one, have always felt that Orson's career was on the whole, successfull. He not only made two of the greatest (OK, the greatest) 'mainstream' movies ever made, but he also made some of the greatest independent movies of all time. Can anyone imagine a Hollywood studio giving Welles a choice of public domain works to film which included The Trial? Also, I think Orson's genius thrived on tight budgets, deadlines and the need to improvise. I honestly think Othello is a better film because of the roundabout way in which it was filmed.

In short, I think it is OK to feel sorry for Orson after Chimes at Midnight. After making one of his greatest films (and possibly the greatest Shakespeare film ever), he never helmed a major movie again. I think it is wrong to feel sorry for him in the period following the RKO years. He still went on to great success as an actor (Jane Eyre, Harry Lime, etc), and still made some great films. How many masterpieces does any artist have in him (or her)? How many start at a pinnacle like Kane and still go on to produce many more?

The only thing that upsets me is when some wiseass watches some execrable thing like 'The War Over Citizen Kane' and comes away with the feeling that Orson made one great film and pissed the rest of is life and career away.