Quarto Potere

[ToddBaesen]

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Here is what Welles had to say in 1950 about the Italian neo-realist films, which Welles liked, but most Americans had to see in poorly sub-titled versions... just as Italians had to see CITIZEN KANE in a poorly dubbed version.

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ORSON WELLES: Good as some of them are (the Italian neo-realist films), they are largely overestimated by snobs who avidly swallow the sub-titles and don’t understand a word of Italian. I can see it, now that I have mastered the language… You would probably like them only half as much, if you understood the dialogue.

This is part of a theory I once elaborated with Hitchcock in a happy moment. We decided then that in order to have a sweeping success in the highbrow cinemas of the Anglo-Saxon world we should make a film about nothing, in no language at all and with bad photography—but copiously subtitled. We agreed that people would scream their heads off with delight.


--interviewed by Francis Koval, Sight and Sound, December 1950



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[nextren]

Todd, thanks. That Welles and Hitchcock spoke or even spent any time together was news to me. They said little about each other. In fact, I don't think Hitchcock ever said anything about Welles (although his name is on the "Citizen Kane" New York premiere list of attendees, with Alma's).

Every time I see an interviewer mention another director to him (like Welles or Fritz Lang), Hitchcock changes the subject or steers the conversation away from them and back to him. Welles, by contrast, was outspoken about other directors (and producers, and agents, and many other things), and made it known that he disliked Hitchcock's American films. (See the Bogdanovich book.)

Did Welles consider his relationship to Hitchcock otherwise "unhappy"?

There was the whole TOE/Psycho thing. And in 1939 Selzick gave Hitchcock a dressing-down about his adaptation of "Rebecca" - the producer trashed Hitchcock's proposed version and praised Welles's radio adaptation to the skies. "Why can't you be more like Orson Welles?" was the gist of that memo.

[Alan Brody]

Glenn,
The word 'Fascism' seems almost as slippery as the word 'freedom'. Some people for example, considered John Wayne to be a fascist for the apparent streak of pro-fuedalism that runs throughout his films, along with, as you mentioned, the idea of the 'benign dictator'- or in his case, the benign cattle baron. In fact, some people, such as Cahiers du Cinema, considered Orson Welles to be pro-fascist as well, and he did in later years consort with such 'benevolent' dictators as Franco, Tito, and the Shah of Iran.

Easy to see, Alan, how the polemicists, first calling Charles Foster Kane "a communist" and then "a fascist," would have had particular resonance for Italian citizens after World War II.

I guess that goes to show what a fine line there can be between Communism and Fascism, the two warring camps of statism. I've always thought of Welles as leaning more toward the former, but then, who knows how he leaned after the 1950's, when he had actually lived extensively in Europe, including a lengthy stay in Franco's Spain.

Keats and Todd,
That Welles quote trashing subtitles makes it seem more likely to me that he did indeed do that side job of dubbing Italian movies for the American market. He seems to have been fascinated by dubbing in general, dubbing many side characters himself for his European films during that time.

Conversely, he himself was dubbed by others for the foreign-language versions of these films. I was actually quite impressed by the French-language version of Othello. I don't understand French, but I know the film well enough that I could follow it and do a mental translation without too much trouble. What impressed me particularly was how smooth the French version's soundtrack is, compared to the rather rough sounding patchwork of Welles's English version. Of course, Welles's soundtrack was the result of experimentation and revision over several years, while the French version's sound was probably put together all at once in a short time, being the benificiary of Welles's expirimentation.

The issue of translation, of course, exists in literature as well. Lawrence French's posting of that fascinating article on the OW screenplay for Poe's Masque of the Red Death reminded me that Poe, like Welles, is a good example of an American artist who became more popular in Europe, in Poe's case because of Baudelaire's renowned translation of his stories into French.

[Glenn Anders]

Alan: Sorry to be so long in getting back to you.

[Todd Baesen persuaded Mr. French to decouple the Wellesnet Home Page from its message boards, I hear, and now they are engaged in a terrific struggle over whether or not to bring them back together again.]

In reply to your following observation: " I guess that goes to show what a fine line there can be between Communism and Fascism, the two warring camps of statism. I've always thought of Welles as leaning more toward the former, but then, who knows how he leaned after the 1950's, when he had actually lived extensively in Europe, including a lengthy stay in Franco's Spain." --

You have that mostly right, I believe.

I rather think the point of CITIZEN KANE's memorable, vivid contrasts in public opinion toward Charles Foster Kane was that, because of his hard-scrabble beginnings, Kane failed to see himself (during his electoral drive for public office) only a plutocrat posing as "a friend of the working man." The soapbox provided by his media empire allowed him to conceal that fact from the citizenry, and to a degree, from himself. He was, therefore, an ambiguous figure who could not be attacked effectively from either extreme of the political spectrum. In moralistic America, given his wealth and power, he could not be brought down save by personal or sexual scandal, which is just what happened. We might also remember that Kane said, in another place: "I am what I have always been -- An American." And that's why, the screenplay for CITIZEN KANE was originally entitled: American.

[This disarmingly simple but brilliant paradigm is as true today -- especially today, perhaps -- as it was in the 1920's and 1930's. What else can explain the moral ambiguity surrounding the successful elections of a George W. Bush or a number of other emerging politicians, possibly even a Barack Obama?]

Communism and Fascism, you are correct, came down IN PRACTICE pretty much to the same brutal state goals, policies, and methods: expansionism, imperialism (by other names), "exceptionalism" (a term suddenly heard in our land), extremism, democratic centralism, militarism, "guns and butter," various forms of racism, appeals to prejudice, quasi-legal militias, police statism, administrative courts, concentration camps, and torture. Each side claimed it could not carry out its religiously or fatefully stated aims because enemies were ringed all around.

What they CLAIMED TO BE FOR were diametrically opposite views of governance. The Communists said they were for no leaders at all except for those who emerged from The People. The Fascists countered that it was necessary to place absolute faith in The State and The Leader in order to get rid of riffraff, so that the True [FILL IN THE BLANK] might survive and flourish. The Communists claimed that if they could control the mechanisms of the state and education long enough, they would return the masses of ordinary people to their original communal sharing and goodness. On both sides, once scapegoats were eliminated or at least identified, benevolent rulers and social democrats in the middle often became the Real Enemy.

Welles was an anti-fascist from his earliest days (possibly because he recognized and feared a dictatorial streak within himself), and I find any hard evidence that he was fond of Communism. On the contrary, he may have become disillusioned early with the rise of Joseph Stalin. He appears to have been a democrat (big and little "d"), a progressive, and a member of that 1930's alliance against fascism known as "The Popular Front."

I would put down, as you suggest, Alan, his sojourns in Spain, Morocco, Italy, Britain, etc, to his acceptance in later life that the "Golden Age" before the consolidation of the Modern Nation State (and the "ordinary" childhood he never had?) would have been the time to live. And so, he admired and treasured the artifacts which were often preserved most faithfully by "benevolent" rulers in those countries where he stayed, overlooking the occasional feudalistic, even fascist attitudes apparent to maintain those treasures.

As you suggest to me, a seemingly simple figure like John Wayne may become similarly complex in the public eye. [But I doubt anyone would ever fashion a work around his life. But I can think of a trendy title for -- whoops, the rockers and bloggers have already gotten to it!]

Basta!

Rosabella . . . .

Glenn

[Alan Brody]

Thanks for another illuminating response, Glenn. One could argue that the U.S., in it's self-styled role as the 'policeman of the world' has more-or-less followed a variation of John Wayne's 'benign cattle baron', especially during the Reagan years. It's interesting that Franco, who had relatively good relations with the U.S. during the Cold War, was praised by conservatives for protecting such institutions as the Catholic Church. Hitler was also praised by religious conservatives as being the last stout shield against 'Stalin, the anti-christ'. Not to try and make too explicit of a connection, but as Gregory Arkadin was said by Welles to be based on Stalin, another noteworthy example of a title change on a Welles film would be the German version of Mr. Arkadin, which is titled "Herr Satan, Personlich" (Mr. Satan in Person).

Welles was an anti-fascist from his earliest days (possibly because he recognized and feared a dictatorial streak within himself), and I find any hard evidence that he was fond of Communism. On the contrary, he may have become disillusioned early with the rise of Joseph Stalin. He appears to have been a democrat (big and little "d"), a progressive, and a member of that 1930's alliance against fascism known as "The Popular Front."

This reminds me of a quote I heard recently from a prominent leftist of that time who, when asked why he did not become a communist, replied that ideology was not thought, but rather a substitute for thought. Perhaps it's best to let Welles himself have the last word on Fascism, which he defined simply as 'the age-old malady of power for power's sake'. It seems to me that this could cover a pretty wide range of ideologies.

[Glenn Anders]

Very true, Alan, except that Fascism rises with the late 19th Century legal rulings which established the rights of the modern corporation as an individual "citizen." Mussolini was clever enough to see, in the collapse of European monarchies, how those rights could be combined with the State to form Corporatism, which under another name became Fachismo -- Fascism.

BTW, ". . .and I find any hard evidence that he [Welles] was fond of Communism . . . ." should have a "can't" in there.

Glenn

[Alan Brody]

Very true, Alan, except that Fascism rises with the late 19th Century legal rulings which established the rights of the modern corporation as an individual "citizen." Mussolini was clever enough to see, in the collapse of European monarchies, how those rights could be combined with the State to form Corporatism, which under another name became Fachismo -- Fascism.

Another interesting point, Glenn. A modern corporation certainly does have a very authoritarian, top-down structure, like the military.

Here's a fascinating article excerpt by Welles from New World Magazine, circa 1944, that I thought you might enjoy, if you haven't seen it already. It was transcribed from tape recorder notes, so it may not be 100% accurate, but I'm sure it's pretty close:

Article draft, 'The Unknown Soldier' by Orson Welles.

'Before the year now generally called "Munich", perhaps a season or so earlier, there was a treasure hunt in Paris. Please visualize the celebrants not as Parisians, but as notables - as they mostly were - of the very popular and publicly gay wing of international society. You may know that a treasure hunt proposes a number of unlikely quests, and when the list is imaginative it can be fun. Here was a treasure hunt for the history of the game. There was no limit to the mad invention of it. One item was something unmentionably intimate - that's all I know about it - a posession of the mistress of a cabinet minister. Another prize was a legal certificate of marriage between a couple who hadn't considered any such solemnity. There were a dozen more of these "treasures", all as extraordinary. And for a climax, nothing less then a cigar, still smoking, lit at the flame that burns forever by the tomb of The Unknown Soldier.

Now decency expects of a tomb that it guard for the lifetime of it's stone, what was once the habitation of the spirit of a man. The conscience of the world defends the memorial of those who in the last war died for peace. You agree that we catch a glimpse here of something worse then mere bad taste picnicking on an old grave; something more wicked and perverse then any casual defilement of God's image. Only another bad peace could make anyone laugh at a dead soldier again. Of course, whoever lit his cigar in the flame may have thought the unknown soldier wasn't anybody he knew. It's true, there isn't anybody in particular to mourn for the man who is buried there, so everybody mourns for him. The mocker can't have known that he profaned his brother's grave, but how can he forget that the sense of man's brotherhood is all that can sustain the human spirit for the loss of God, and this man had no God. By what DID he live? By the loss of faith and the condition of despair. The alternative to despair is the worship of Ceasar. What's sure is that the mocking of sacrifice cannot survive elsewhere but in that evil climate of the soul where Fascism prepares it's subjects. Very probably, the man with the cigar was one of those prefabricated pagans who rode the joyless carousal of the 20's and 30's. One of those, you know, who doubted if anything is ever really very bad or very good. If he's alive he may have changed his mind. It's possible he's found something bad enough to fight. He may even think there's something good enough to defend. I think we know those things, but never say them enough.

Good and bad have been at war, God knows, since the first morning of the world. Men do the fighting- if they didn't, this planet would be nothing better then a zoo. Faith is the tinder of man's greatness. So long as he shields it from despair, he's going to keep this gift of fire. There is one choice, no more. One choice, and no exemptions. Those who believe this present war can be the last are winning it. Those who now are losing suppose that war breeds without cure in the nature of all peoples. They are the same who fatten on this war. They are the same who plan the next one. The slaves doubt their kind's capacity to learn and change. The slavers curb with doubt the people's righteous will to abide by it's own laws. They are all the same- we have this to be glad of. These who are of little faith; the blasphemers, experts at chaos, who are sick in spirit; those who can't, who won't affirm the plain, magnificent decency of human folk. All such, on this our brightening world, those now under the banners of despair; defeat is their profession and their destination.

Victory rises today before the men of faith. This CAN be the last war. If it is, we'll know the world's first peace. No more of the old stalemates and manipulations. The people want a government of ALL their nations; the chance to know each other better. To visit neighbors and to make friends. They want open borders. They want EVERYTHING  printed in the newspapers, so they know whether they like what's going on. They're tired of secrets and spies. They're tired of striped pants. They want their own diplomats. And all these things the people are going to have unless they're cheated out of them. If free men, fighting now, aren't going to be allowed to destroy Fascism, if afterwards anything that looks like Fascism is suffered to sit down among us, the cynics will be right again.

An ordered world where everone's free to prosper and improve is still a far-off dream. The Fuhrer gave his sway a thousand years. It's doom seems sure already. He has lost, but those who fight him know they may not win. That thousand years of his was a good guess. At least a thousand years ways on the chance of another war. Another war means worse then the levelling of all the cities, we know that. It means retreat; a setback longer then the quarter of a century wasted since the Unknown Soldier died for us. A thousand years is a long march. We are the ancestors of unknown soldiers, who must go that bloody length again, unless we who are weary of marching, go on marching. Forward is the way. Forward, beyond peace- on into the free world, which depends on it. A free world means just that. We must accept no substitutes. A free world depends on that refusal. Liberals have a lot to say nowadays, about the dangers of reaction. Reaction is no danger, it is a certainty. Maybe it won't amount to much, maybe it's going to be a title wave. Anyway, the answer isn't written in the stars, it's up to the democratic man.

Within the seperate democracies, the serious failure of progressive influence could ruin international good health. If we allow provincialism to prejudice the efficiency of world organization, or if any of the leaders of the United Nations are permitted by the peoples they represent to use their armies for counter-revolution, then even this war has just started. The ignorance of the masses is insufficient, wicked apology for any democratic loss. Germany before Hitler was possessed of quite considerable political sophistication. Blame for the failure of the popular front is now what the French-working-man progressive leadership must accept; guilt now in just proportion to the gains of reaction. The platitude of the day is even truer then most platitudes. Noone doubts that we may win the war and lose the peace. I might like to add that we may lose the peace before it's lost. Dunkirk, Chungking and Stalingrad are what is hopeful- the democratic man has kept his faith. He must stand fast now; this time he dare not lose or nothing will be left- nothing even to start with. He must stand fast or they'll have to build a new monument- not to the unknown soldier, but this time to the unknown cause. Maybe they'll keep an enigmatic little flame alive to show where freedom died. But noone will light a cigar on that sepulchre- it wouldn't even be funny.

The alternative is civilization; a bookish, uneasy word, but perhaps we can invent other names for it when we struggle closer to what it describes.'

[Glenn Anders]

Thanks, Alan: I believe that I have heard Welles intone something like a splinter of these sentiments, but I never have read the whole thing.

One abiding impression which remains with me is how consistently idealistic Welles was from his teenage to his death on the subject of rolling back fascism, nurturing peace, and bringing people of good will together. Let's hope that individuals of similar stature and values, tempered by an understanding of the forces they are up against, may prevail in the hard years to come. Recalling the decades of my life, I can say with considerable certainty, we really have regressed, in roughly similar ways, back to the 1930's from which Orson Welles first shone in many arenas with such an enduring light.

Glenn

[Alan Brody]

Yes, that political idealism was undoubtedly one of the reasons why Don Quixote appealed to him so much.

[Glenn Anders]

Absolutely, Alan.

Rosabella.

Glenn