Roger Ryan's Magnificent Ambersons reconstruction

[Le Chiffre]

Just thought I'd mention that the Ambersons Youtube program done by the students at Macalester College is in three parts. All three parts are worth watching:

Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H3Va84XDq4

Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMUL2CdS ... creen&NR=1

Part 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVzKgGQe ... re=related

I especially like this exchange with Bernard Hermann:

Interviewer: Mr. Hermann, could you comment on The Magnificent Amberson?

Hermann: No, do you see my name on that film?

Interviewer: Did you not write the score?

Hermann: I wrote a score for a movie called The Magnificent Ambersons, but that movie was never released.

[A Sled in Flames]

Those students did a nice job. It was interesting to see actors performing those famous excised scenes. I think I'm happier with Roger Ryan's reconstruction though, the vintage images of the original actors gives some more authenticity.

[Wellesnet]

Parts of Roger Ryan's Ambersons reconstruction were shown along with the film at the NY Film Forum's Welles Fest last Saturday. Here's what Joseph McBride (who hosted the evening) had to say about it on Facebook:

François Truffaut wrote of Orson Welles's "mutilated masterpiece" THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, "It hasn't had the repercussions of CITIZEN KANE, and in any theater today, moreover, there will be half as many spectators for AMBERSONS. Yet each time I see this film it has a greater emotional effect on me. I believe that in shooting CITIZEN KANE Orson Welles was more anxious about the medium, while in AMBERSONS he seems to have been excited primarily by the characters."

Truffaut wrote that in 1972, but happily the house was full when we showed AMBERSONS at New York's Film Forum earlier this month (see the line above). AMBERSONS is my favorite of all films, even in its mutilated state.

In Bruce Goldstein's wonderful Welles retrospective, we showed a 35mm print of AMBERSONS with the trailer (which has six shots that aren't in the release version) and scenes from Roger Ryan's fascinating 1993 "reconstruction" of what the film had been, i.e., probably the greatest American film.