A&E's Ambersons remake

[Lee Gordon]

The new version of The Magnificent Ambersons airs on A&E in January.
It was screened in Germany last summer and yet we have seen no detailed reporting on it yet.

Does anyone know if its premier was successful, or if RKO plans to have Robert Wise make improvements

[Cole]

Lee,

Yes, I’m sure I read somewhere about Robert Wise contributing to the new AMBERSONS. He cut a little here, added a little there, and he gave it that cutesy “Sound of Music” feel that only someone like Robert Wise could provide.

[apexjazz]

Did everyone see this website make the wires?

The star of the remake of Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons, which supposedly employed Welles' original script and shooting notes, has expressed her dismay over the outcome of the project. Madeleine Stowe (The Last of the Mohicans, The General's Daughter), who portrays Isabel Amberson Minafer in the three-part miniseries due to air on the A&E channel in January, told today's Calgary Sun: "It is the best screenplay I have ever read. I was so thrilled to be part of this great project, but what happened was a disaster." In the interview, Stowe seemed to accuse Mexican director Alfonso Arau (Like Water for Chocolate, A Walk in the Clouds) of reworking Welles' script. "Arau didn't want to discuss his vision with the actors, nor did he want any input from any of us about our characters. All he wanted to talk about was incest. It was 12 weeks of agony. We had a chance to make cinema history and, because of Arau, we botched it." Ironically, in his own time, Welles had accused executives of RKO of botching his original version of Ambersons, based on the novel by Booth Tarkington, by drastically cutting his film. Arau had said earlier that he intended to be faithful to Welles' script, telling one interviewer, "We couldn't take the risk of spending millions on trying to better something that couldn't be bettered." But Stowe told the Sun: "It breaks my heart that we didn't do the material justice." A message posted today (Wednesday) on a website devoted to Welles' films (http://www.wellesnet.com/News.htm) claims that the new film is only "loosely based" on the original screenplay and lists numerous alterations -- and even the elimination of scenes that were included in the original RKO release.


Nice new website by the way!

[LA]

Thanks for posting that article, apexjazz.
This mini-series is sounding increasingly like a turkey. I thought from the first time I heard about it that the Welles connection was probably going to be used more as publicity than anything else, but I had hoped to be proved wrong.
Oh well. Maybe in another sixty years, someone will try again?

[Le Chiffre]

Thanks for the article. Yes, looks we've got another BIG BRASS RING on our hands.

[apexjazz]

Brass Ring? Let's hope its not THAT bad.

[O J Radok]

-- "A message posted today (Wednesday) on a website devoted to Welles' films (http://www.wellesnet.com/News.htm) claims that the new film is only "loosely based" on the original screenplay and lists numerous alterations -- and even the elimination of scenes that were included in the original RKO release."

Huh? What message is this referring to? I looked for it, but couldn't find it. But by looking for it in the News section, I came across the review from a German newspaper which came out a day after the Munich premiere of the new Ambersons, and that didn't sound bad AT ALL.

[jaime marzol]

if the post does exist, how much more definitive can we get than a website where people post? why not go to a bar and ask the first drunk you see. different methods that render the same result; joe schmoe's opinion.

[apexjazz]

or listen to a self proclaimed critic.

[jaime marzol]

Apejazz:
no, no, i'm not a self proclaimed critic. i'm a self proclaimed ipinionator, and this is an opinion board. so I'm in the right place.

What I wrote was no critique on you. I was commenting on the writer of the article you posted. Giving an opinion board as a reference resource is pretty feeble, don't you think? Or didn't you understand what i was saying?

Don't feel persecuted.

[Jeff Wilson]

Real quick, as I'm in an Internet cafe in London as I write this. The news article that the wire item mentions is in the last update section I posted. I received a brief description of the new mini-series from someone who screened a pre-release copy and they told me those details, i.e. it didn't follow Welles' original script and cut the boarding house scene and narration. I am rather amazed to have the site be mentioned in a wire story, though. Welcome to the new members, incidentally.

[apexjazz]

I was not referring to you, comrade Marzol. just making a little ironical comment, very general in its aim. no offense was taken.

Don't feel persecuted.

[jaime marzol]

sorry, comrade, i guess i was the one feeling persecuted

[Cole]

If you’re ultra-anxious to see the new version of the MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (or you’re a retired shoe-bomber with a lot of spare time on your hands), you may want to check out A&E’s web site devoted to the new movie: http://www.aande.com/tv/shows/ambersons/

I’ve only read bits of it so far, but I have noticed a few things that would indicate that the people involved with the production are not especially well-informed. For instance, in the short bio they give of Orson, it states: “Citizen Kane is not the only Orson Welles film to be considered outstanding these days -- Touch Of Evil, The Third Man, and yes, The Magnificent Ambersons, are among those that…[etc.]” There is also a short interview of James Cromwell, who will be playing Major Amberson in the new movie, and of his several harsh criticisms of the original movie, one is that the movie “has very little to do with the book.” He then states, “I haven't read the book.” (Can I therefore infer from this little admission that his other comments about the movie were also uneducated opinions?)

I’m sure there are a number of intelligent people involved with the new movie, but what I’m reading so far isn’t doing much to raise my expectations about its quality. I’ll certainly hold off purchasing a copy of the movie for the time being (which is already available in both VHS and DVD).

[Welles Fan]

Take everything Cromwell says with a mountainous grain of salt. I just read that Vanity Fair piece on Ambersons, and Cromwell had this to say (largely as an explanation as to why the remake has little to do with Welles' version:

"I think Welles knew he had a bad film. It's a horrendous film! It was horrendous before the edit! As a followup to a film that essentially rewrote all the rules? Come on! I just don't believe the performers are compelling. There's no magic between Costello and Cotten. It looks like a second-rate Hollywood period melodrama.I think Welles knew he didn't have anything. Even before he finished the film, he splits? I think he was scared shitless to fight with RKO."

The author of the article, David Kamp, mentions that "Cromwell played William Randolph Hearst in RKO 281, HBO's movie about the making of Citizen Kane, and could have been carrying around some osmotic antipathy toward Welles".

The director, Alsfonso Arau, says "I love Citizen Kane, but I'm not crazy about Ambersons. I think in many ways it's old-fashioned. It would be a romantic thought that Orson Welles is sitting on a cloud, applauding me, but I'm not motivated by that at all. The challenge I have is not to follow his act" (italics mine0.

So, you may as well kiss goodbye the notion that the Ambersons remake will give a glimpse as to what the uncut version was like.