Don Quijote

[jdrouette]

The Cinématheque française in Paris is showing Don Quichotte - Copie de travail (work print) on June 29, 2015. It is listed as running 80 minutes, in 35mm with French subtitles.

http://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/dans-sall ... 18147.html

In my Welles obsessiveness, I've made plans to be there and can report back with more details.

[Wellesnet]

Wow, thanks jdrouette. Please do.

[mido505]

Well, this is an interesting development...

[jdrouette]

Also of note - they are showing a 2-hour work print of THE DEEP on July 18th - from a video copy.

http://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/dans-sall ... 18100.html

[Le Chiffre]

A video copy? Hopefully someone will upload that sometime.

[Wellesnet]

Here's a recent interview (In Italian) with "Don Quixote" editor Mauro Bonanni:
http://quinlan.it/2015/06/12/intervista ... o-bonanni/

And here's an attempt at a rough translation. Anyone of our Italian-speaking friends out there, please feel free to correct any errors in this:

INTERVIEW WITH MAURO BONANNI

Among the unfinished Welles, Don Quixote is his most personal project, and also the one that, for a number of unresolved issues, in serious danger of falling into oblivion. We spoke with Mauro Bonanni, who worked on the editing of the film from April 1969 to March '70. This interview is dedicated to Ciro Giorgini.

In October of 2013, thanks to the discovery and screening of “Too Much Johnson”, organized by the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, a new phase of interest in Orson Welles has opened, with particular reference to the underwater world of all his unfinished work. But it also opened for us, Quinlan-like, a path that led us to know Ciro Giorgini, who precisely identified “Johnson”, and immediately shared with us his long experience of this "sieve" Welles film, as was reported in the interview that we published almost a year and a half ago.

Thanks to Ciro Giorgini, we were able to even get in touch with Mauro Bonanni, editor of “Don Quixote” which, among all the unfinished film by Orson Welles, is undoubtedly the most controversial, first because Welles considered it his "own film"; his most personal, ambitious and therefore most secret project, and secondly because of the attempted revival wrought by Jess Franco in 1992, “Don Quijote by Orson Welles”, which completely distorted the Wellesian spirit of the work with a use of replacement footage both arbitrary and unintentionally grotesque.

We therefore met Mauro Bonanni to talk about the long controversy of Don Quixote and to tell us how he worked with Welles.

This interview is dedicated to Ciro Giorgini, who died last April 6.
***

The opportunity to work with Orson Welles on “Don Quixote” came early in your career, didn’t it?

Mauro Bonanni: Actually I had done an underground movie, but cannot remember the title. And then I felt - considering that I was twenty - like one destined to make art films. At the time I was offered only the kind of things - B movies, in short - that made me sick and I refused them, so that for more than a year I had not worked. However, at that time I happened to organize a couple of times the sound editing for an English friend. And I also did the sound editing for a film of Visconti. Then one day I met a friend, Walter Diotallevi, who told me: "Why don’t you come with me to work on a film? There are Americans, there is money." Because that's what you used to say at the time, the Americans were full of money.

But I did not want to, because the type of job that Diotallevi offered me would make me go back to being an assistant editor. But as soon as Walter told me that the American was Orson Welles, I said yes immediately. So I went right to the Safa Palatino Center, which was one of the three or four large studies of assembly at the time, to work for Welles. The owner was the editor Fritz Muller, a relative of Renzo Lucidi, the editor who had worked for Welles on “Mr. Arkadin / Confidential Report”, and with him as an assistant, there were the following people: Maurizio Gutierrez, the same Walter Diotallevi, Giomini and Nina Roman, who was the sister of Oja Kodar, Welles's last companion. The first two weeks I worked without Welles, assigned to take pictures.

Almost as in one of his films, where it often happens that a character appears on stage a little later, after some waiting ...

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, a bit so. So after two weeks, Welles returned from Germany, where he had filmed scenes for a special he was working on; a television show for CBS telling - more or less jokingly - the characteristics of various countries: The Merchant of Venice which was supposed to represent Italy, Brazil with Ipanema, and an Old England Club. Then there was another one set in Vienna with Sachertorte and other pastries that was entitled “Carnaby Street”, and then he would be back again doing a speech for the England section. In short, he had already developed several films. The project had by then taken the name of “Orson's Bag”, but was never completed. Under a shelf, always there at Safa Palatino, there was also the workprint of The Deep, on which later he would be working a bit too.

How were the tasks divided at this stage?

Mauro Bonanni: We were preparing all the dailies, while Fritz Muller worked along with Welles. The space was divided into two rooms, one with prepared material, and the other in which Muller worked with him. And there were four slow-motion replays, three Italian and one American vertical.

What was the difference between the Italian and American slow motion?

Mauro Bonanni: The American one is small, has a handle to spin the film and a monitor to see the shot. So if you needed to see something so fast, he used the American. But Welles absolutely preferred the Italian slow motion, which allowed much more precise work on individual frames that he could maneuver. However, at some point, it happened that they sent Fritz Muller away; I do not know what happened, I just heard screams and I saw him go away. Two days later Oja Kodar came to me and said, tomorrow we will put you on the assembly with Orson Welles. And in front of my disbelief, she said: Yes, Orson decided that you're with him. I was very happy of course, but also shocked, because of all the editors, I was the one who knew the least material.

Why do you think he chose you?

Mauro Bonanni: Because I was the youngest. He always chose young staff, like Roberto Perpignani, who was named by Welles to make The Process (“The Trial”). At the time I still did not really understand why I had been chosen. It is a reflection that I did after.

So from that moment on your work you have completely changed?

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, Orson began to teach me how you worked with him. He was making signs on the film clips that were for scraps, while the parts that had no signs were good. Thus, for example, all the good takes took up the first floor, all the takes of good reverse shots and good ones of wide fields. Each of these groups were brought together and then each was put on a different slow motion, which could at times be less than four, always depending on how much money there was.
Italian replays, specifically, were very appropriate to assemble these parts. And then it worked like this: I went out on the right side as he entered from the left side and I stood next to him. He signaled that something was to be cut and I intervened. It was all very strict and precise. Then he put himself at the center of the room and, with a cigar in his mouth, he controlled the situation from there. At times he indicated things to change, to adjust or to put back in slow motion. It was like a waltz, with its timing, its precise movements, and a series of rituals.

It was only he who was working in this way?

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, no one else worked well this way. I picked up the habit of assembling the takes of the same shot - and I still do now with the digital editing - for example, when I mount action scenes. Or, in general, when I have to handle so much material, we adopt this system, because sometimes it’s hard to know if it is all really good or not. If you attach the same type of shot one after the other, as he did, then you understand what will you actually choose and why. Perpignani also works well this way, since he began with Welles.

So the first thing you mounted with Welles was the television special, Orson's Bag?

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, but with him you started with one thing but didn’t always stay with that. He more or less arrived at ten in the morning and went off at about five-thirty in the afternoon. Maybe it began with Old Club and then, during the same day, he tired of that and then said, now let’s do The Merchant of Venice, or Ipanema.

To get you some concrete examples of how we worked, I am reminded of the case of the Old Club, the episode set in a club of English aristocrats. Well, at first there were only two old characters - both played by Welles - who told of their adventures in India. Then one day I found that he had introduced a third gentleman, and a fourth - always played by him - then added the waiter, and the whole assembly was made in such a way that it seemed that they were all within the same room even though they were all shot in very different places. Incredible!

But when you worked with Welles, even when it was going well, he was never satisfied. I remember another episode, Ipanema. This fragment was based on Oja Kodar strolling and everyone turned to admire her beauty, material that was then partly reused for F for Fake. The music was that of Garota de Ipanema to which, transferred to tape, we changed the speed according to the needs of the images. And this process was stunning. The way that he could reshape what he had available was a constant surprise, quite a shock for the things that he could come up with. Sometimes I think that, to say he was a genius was nothing compared to what I can testify that I have seen him do. With him you could see really what being a director is. It makes me angry to think of all the things that unfortunately failed to get finished.

So, one day he came to the assembly and said that the TV special was now his, because CBS had unfortunately decided not to continue to fund it. And then he began to run short of money. And that was precisely the time when we also started to assemble the parts of “The Deep”, in which there was a black tail (marker for missing scenes) because it was necessary to add the scene of the explosion of the yacht. A sequence that was still to be shot, and then we saw that the money was missing, so I wondered how he would do it. So in those days Welles, to afford to continue to pay for all of these projects, agreed to do the narration for a German documentary on the Vatican [Barbed Water, by Adrian J. Wensley-Walker]. It went that way, where he often did small parts in films, such as in spaghetti westerns, to create the money to go ahead with his plans.

Seeing the films of Welles, it is impressive to see how his way of filmmaking has changed much over the years. In particular, it is understood that assembly tended to become an increasingly important aspect in the process of his films. It is perhaps fitting that from “Othello” on, it becomes the central element of his films, including the need to carry it out himself because he was forced to film it over four years and in very different locations.

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, it's true. Although we had never spoken about it directly, I could realize it very well. Already in the very moment when CBS dropped him and the special, he began to have a completely different approach. The moment had become the producer of itself, and the material was fermented excessively, with a whole series of inserts, like a paste which is always in a state of leavening. So as he became director and producer together - which happened for the first time just with “Othello” - he realized all of this, the thousands of possibilities for the evolution of the material. He always said that no frames had to be thrown away.

And “Don Quixote”?

Mauro Bonanni: One day he said, “tomorrow I present my son.” I thought to myself, I know that Welles's got a daughter, so I knew that was wrong. Well, you know that his suitcases were listed as immigrants when they went to the North? The day after, Welles came with those two suitcases which, using cardboard and a half of poor skin, he kept shut with string. Inside were all the boxes in which were kept Don Quixote. So we started working on it.

What was the material in 16mm?

Mauro Bonanni: We’ll start with this story, because there are already so many people who have insisted on saying that it was all 16mm. Not true, it was all in 35mm. The only things I know that he shot in 16mm were tests that were made at the beginning of the summer of '55 with Mischa Auer, before he chose as the protagonist, Francisco Reiguera. Then, when in the early sixties he did “In the Land of Don Quixote” for the RAI, he also took the opportunity to film his “Don Quixote”. For example, there is a scene from “In the Land” where you see his third wife Paola Mori. Well, we also had that same shot, only it was just Welles instead, along with the little girl who played Dulcinea. And then Welles decided to also remove his presence so, during final assembly, only Dulcinea was left.

However, that all this material was in 35mm, I can prove to you in another way. Besides the fact that the slow-motion replays were all 35mm, there was a particular method of work that he loved to do: velocizzava parts, which meant cutting a few frames here and there to give a rapid effect. And with 16mm this thing could not be done. So, if you had a 24 frames per second, he made them go down to 12, and the frames were attached by us with tape. It was, moreover, also a method to create an eccentric speed when the negative was speeded up.

But it was an expensive procedure, which could also become an expense that was partially useless. And at that time he could not afford the additional investment cost, so he used this method of handmade cut frames from a positive print. And because it was a work of extreme precision, sometimes it could happen that some frames broke, so there were huge boxes full of all these frames and loose cuts. He would waste words, yes, but he did not throw away film ever.

Why do you think that so many have talked about this issue of 16mm versus 35?

Mauro Bonanni: Because already twenty years ago I had a big discussion about this issue when the Spanish company “El Silencio” produced one of the films of Jess Franco, who then did that terrifying replacement in '92 called “Don Quijote by Orson Welles”. They said that the material used on that was 16mm. In fact, the 16mm they had was not part of the material that I worked on myself. And those things in 16mm they had taken from Suzanne Cloutier, the Desdemona of “Othello”, who had been for many years in contact with Welles.

But why did she have this material of “Don Quixote”?

Mauro Bonanni: She told me by phone that Welles had left it to her as a token because he owed her money. Suzanne did not want to, but he insisted.

And this material in 16 she eventually succumbed to the production company “El Silencio?”

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, they made a deception to fool Suzanne. I know because I was with her. I had not recommended immediately for her to give that material to Jess Franco, because in the meantime I had already had discussions with him. Suzanne, however, told me that Oja Kodar had told her that Welles had written in his will for her to do so. And eventually Suzanne succumbed because they went to her and said falsely that I myself had delivered my material. At that time I was working outside Italy and so Suzanne was unable to contact me. She eventually was persuaded by them. Later, when I returned to Italy, we talked over the phone and she told me everything, but unfortunately it was too late. Incidentally, Suzanne also had the so-called black book; that is, the script of “Don Quixote”.

Really? And she also gave them the black book, the script?

Mauro Bonanni: No, not that.

So in theory that would have still been with her?

Mauro Bonanni: Eh, but she died. Who knows, maybe one does have some relatives.

But you never saw this black book?

Mauro Bonanni: No, I've never seen it.

And this material that Cloutier had, you've never seen?

Mauro Bonanni: No, not even that.

But how do you explain this fact, that there was also the material in 16mm of Don Quixote?

Mauro Bonanni: Welles had a 16mm camera, which was his property. Perhaps over the years he filmed something with that. But I do not know what use he wanted to make with it, because there was no point mixing it with 35. At the time there was a specific procedure to inflate the 16 up to 35mm, but back then a big difference could have been seen in any case.

On Don Quixote you worked mainly between April '69 and March '70, right?

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, that is true.

And at this time, on which parts of Don Quixote did you work?

Mauro Bonanni: About everything. When working on Don Quixote, it was just me and Welles, nobody else. There were no other people. And the only one who, at the time, came to look at the parts of Don Quixote was Peter Bogdanovich.

It was the same period when they were working on the book-interview?

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, probably.

But even then, the material had this problem, in which different parts were without sound, right?

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, there was only a little. One such example was a scene Welles had called “the dentist”, which is a sequence present in the version of Jess Franco, and you could see that Don Quixote went into a sort of caravan, because remember that Don Quixote was set by Welles in contemporary Spain. In short, Don Quixote in this sequence had a toothache and Sancho removed one of his teeth. And that was a sequence that Welles had dubbed himself, doing the voices of both Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. However - and this is amazing - he never watched the scene in the dubbing room. He watched it in slow motion, made a reservation on a sound room, and then was recorded. You will not believe it, but ninety times out of a hundred times his sound fit perfectly. I attached the sound to the images and there were always very few corrections to make. And, in fact, among the various things that I said to the executives of El Silencio - just before I made the break with them – was that they should try to find a deaf-mute in the English language, able to read the lips. But they did not give me a straight answer and they did a terrible dubbing, completely reinventing the dialogues.

But why was there not more direct sound?

Mauro Bonanni: Because the direct drive was lost. The shooting of the film, after the auditions of '55 with Mischa Auer, was started in '57 and we were still working on the editing more than twelve years later, between '69 and '70. Also consider that Welles continued to film even in those days, in Rome. In fact, you could find not only the clapperboard in English but also in Italian, which toured with Giorgio Tonti. For example, the scene of the sheep had been made with him.

But the audio track was lost because it was damaged? Or was it just lost?

Mauro Bonanni: No, I think that Welles lost it. Considering that he often went away suddenly from places where he was, because he found himself without money and maybe had to go somewhere else where he was paid to do some work for others. So he always left something behind. Think, for example, of the fact that he had come to leave parts of Don Quixote with Cloutier.

And a little was left even when he went away from Italy?

Mauro Bonanni: Yes. When, in March of '70, came out the news of his affair with Oja Kodar he was in slow motion angry and said: "You Italians! You Italians!"And I did not understand what he meant. He then explained: in practice, the article said that "while suffering Paola Mori, Welles made merry at the Hilton with Oja Kodar." But the photos of Welles and Kodar had not been made at the Hilton as we were led to believe. They were made right there where we filmed. Welles pointed to the bricks that were seen in the background of the photo and you could tell very well that they were those of Safa Palatino. In short, the responsibility for this story belongs to Rizzoli, the magazine. Welles was a scoop they had done.

So Welles left immediately?

Mauro Bonanni: That morning he came to tell me that, at 10:30, he had already woken up both Oja and Nina. He had canceled the room at the Hilton for three or four days and slept in the dressing room of Safa Palatino. I brought him tea in the morning, and once I brought pants also from the laundry. They were impressive: they were giants! Then he went to an apartment Anglo-American and remained there for another ten days. Then he left.

He had not taken anything away?

Mauro Bonanni: No, then the other stuff I did with him I sent to Salzburg.

Was Don Quixote among the things that you brought there?

Mauro Bonanni: No, there were all the episodes of the CBS special, including “The Merchant of Venice”, which at that point was almost finished. It was mixed and everything, even with the music of Lavagnino. I think Lavagnino, given the close working relationship and friendship he had with Welles, had not wanted to be paid. So Welles had given him all his drawings and miniatures.

Why did you not also bring Don Quixote?

Mauro Bonanni: Because Welles was afraid of the train journey. In fact, to bring all that CBS material I had had to travel by train at night. It was all illegal material, since at the time, to be able to travel, the film had to be stamped, for example, with the emblem of the Italian Republic; both the beginning and end of the film.

And then the work print of Don Quixote was delivered, afterwards, to his daughter, Beatrice?

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, we met in Rome, at the Piazza del Popolo, and I gave it to her. I put everything into the suitcases. But I do not remember how long after that happened. Consider that was a lifetime ago.

But in Salzburg how did it go?

Mauro Bonanni: Welles had called me to tell me: we'll get you into a villa and also hire an Italian chef, so we can edit it in peace. So I had reached there with all the things of CBS. But after less than a week, I had to go to Rome because my father was dying.

And in those few days you worked on some things?

Mauro Bonanni: No, because we had begun putting in place the material, which was a mess. We cut only a little bit of “The Merchant of Venice”, because he wanted to put his hands on it again, even though for me it was finished. But things never end with him. You know, for example, because of The Deep being there, he wanted to work more on it? But I told him one day at lunch - it was just me and him - "Can you imagine, Welles, the day when the movie comes out, there will be a few reviews, and all will speak only of the leading actress, Oja? Because of this, there was deathly silence on his part ... and that was why we did not do any more work on it. There was still bad footage of her because, unfortunately, at that stage of her career, she could still have that happen to her. And I, as a young naive, I went to him to say such a thing. Shame on me.

But the copy-work (workprint) of Don Quixote was almost final?

Mauro Bonanni: No. Besides the fact that there was little sound, and that I would not have done anything, that copy was also a kind of puzzle. In fact, had this peculiarity that, while once the rollers were normally about ten minutes, which corresponded to approximately 270 meters, on the contrary he kept the Don Quixote separated into short sequences, which were individually inside tins of 120 meters. Each of those sequences then was even less than 120 meters long. They were from 40 to 60. It was written in the heading, for example, “Sheep”, “Pamplona”. And so the day he went away from Italy, we did put in the queue, at the close of each of these sequences, what he had to go after. To say, if it was written in the heading “dentist” and inside was the scene of the tooth, in tail was written “Sheep” and so therefore you know what you could attach later. And then maybe in the queue Sheep was written as Pamplona, and so on.

So could you at least assemble it?

Mauro Bonanni: No, because a single roll was still not finished. However, later, when the Spanish company arrived on the scene and took over, I told them it is crucial to recover the workprint, because on there is at least indicated the order of the sequences. In addition it must be said too, that Orson was not using the take that we gave him.

But do you think he did it on purpose because he did not want then someone replacing his hand without his approval, in memory of the other films that had been cut and reassembled by the producers?

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, in my opinion, yes.

So, technically, the last time you put your hands on Don Quixote was when Welles had to go away from Italy? And you think after that he could be successful working on the film on his own? And how was your relationship then continued after this unfortunately short experience of Salzburg?

Mauro Bonanni: No, we have not seen each other more and do not know how I could have worked with him again. We've still done some more work together, but after he left Italy, we worked only by phone. And, since he did not like talking to the handset, there was almost always Oja Kodar, who acted as intermediary. Among other things, for a period I could not find the film. And this happened when I tried to tell him I wanted to pulp the negatives of Don Quixote. I knew it was in Paris, but I could not find it. Then one day he called me from Los Angeles and I was able to say, “look what I got: the negative of Don Quixote.”

And when you said this thing about Don Quixote, what did he tell you?

Mauro Bonanni: He thanked me and told me that of course he would send the Prince Alessandro Tasca - who was his best friend – to come and get it. But it was only years later that there was a way to give him the material.

And, so far the presence of Welles on screen as the narrator?

Mauro Bonanni: In the scene in Don Quixote? He was not there. There was only apparition in the carriage, which was then removed. I speak of course only of what I saw.

So anyway, there was still years of work left to do?

Mauro Bonanni: No, I guess he would never have finished. I'll give you another example: in The Merchant of Venice Shylock was going around looking for the character of Jessica. A normal scene: he looks at a letter that she wrote, leaves, walks four steps and arrives. But then Welles turned to Centro Palatino for a scene with masked people and then added that passage in the middle of this short sequence. Then he added a scene where I appeared myself as an actor, I'm a charlatan ...

Ah yes, now that you mention it, I remember seeing your appearance somewhere.

Mauro Bonanni: Yeah, it was a very fun, because it was the first time I saw Welles on a set. However, Shylock first found himself meeting with all the acrobats. Then Welles added, as intermezzo, a scene with the regatta of Venice. Only those shots had all been made during the day, and he then decided it should have a night effect, so he then recovered a shot of fireworks, and I went with him to a workshop called Videogamma because they served to enter an artificial fireworks effect during filming the race. To do this it was necessary to pass from the negative effects, then you did the interpositive and returned to negative. The interpositive was nothing but a positive fine-grained, soft, light color, more malleable then. He passed the material on this Truka machine himself. And so the colors of the different fires he could reconstruct himself directly.

And this he did?

Mauro Bonanni: I told you he was a genius! He knew how to do everything. And there was one worker present, named Giulio Cecchini and from that day on I did not speak anything or tell anyone, but he told frequently how Orson Welles made a scene from only the optical effects. Every time he remembered this thing, just seeing Welles at work, he really understood how he did the special effects and he said it with pride. This is because Welles had a total knowledge of every aspect of production.

But you spoke with Welles often? Of how he planned to finish the Don Quixote for example, or other things.

Mauro Bonanni: He spoke little, in order to work hard. If he spoke, it was those times that we went to lunch. On those occasions we talked about everything. He talked of how he did not sleep for example, and through the night would read and write. He also said he hated the Americans, because he said that they were children. There was talk of cinema. The only thing we went to see for four consecutive nights was De Filippo, who he adored as an actor. One evening we went instead to hear Amalia Rodrigues, the Portuguese singer. Then, at the table, sometimes he did some magic tricks.

And he always spoke in Italian?

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, except when he was angry, then he spoke in English. Oja often scolded him because he spoke in English. He said: I'm in Italy, speaking Italian. Sometimes, however, it happened that morning came and he spoke English, and then said: excuse Mauro, today I forgot the Italian under the sheets. And after a while he was beginning to speak in Italian. Then, for example, he was terrified of getting a cold and immediately sent someone home if he could see that they had a sneeze or a cough.

But at that time he had already started to work on The Other Side of the Wind?

Mauro Bonanni: No, that started later. Then, much later, shortly before he died, he called me again, because he wanted to make a film in Italy, The Cradle Will Rock , which was eventually not done. He called me about getting a price quote, and was happy because in Italy all costs less. And on that occasion, a short time later, I also met with Prince Tosca, just to talk about this new film that Welles wanted to do.

It is very interesting that there is - visually, stylistically and thematically - an almost unfathomable distance between The Other Side of the Wind and the Don Quixote.

Mauro Bonanni: Yes, I think about the simplicity. He told me that the clouds were the set of Don Quixote. Still, the same thing about different styles that you're saying is something I would see before me in the months in which I put Don Quixote together with him. In fact, for example, we worked simultaneously on “Carnaby Street”, which was a short little story on the Swinging London and had a modern and very fast editing style, and “The Merchant of Venice”, which was much more solemn and slow. In this he was always like a boy, always in search of new things. It is not surprising that at the same time he could also pull out of the hat a movie like Wind, which was more similar to Easy Rider.

So what about the negative of Don Quixote that you have kept for years. Was it in a warehouse?

Mauro Bonanni: No, there were five bins of negative, which were taken to Vittori, a laboratory of development and printing, where we also had the negative of the CBS special. So the negative of Don Quixote was held by Vittori. Then, when Welles started cutting a single scene from the Quixote negative, then he had to pay the deposit. There was this unwritten law respected by all, to the effect that if a film, three months after the deposit, had any of the negative cut, then the unmounted part of the negative was considered garbage and was sent through the shredder. Because of this clause, therefore, Vittori wanted to send everything through the shredder and just keep that sequence. They kept a bit and then were really willing to throw everything away.

And this happened even if you had cut only one sequence of the negative. The rest was considered trash. And, in the case of Don Quixote, we had just cut a scene five minutes because we did make some speedups, which were fine in positive and then we cut also on the negative. Therefore Vittori wrote that the owner of the material was unavailable and has defaulted on payment. The only contact I had, I tried to call Welles, but I could not find him. At the end so I gave eight hundred thousand pounds to Vittori to fit them good. I took the negative and took in a warehouse. There I also paid storage. More or less it was the mid-seventies when this thing happened.

And now where is this material?

Mauro Bonanni: Now it is in the laboratory studies of Cinecittà. But what happens now? Every year, I was doing this thing, that in slang is said to walk the negative. That is to say that it pulls free of the boxes, it will rewind in slow motion and then placing it back in, so that it takes the air to protect it from wear and, above all, by the possibility that the film will stick.

And can you do it again?

Mauro Bonanni: No, I did not do it again because there is the pending litigation with Oja Kodar. I also did tell the court through my office, that I'm willing to do this conservation work on the material again. Well, they never answered.

I decided to put it under sequestration spontaneously, because I thought, if anything happens to me, then no one knows where this “Don Quixote” material is? So they well know, but apparently they have abandoned the film to its fate.

But it is impounded since the cause began with Oja Kodar?

Mauro Bonanni: Let's say the whole case started when she came to me on the production of El Silencio in the early nineties, saying she wanted this back badly. The first answer I gave to her was: I will not give the negative at face value, especially if you do not pay me everything there is to pay. And then this guy came up with the story of 16mm, he wanted the material in 16. And I told him that I was only 35mm. They did not want to believe that, so at that point I turned immediately to a lawyer. We met with their counsel, and I brought a piece of 35mm film negative. The envoy of El Silencio was appalled, saying that they had only material in 16mm. Then he asked me how I wanted to pursue the matter. And I told him, feeling a moral heir of Don Quixote, I wanted to participate in the assembly. I was told, however, that the work would be done completely by Jess Franco.

At that point, I concluded: okay, I’ll be an assistant to Franco. But El Silencio was not convinced because they said Oja had signed a contract stipulating that Franco would be the only one to see the printed copy. I was left speechless: how can Oja, who has lived for years with Welles, and knew how much he cared to Don Quixote, sign something that completely delegated the job to someone else? Evidently she had been offered a lot of money. Then he asked me what was needed and I told him that, first of all, it was necessary that the negative was put to soak in the liquid of the development so that it could recover the right drilling. They had to do a work of revitalization of material and in this regard I added that, as far as I knew, there was a lab in Germany that had specialized in this type of transaction and were therefore the best.

For the speech for the sound instead I advised him to go to a lab in France. This person seemed to welcome all my proposals. So I went to Seville to meet Jess Franco, about whom I had read somewhere that he had been called one of the ten worst directors in the world, but I did not think it was the same person. I thought it was a homonym. When I went there, he introduced me to the curriculum of the things he had done and I remained speechless: it was much worse than the hackwork I myself had originally done. In fact, after Orson Welles, I had given up my “authorial” ambitions and found myself accepting that type of work that, at the beginning of my career, I tended to decline. In short, seeing that Jess Franco made things much worse than I was doing, I was worried. However, I pointed out a few things at once: first, that there was need of the workprint. Second, that there was need of the black book, the script. He told me that those things were not there. I told him that because, the assembly of Don Quixote had been very long and difficult, something could happen - and it happened - which would break the frame. So the negative that I had was indispensable - and still is - to remedy these failings of the copy-work.

And what did Jess Franco say about this?

Mauro Bonanni: He told me he did not need it, the only thing that was needed was the novel by Cervantes. But it was nonsense, because Welles would not have worked twenty years on Don Quixote if he wanted to do just a simple adaptation of the novel. However, I returned to Rome far from convinced. We made a deal, which gave me a bit of money and the rights to the Italian market. And, from the economic point of view, it was fine. It was everything else that did not convince me.
Then I said, ok, I am sending you the positive striped and assembled, so he could not take possession of the negative material. It was the same thing you do today when they send the DVD with the writing above to prevent those copies being sold illegally. So I told him: assemble the material, both yours and mine, then we cut the negative in Italy and then you return to Spain with it. And in this way would be made the copy. At the end of all this talk Jess Franco comes out saying you do not trust me? And I answer: not much. In fact, this has happened much. So, after I made a public screening at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome of their version, a screening organized by Ciro Giorgini, everyone who saw that projection was appalled by the quality of their material. Then El Silencio offered me 800 million lire if I would give them everything. I said no.

Ah, and then were different court cases?

Mauro Bonanni: No, it was and is a single case, because Oja had sold the rights to El Silencio. Now the third court call I'll probably lose, because I've already lost the first two.

Why are you sure that you'll lose?

Mauro Bonanni: Because the judge does not understand. He does not understand what my contribution was.

At the time there was this public screening, organized by Ciro Giorgini in 1992, at which you said, I hope that there is a convergence of intent to save Don Quixote. Since then there have been more than twenty years and nothing has changed.

Mauro Bonanni: Yeah. In fact, it was what I said back then: that to have Jess Franco work on Don Quixote did not serve it well, the film needed a more cultured coverage. It would serve the film well to have the intervention of all international Welles film scholars, led by Jonathan Rosenbaum, who among Americans has been the only one who has written well of me; and Costa-Gavras, who supervised the edition Don Quixote presented at Cannes in 1986 and to whom I had spoken at that time, plus Italians like Ciro Giorgini and Enrico Ghezzi. What I'd say is we agree with the work of these people, we’ve checked them out, we reason with them, listen to their advice. There should be 4 to 5 recognized scholars who oversee everything, as if they were the director. But this they have not wanted to do.

Even after you made this public request?

Mauro Bonanni: Nothing happened. Excluding Ciro Giorgini. I tried to get anybody. Once, in one of those meetings, in which there were also Rosenbaum and Bertolucci, I intervened, saying it is useless to do round tables, talks, etc., We talk about Welles, while I'm the only one who says, do something about it, let us all do a joint project to safeguard the Don Quixote, save this material, we should set aside all the hatred, they should all work close with me to renovate the movie trying to get as close as possible to the intentions of Welles. Exactly as he wanted it would be impossible, but we should at least try to preserve the memory by trying to get closer to his will. Nothing, no one has ever done anything. This project has never been done.

Why did even Rosenbaum, who also would have the power and the specific prestige to do it now, do nothing?

Mauro Bonanni: Why? I do not know. Perhaps because everyone likes to talk, but then no one actually gets things done. Before El Silencio, among other things, there were other occasions to try to save the material. One was from those who had restored the Napoleon of Abel Gance, but they could not agree with Oja Kodar. After this, I think what else happened: I was doing a film project with Mario Cecchi Gori and Pasquale Squitieri, editing a film directed by her. Squitieri at one point said to Cecchi Gori, you know that Mauro has worked with Orson Welles? And Cecchi Gori Gåsö, because he said that Welles was his favorite director, asked me to tell the whole story of Don Quixote. He was interested and said we should organize something, and I will participate! But even then I could not agree with Oja.

What will happen in the end then, in your opinion?

Mauro Bonanni: I will lose the case, they will take the negative and all this is over. And I do not know who will take this negative, because there is a further problem, namely that the Spanish El Silencio say that the material is theirs, even though apparently Oja has ceded its rights in perpetuity, as she says it is no longer true that they own it. I do not know how that will end.

And the copy that is at the Cinémathèque and that will be screened on June 29, on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Welles ?

Mauro Bonanni: Well, if you already can retrieve and show it, then that copy was well under way. What it is is the last mounted attempt on which Welles himself worked. I repeat, I give up every claim on the material, but let me be there when you work at the assembly. Let me stand there before it, so that at least it may be that at that moment I will remember something. But, no, this thing has not been able to be solved.

But when you come to me to talk about Don Quixote, why do all this sad face and then still nothing is ever done? Think of it the way I myself think about it. I Forget all the physical and economic damages, and the way I have been treated over the years. It is the relationship with Welles that I have tried to keep alive. If you knew how many times I have thought: Mauro, why did you save this film, and not just let it all go to waste? This is something that in the end is just about me and my memory; I did it in memory of Welles, and the memory of what I went through for this film. No matter what it means to anyone else, it is not because of what is written somewhere that I have mounted the Don Quixote of Welles, I do not give a damn about that.

Finally on Don Quixote, I ask a thing of Ciro Giorgini, because now that he's gone, it further diminishes the remaining hopes that we can resolve this situation.

Mauro Bonanni: Now that Ciro is gone, on matters of Orson Welles it is as if I was now missing a leg. From now on I will have to walk on a crutch. On Welles I can say he was a solid disc that never breaks. And I'll tell you why: I was greatly fascinated by Welles, but in just knowing Ciro, I learned to love him. Often we spent whole days talking about him. And Ciro lit up on a lot of things, and sometimes knew more than me, so I was always discovering new aspects of Welles, as if my story was sometimes superficial, as if I had not understood myself, and Ciro he did understand, because he dug deeper and deeper.

Then he had an incredible eye fitter, almost faster than mine in storing images. As he saw something, he'd immediately stored it. And the one thing on which he always insisted was to know everything about the human side of Welles, the way he worked. And those who worked with Welles remained marked. Like the cinematographer of Othello , Oberdan Trojani, who after Welles, almost did not want to work anymore. This is because the memory of Welles remained so strong with you, the memory of all the things he was able to teach. And I myself for a year and a half I had not done anything more in film, but then I had to start over again, because otherwise I would have starved.

But how many times, when I was with the directors that I've worked for after, I thought, “but how can anyone say that this guy does the same job as Welles?” I should have quit these trashy projects because he would have too. And the fact that I had worked with Welles was something I had not told anyone until I met Cyrus. I did not say anything to anyone, I thought it was something that had to stay with me. And Ciro said, tell me everything, do not forget anything. This boundless passion of his convinced me that it was necessary to talk about it. Then sometimes he would scold me because I said good-naturedly: but how is it that every time you remember it done differently? How come every time you remember one more thing?

When did you meet Cyrus for the first time?

Mario Bonanni: I was working on a TV series dedicated to the great pairs of cinema, stars in love. A strange series, which had a first and a third part with archive material, while the central part had the reconstructions of fiction. In short, there was one on Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth - I think it was in the early nineties - and one of the researchers of the program, there was one who was a friend of Cyrus. They needed photos of Welles and so they often called him. So on the day in question, I called the producer and looked at the photos that Cyrus had brought. There was one in particular, that I took a look at and said, this is not the time period that we need, this is earlier. Ciro remained silent for a moment, looked at the picture, then looked at me and said, "How do you know?" And then I told him that I had worked with Welles. He then said to me, "When can I disturb you about this?" Whenever you want, I answered. From there was born our friendship. The next day we met, we had lunch and we ended up talking until seven at night. And then he followed me step by step in the history of the Spanish filming, and he organized the meeting at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni.

For me the material of Don Quixote was not mine, it was mine and his. Ciro was obedient as a dog. The last time we met was by chance. He was on a Vespa, and we were talking for hours. How I loved him? No, I love him still. For me it is not over, I know how much he suffered. All the words that you can put together do not make Ciro. Cyrus was all. His life was devoted entirely to film. Well, I do the editing, but it is a job and I do it in the form of which you want it to surface. He instead, went to dig in the ground, and he never stopped for nothing. Most editors live on one side and think of their work as something we need to just do and then take the money. He did not. He supported himself with that; the work was his lifeblood, its proteins. Always he encouraged me. All the steps I have done I have done with him. Now what? I will miss the comparison, I will miss the other leg.

[major pepper]

I look forward to watching it! If I can help, i would be glad to share information with you.

[tadao]

I'm excited too to hear reports of tonight's showing (alas, didn't get myself organised to make the hop over to Paris for it). Please do go ahead and let us know the full details after you've seen it, JD and the Major!

During the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend a week ago in London, I purchased a copy of this book (http://www.amazon.fr/Restaurations-tirages-Cin%C3%A9math%C3%A8que-fran%C3%A7aise-persistance/dp/2900596173/) at the Cinema Museum's used bookstore, attracted by the cover given over to Francisco Reiguera, and at a bargain price due to its foreign language status! The Quixote section is only 3 pages of (French) text and a full page image, making the use of Quixote on the cover seem less than justified (when there are other films covered in greater depth); the text at a brief glance seems mostly to be devoted to a history of the film and background rather than describing the CF's holdings, but it might furnish some interesting information if read more carefully! I'll see whether there's anything worth transcribing when I have time to read through it more thoroughly...

[jdrouette]

Thoughts on Orson Welles’s DON QUIXOTE work print - Screened at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris June 29th, 2015

The fact that I flew to Paris for a week almost exclusively to screen this print says something about my long standing fascination with Welles’s work, completed or not. The existence of this print intrigued me because its stated running time (80 minutes) did not seem to correspond to the 45-minute print Costa-Garvas had shown at Cannes in 1986, nor to Jess Franco’s 116-minute cut.

According to the presenter from the Cinémathèque, this print was donated by Oja Kodar herself. Presumably, this is the print containing the latest and final editorial revisions made by Welles in Los Angeles before he moved on to other projects. Therefore, it does not contain any Patty MacCormack footage (alas, the movie theatre scene is absent), nor does it contain some of the competed scenes from the Franco cut, such as the one of Quixote attacking Paola Mori on her motorscooter. I haven’t watched the Franco cut in a number of years, so I can’t speak with authority on how many scenes this version has in common with Franco’s until I see that one again in the next few weeks. I might find that task less challenging now that I have something to compare it to.

General notes:

- The film is about 80% silent. The brief dialog scenes with sound are post-dubbed by Welles playing both Sancho and Quixote, some more well-synched than others. It’s clearly only a scratch track.

- The silent dialog scenes make it nearly impossible to situate them in context of the narrative unless other visual cues appear. More action-based or comical scenes are easier to understand, and quite a few visual gags got good laughs from the audience. Akim Tamiroff’s performance is particularly physical and endearing.

- The print is composed of roughly edited scenes (with inevitable splice marks, scratches and leader) and what appear to be assembled, unedited dailies (very clean), with multiple takes, or what amounts to b-roll. Some shots, particularly some of the city scenes, look incredible in 35mm, with fine detail and good contrast. Others, look more like the overly lit desert shots prominent in the Franco version, with blown out whites and little shadow detail. Overall, for a work print, I thought it looked very presentable.

- The scenes aren’t assembled in any particular order. The reels were probably not clearly marked, since Welles didn’t intend to show the print to anyone not working with him, so the editors who put them together probably just took a best guess.

- Considering the number of years Welles worked on this film, I was somewhat surprised by how rough the edit was. None of the scenes looked even remotely polished and the inclusion of raw dailies gave me the impression that the post work had only begun. Of course, since Welles was prone to re-think, re-work and re-edit, this copy could have been in the midst of an re-do when he left it.

Some highlights:

The work print begins abruptly with a beautiful wide shot of Sancho Panza carrying Quixote on his back through a city street. Eventually, Quixote is sitting backwards on Rocinante with Sancho on his donkey following him beyond the city wall. This exact scene is repeated a few minutes later on but in fast-motion. Was Welles comparing two different editing styles?

The first scene with sound occurs when Quixote is stuck in a wooden cage with Sancho speaking to him through the bars. This looks the most polished, with a tighter cutting pattern and the dynamic low-angle shots that were Welles’s trademark.

Later, Sancho has made friends with a group of young boys, and he performs a clumsy, Latin
dance for them before Quixote calls on him to follow him. Even as he reluctantly disappears around a corner, he sticks his head out for them again and gets a big laugh.

As they ride by a modern building with rows of identical windows, Quixote and Sancho are interviewed by a television announcer (again, voiced by Welles), who asks Quixote what’s it was like travelling to the moon. Sancho’s dialog is absent, as are the reverse shots of the TV crew. Later, Sancho enters what looks like an antique store and stares dumbfounded at a TV set. We never see the reverse angle of the TV.

In a scene also in the Franco cut, Quixote takes a bath on a rooftop, in front of a large sign for “Don Quijote” liquor.

Another comical scene set in a junkyard has Sancho bandaging Quixote’s head to relieve a toothache, the latter having to lift his goatee to make room for the bandage. They later attack an abandoned railway car, find nothing inside, and in a shot reminiscent of Buster Keaton, Quixote falls out of the car (and out of frame) before Sancho realizes he has gone.

My favourite sequence has both characters entering a city triumphantly as heroes, or so Quixote thinks. A cultural celebration is going on and the crowd cheers as Quixote and Sancho ride in. They pass paintings and posters of Don Quixote on the sides of buildings, oblivious to the “real” heroes the city is celebrating. Eventually, a confused Sancho is swarmed by a group of children who chase him down the street.

The fast motion effects created by cutting frames out of the shots are used three or four times, usually at the end of “scenes”, for comic effect. They never struck me as either effective or necessary. A few other shots freeze frame, but without dialog or sound, I couldn’t deduct an intention.


The screening was sold out, so clearly, interest in Welles’s unfinished work is considerable, at least in Paris. For anyone planning to see some of the other screenings later in July (including the work print of THE DEEP), the Munich Film Museum has reportedly sent three more rarities (which the Cinémathèque was not legally allowed to name tonight). Hopefully, someone can let us know what they were.

Finally, if you get a chance to see François Reichenbach’s documentary “Portrait: Orson Welles” (which I highly recommend), it includes a few rare shots of Welles shooting a scene from DON QUIXOTE in COLOR! I almost fell out of my chair when I saw it. Until tonight’s screening, I wasn’t 100% certain is was from DQ, but that scene is in tonight’s work print.

If anyone has any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them.

Thanks for reading.

Jean-Denis

[Le Chiffre]

Thanks much for the feedback, jdrouette. That's disappointing to hear there was no Patty McCormick footage, but it sounds like there was some very good and fascinating stuff in it anyway. Of course, to me Jess Franco's version has it's moments too. Audrey Stanton's 1998 Sight and Sound article talks about the Patty McCormack version having been COMPLETED by Welles, but that was reportedly dismantled or destroyed, or is at least not available to be seen. I had this goofy dream that someone might have it in a private collection somewhere, and was going to let it out for the centennial. I guess the version you saw last night will have to do instead. I'm glad we at have that at least, and I look forward to seeing it sometime.

Such a shame that Welles never saw fit to share any of this project with the public, although he reportedly hated the Reichenbach documentary so much that he did consider showing parts of DQ at the AFI's 1978 "Working With Welles" seminar, in exchange for having the Riechenbach stricken from the schedule. I like the Reichenbach myself, but given the choice, I would have preferred seeing Quixote scenes with Welles. I don't believe that happened, though.

[Roger Ryan]

The description of the QUIJOTE workprint screened on Monday makes it sound like the same footage which was screened in Locarno in 2005. While I don't recall seeing the battle with the abandoned railway car, I know the rest of it was part of that presentation. There was also a memorable "fight" with a herd of sheep who end up jumping over a prone Quijote in the end. However, I feel quite certain that footage of McCormack traveling in a horse-drawn carriage with Welles was part of the footage (with only McCormack's lines being dubbed). The cinema scene was screened during the same presentation as well, but that was clearly from another source. The Mori motor-scooter scene (taken from the Franco assembly) was projected from DVD at the beginning of the presentation in the interest of showing as much QUIJOTE footage as possible.

[major pepper]

The footage with the sheep, Sancho Panca running behind a big and rich car, the abandoned railway car, the telescope were part of the workprint, as well as very few shots from the dvd if my memory is good. But I must confess that I didn't watch it for two years. So I may be wrong.
I was a little disappointed because there was no footage with the little girl or the cinema. There was no ending at all. So the film finish abruptly after a scene that announce no end.

[Jedediah Leland]

Fantastic post, jdrouette - I'll try to respond properly to it in a bit.

Given the invaluable posting of the Mauro Bonanni interview above, I thought it might be helpful to post an approximate translation of the February 2014 interview with the late Ciro Giorgini, as it has much to say on the recent twists and turns with Quixote. The original, in Italian, can be found at http://quinlan.it/2014/01/02/intervista ... rte-terza/


=====


Among all the outstanding issues around the unfinished films of Welles, Don Quixote is perhaps the most controversial. So let's go back to the time of Welles's hasty flight from Italy [in March 1970], following the article in the Italian tabloid Today, which broke the story of his relationship with Oja Kodar: at the time, Welles was working on the editing of Don Quixote, a work that he often called "my own film ", certainly his most personal and independent wotk, and a largely self-sufficient one. As he left, did he take his copy of the film with him?

When he moved to the United States he left everything behind in Italy, in fact, the only thing that he asked for back was the workprint of Don Quixote. His film editor Mauro Bonanni, and his production secretary Rosalba Tonti [sister of Giorgio, who had acted as cinematographer for Don Quixote, and whose son is Aldo Tonti] subsequently brought a copy of Don Quixote to Paris to hand over to his daughter Beatrice Welles. They had never met in person, so Bonanni proposed that they do they identify each other this way: he had half a torn letter written by Welles, and was reunited with the other half that Beatrice was given, and at that point he could deliver to her the rolls of film.

Why is Bonanni is still in possession of all this material related to Don Quixote?

Because Welles didn't request the negative back, only the workprint. He had several copies of things, including his other unfinished films, even in the case of Too Much Johnson, probably; as we saw, the copy we found was itself a workprint - the one we saw in Pordenone - while the first copy that burned was in his villa in Madrid.

Is it possible that Welles was in such a hurry to leave only over a sort of rejection against Italy and what happened? Just over a journalistic scoop?

This episode, in all probability, solidified something that was already in the air in Welles's intentions. Yes, he was still married to his wife, Paola Mori, and decided to move to California with Oja Kodar, dropping all the work that had been done in Europe. With Oja, he had begun a new artistic life: Filming Othello, F for Fake, his unfinished projects, like The Other Side of the Wind and The Dreamers - but not these re-edits of Don Quixote. Maybe it was also a bit an excuse to make a clean break and start again.

Instead, what happened so that Bonanni found himself ending up with all that negative of Don Quixote? Did Welles leave that to him?

No, it was left in a laboratory for developing and printing. When Welles left Italy, the material for Don Quixote - we're talking about 25 thousand meters of negative [15 hours of footage] - Welles had basically left his destiny there. The owners of the warehouse at one point contacted Mauro Bonanni, because they knew that he had worked with Welles, and said to him, "Find Welles, and tell him to come and take all of this material, because we have to clear out." And Mauro says that he tried to contact Welles, but never got through to him: in America, people around him were tremendously protective of Welles, and were not answering Mauro's calls. Meanwhile Mauro was being harassed by the demands of those who physically possessed the negative. Eventually, he signed a cheque to pay the bill's deposit and, having gone into the lab's storage unit, took away - I do not know where - the material. I do not know if he brought it home, I have no idea. Since that time, however, he claimed to have slowly become the caretaker, by right of adverse possession.

In what year did Bonanni take the negative of Don Quixote?

I do not know exactly. I think it was in the early seventies. In any case, we are talking about a cultural project which only remained open because of Bonanni's actions, and in this sense, it is important to us all and to the most important people to us to get to define its destiny, and to find a way to get some life into this material and get it out there, especially since the death of Welles, in October 1985. But for that to happen in any form, it will have to have the consent of Oja. I love both her and Mauro very much, and I put them before one another more than once, I even went to dinner together with them both to try to resolve this dispute ...

When did you organize the last of these meetings?

The last time was in 2008, more or less. But through it all, despite the good, good intentions on the part of all, the situation has never been unlocked. Following that meeting, even the Venice Biennale [art exhibition], through Marco Müller, then Director of the Festival, tried to settle the dispute with the aim of showing a restoration of Don Quixote jointly prepared by entrusted Wellesians, the best in the field. But even then, no agreement was reached.

And in the meantime, Oja Kodar had already in 1992 authorized Jess Franco to make that terrible commercial, re-edited release, arbitrarily titled Don Quijote de Orson Welles.

Exactly. I know and recognise the Don Quixote material, and I can tell you that the Don Quixote prepared by Jess Franco is entirely made of waste materials, and of bits of In the Land of Don Quixote [a documentary on Spain made by Welles for RAI and aired in '64]. There are only a few meters of film of the real Don Quixote in the Franco release, that production company El Silencio had Suzanne Cloutier [the actress who played Desdemona in Othello, a lifelong friend of Welles] hand over to them by means that were not particularly nice. Franco told Cloutier that she had a mandate from Mauro Bonanni to deliver the material, which is absolutely not true, and she only handed it to Franco after he put fear into her after arriving at her house with some heavy guys. He also told her Oja Kodar had blessed the project. Mauro had these 25 thousand meters of negative material, plus some things that were printed in positive, including the famous sequence of the movie [in which Don Quixote rips a cinema screen with his sword], and some waste. In the 1990s, I went around film festivals to showing these scraps of waste, always making the same argument: "Just think, if they are waste, imagine what could be in the original." They were filled with scraps of splendor, of visual power, of 35mm incandescent power, showing the sheer power of black and white, and they are perfectly crisp. In 1992, when Jess Franco's version of Don Quixote showed in Seville, Mauro rightly cried foul. Previously, in fact, Franco along with the production company El Silencio had requested the material held by Mauro. They demanded that he hand over everything to them in Spain, but he said: "No, we should do the work on the film here in Italy." They even wanted to cut the original negative, and Mauro rightly said no, for it would have been sheer madness. In short, no agreement could be reached between Mauro and El Silencio, and the Spanish side started making false claims, saying in a press release that the material Bonanni had was neither important nor of good quality, except for that one scene set in the cinema. Bonanni, again in '92, after the screening of Franco's cut in Seville, organized a press conference to protest these claims, and showed an hour of powerful rushes from Don Quixote, in excellent quality. Unfortunately, that initiative did not have the right resonance. There were few people at the press confeence, and above all, none of the big American scholars was there. So it ended up being forgotten, and today, the true quality of Don Quixote is completely unknown in the English-speaking world.

How did the Franco version come about?

It was on the occasion of Expo '92, which was held in Seville. The European Union gave a lot of money to Spain for this, because it has many great cultural operations of international importance. And as part of Expo '92, they said, "Let's restore Don Quixote." Then there was the role of Oja Kodar in the whole operation. [She had the rights to the film, which she sold to El Silencio.] She gave her consent - without that, no one could have done anything. The combined budget for this version of the film was one million dollars. Then when Oja saw the uproar against that version of Don Quixote, she pulled back, and said that it was rubbish. And then she declared that she had never set foot in El Silencio during the editing of the film.

Were you present at the screening in Seville?

Fortunately not. But I almost went, because I already knew Oja, and I insisted that we go together to Seville. Everything was ready, tickets, etc. And then I, who am a bit 'stay-at-home', decided not to go the last moment, and told her that I didn't feel like it. Anyway, thank goodness I did not go; and when I didn't go, neither did she.

So Franco was not able to consult the workprint that Welles's daughter [Beatrice] had picked up from Bonanni in Paris?

No, not even that. It is truly amazing that Jess Franco was able to come up with a version of Don Quixote, not only giving up on including the material held by Bonanni, which was in dispute - Mauro's material is very complex, because it is assembled, it still needs to be edited from the assembly, it's really beautiful but complex material - but also giving up on using the workprint on which Welles had continued to work. Franco did not have the spark of being able to think, "Okay, I'll put that in the meantime". There is material which is, more or less, all in a row, full of mounted parts. There are even two or three sections with the sound and then the voice of Welles. In a work on Don Quixote, that original workprint has a nice weight.

The voice of Welles, in the sense that when he had begun to dub it, he then voiced both Don Quixote and Sancho Panza?

Yes, yes, for instance, there is a sequence in which he voices Don Quixote in one voice, and then he responds with a hoarse voice for Akim Tamiroff, the actor playing Sancho Panza.

But this workprint handed over in Paris, who has it now?

That is at the Cinémathèque Française. It's there because it was given to the keepers of the Cinémathèque, and I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it was donated to them by Welles himself. That copy was projected in May 1986 in Cannes, in memory of Welles, who had died a few months before. Then Gary Graver [director of photography from Welles's later films, who died in 2006], who accompanied Oja Kodar, projected at that time also a tape, a video projection, which had three sequences from The Other Side of the Wind, a sequence from The Dreamers and two or three sequences from The Deep.

Is it the same material which Oja Kodar used in the 1995 documentary Orson Welles: The One-Man Band?

Only partially. The tape in question was put together by Welles to find financiers to finish these projects. It was a kind of trailer video.

Is Oja Kodar is still the owner of the workprint held the Cinémathèque?

It is a big problem, because certainly Oja Kodar is the testamentary heir of the unfinished works of Orson Welles, which obviously includes Don Quixote, but the fact remains that Mauro Bonanni delivered the workprint of the film into the hands of Welles's daughter Beatrice, who is another testamentary heir and custodian of Welles's - but the rights to the unfinished films made by Welles are with Kodar.

So with Kodar having left all the material she inherited from Welles to the Munich Film Museum, she could also leave this material?

In reality it is not so easy to move materials from one film library to another, but the problem will arise when someone - with the necessary authorizations - will put their hand seriously to Don Quixote.

And the Cinémathèque has not done anything with this material?

As I remember it, after the 1986 screening, no further public screenings were organised, not even in Locarno in 2005. I know that some scholars have been allowed to examine it in Paris. I think there have been moves made towards electronic consultations[???] with the ministry of culture.

It is a dead end, then. But then, how many copies were there of Don Quixote? There was the positive workprint, delivered to Welles's daughter...

Yes, that was a positive workprint.

…and then the negative that Bonanni has…

Yes, material of which Bonanni is currently the legal guardian, because in the meantime, a legal dispute has arisen between him and Oja. There is an ongoing process.

How long has the process been taking place, and where?

It's happening in Rome, and has lasted for seven or eight years. Mauro Bonanni has lost the first two appeals of the process, and in a few years, he will probably lose the third and final appeal. And then, what will happen? I am afraid that someone will, you know, believe themselves to be infused with unique knowledge of Welles, as they go about editing the material shot by Welles.

In the likely event that Oja Kodar will win the third appeal, do you think that the negative of Don Quixote will be entrusted to the Munich Film Museum?

It is very likely.

Do you think they would try to implement a restoration, such as those shown at Locarno in 2005?

Yes, I think so, yes.

Don't you think those were good restorations?

The problem is not judging whether they were good or not, the problem is the installation of the material, the museum is given a clear order and will follow it.

But according to what criteria?

I do not know, no one has explained!

The Deep as well...

The Deep was easier because there was a script. You do realize that, to take another example, they were presented with three-quarters of an hour of The Other Side of the Wind. There were certainly parts already edited by Welles, but there were also other parts on which we have arrived at an edit by induction, and they are now indistinguishable. The film is striking for its beauty, but it needs narrative solutions. I am convinced that in all the manuals of the cinema there is a big hole without a chapter on The Other Side Of The Wind. Think of a film that is largely an avant-garde film at the end of the seventies, which many authors use as a starting point for the history of modern film; and it also sums up Welles's life, with incredible results. They went back to work on it in California a few years ago, because there seemed to be an investor and the project was put into the hands of Bogdanovich, and it seemed that they got hold of 40 minutes of the film, with Bob Dylan singing the credits! But, then, after the re-installation of the film, for some reason, it has been suspended ... But with The Other Side of the Wind, we can only hope that someone will put it in good hands, and with Don Quixote instead we can - and we must - try.

Can't you try to organize something, because we are heading into the Welles centenary in 2015?

We're trying, especially for Don Quixote, but it is extremely complicated. You can't do anything yet. Because you need to put together people who haven't spoken for twenty years. Now we are in a decisive phase for Don Quixote. I think someone should appear before Oja with a legal proposal, a transaction stressing that the options are closing and which emphasizes that you have to work on a project with an exclusively cultural purpose, a project aimed at saving the material - because there is this problem. This negative, in large, very large part, has remained closed in boxes under the same conditions - we're talking about negative imprinted between 1960, 1962 and 1965, and taken to a print shop in those years and in the years before 1970. Then it was in this warehouse, except sometimes it was moved, to be brought into the editing room. Then, in that case, they were printed off the rollers. However, the material remained nearly all substantially in its original boxes since the day it was printed. We are talking about materials that are important, and are at an advanced age. It must be said though, to be fair, that this proposal of first and foremost saving the material, and then essentially reconstructing the film under the aegis of an international group of experts, was the idea of Mauro Bonanni, since the production company El Silencio refused to collaborate with him on the terms proposed by him.

What would you think would be the best place to save this material?

At this stage, that's not the most important thing to decide: we need to release the material as soon as possible and we need to do this before its probable final decay. If the material is still in good condition, you can think of a hypothetical reconstruction of Don Quixote that could be presented in the cultural sphere. This is the card that is played. It must be accredited by the big contenders, if possible, with a range of accessions, with people who support this project. With Enrico Ghezzi and with others, including Jonathan Rosenbaum, James Naremore, French scholars, all setting up an international operation for the salvation of Don Quixote, an operation that acknowledges that this is a film that cannot be reinterpreted, you cannot re-edit it because the clapper-boards on the original takes are marked with the names of segments planned by Welles, such as "Sheep", "Friends", "Food", and only he knew how it was all going to be assembled. Nevertheless, they could be put together, with great simplicity and with great humility, the parts that were assembled by Welles, together in those self-contained segments of film or other parts that are at the Cinémathèque, together or in an order - I can say - that follows that of the novel and of blacks in the middle when we have enough information, because no one has the right to interpret or presume to know the intentions of Orson Welles. So we could show all the material, all the takes, putting "Food" and "Food" footage together, so you show an hour of "Food", you show us this donkey, taken from a point of view, then another, then from another. Then it's up to the viewer to choose, what, how and when they prefer. It's something that goes beyond the concept of the film, it's like publishing an unfinished book, it's a thing whose final shape goes beyond the usual forms and content. This is very clear.

Like the Pietà Rondanini by Michelangelo, it should be so. No one has ever dreamed to finish that. Why should it be different for the cinema?

Exactly. Indeed.

Perhaps the film reflects the fact that film is the latest arrival in the arts. Because no one would dream of concealing La Gioconda or a Van Gogh painting. For cinema there is still more of this problem of subjection than the other arts?

Well, actually the German museums are arbitrarily preserving the "war" treasures that have recently been talked about. The film, then, as rightly said by Pasolini, has the fragility of a butterfly and then by its shape is extremely perishable. We can be sure that in a few years - not many unfortunately - that remaining Don Quixote material will not serve to make us even a plastic basin.

[Roger Ryan]

And the Cinémathèque has not done anything with this material?

As I remember it, after the 1986 screening, no further public screenings were organised, not even in Locarno in 2005.

I find this to be a very curious statement. Not only were substantial portions of the workprint shown in Locarno on August 7th, 2005 (courtesy of the Cinémathèque Française), but Mr. Giorgini was present at the screening and provided an introduction to it.

[Jeff Wilson]

I was doing research in the Richard Wilson papers at the U of Michigan today, and came across this Variety article about the Quixote screening in '86: