It's All True Documentary - opinions about this doc?

[etimh]

What are people's opinions about this 1993 documentary on the making of It's All True?

Searched this topic for the past year and nothing came up. But I don't really care what people discussed IN THE PAST.

Recent thoughts? New (or old) members interested in discussing this film?

Tim

[jaime marzol]

i think it's an essential part of the welles collection, and it's darn good. i've read some here no liking it much, but like anything else, you gotta look at it and make up your own mind.

the scraps the documentary shows of what welles did with color film is breathtaking.

to me, it's all true documentary belongs on the first shelf along with kane, ambersons, and journey into fear. it's a very important period, and it's a very good documentary. you might also put on this shelf the welles segment of the rko story, it covers the rko years.

one of the producers of it's all true, myron meisel, also did the SAP for the voyager othello, and i think it's the best commentary on any welles film. even better than ebert's on kane. though ebert's commentary is excellent.

[Roger Ryan]

I agree. The first hour is a very succinct analysis of what went wrong in South America; the "Four Men On A Raft" reconstruction is a stunning piece of movie-making, proving that Orson was not wasting his time on this project (artistically at least). It would have been wonderful to have the Welles narration that was clearly intended, but even without it, the images are often breathtaking. I consider the sequence where the little girl finds the body of the fisherman and the subsequent funeral to be one of the highlights of Welles' career as a director.

[akio]

I remember seeing it when it first came out at the AFI theater in the Kennedy Center. Great stuff. The fact that the footage survived, some of it not even developed, for decades without someone trashing it is amazing.

Of course, during Q&A after the film, some morbidly obese "cinephile" complained that the film was a "travesty," and not what Welles intended. He was particularly irritated by the use of sound effects for the recovered footage. For some reason he felt that it shouldn't be released at all. But he was pretty much drowned out by everyone else's enthusiasm.

[tony williams]

It is an important work in many respects. Despite the fact that it was never finished by Welles, the reconstructed footaga and documentary information reveals that Welles was already engaged in the type of guerilla filmmaking activity that he would develop in the future. As other have noticed, several scenes are breathtaking. But more footage does remain and it will not survive the rigors of nitrate deterioration unless necessary funding arrives to save the rest.

[jaime marzol]

it's a shame that the documentary didn't come out with 3 more hours of footage, not edited, just seperated by slates. especially more from that sequence where grande otello is dancing with a crowd following him and streamers flying. i think that is on screen for about 13 seconds, and it's the most radical use of color i've ever seen.

amaizing those sods at rko didn't see what we are seeing today. you'd think they would have noticed this guy has a special vision, lets put up with his antics and see what else we can get out of him.

[etimh]

marzol; that's an excellent idea about presenting the footage unedited, as it exists. It would be a cool second disc on some expanded DVD presentation of the material. We can only dream.

Tim

[jaime marzol]

people that invest money into such things must get nervous when they put stuff out, insisting it must have a complete narrative, and if it doesn't have a complete narrative, lets make it one. who cares about complete narrative, it's wild footage. let us see it. after all, people who lay down the bucks for this offering are not your usual mall fare that must be guided by the hand through an entire picture. i'm fine with footage and slates. seeing the different takes of the same scene, no prob.

what welles fan would not relish at seeing 6 hrs of unedited footage from TOSOTW, intercut with interviews of the people in it, or of film professors doing analysis

[etimh]

yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes!

[jaime marzol]

i think it was schmidlin's idea to have the edited segments of TOSOTW intercut with interviews with the people that were in the scene or were in the crew, to bridge the missing chunks, which is a very cool way of presenting the film, it would work.

[atcolomb]

I was lucky too see this in a theater when it came out and
for a big fan of Welles it was excellent with some history
behind what happened in South America and the scenes
that were shot in Mexico. I recommend buying the dvd!!

[jaime marzol]

in miami, the alliance theater in south beach was the coolest theater in town. all the important films out, like IT'S ALL TRUE, showed there. then like all good things, the theater ended when the conglomerates moved in.

[Knowles Noel Shane]

Four Men on a Raft may be the most haunting and powerful work Welles ever filmed. I watched it recently and still love the posthumous version. It still makes me weep. The scene with the little girl running through the nets reminds me of Rita running from Broom in Lady from Shanghai and the funreal procession reminds me of Othello. All Welles needed was a silent Mitchell camera. "Say goodbye to Hollywood, say goodbye my baby."

[catbuglah]

Just watched the DVD - nothing actually to add to this string except to agree with the positive assessments - this is some major Welles - and for me one Welles' eeriest connections with Eisenstein (the similarities to Eisenstein's Mexican shorts are pretty striking) ??? great that this has been released but not enough - the Bonito and Samba sequences beg for release in a more complete form as well - especially with today's technological capacities - Welles and color - HOW does he get color to look so good?

[Sir Bygber Brown]

I've just spent my monthly Welles budget on A Safe Place, Tomorrow Is Forever (can't wait to see the young scenes - no bagging this out till i've seen it), Waterloo (cheap bin, $2.95) and Ten Days Wonder...

but having read this thread i've got to get the DVD of this, too.