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

[RayKelly]

I loved this film. I wrote a piece on the footage's preservation for Films in Review when it was discovered. I saw it in the theater, bought it on VHS, laser disc and then DVD. I even have the half hour teaser short the AFI did after the footage was discovered. (It is a lot like the first half of the released movie). I spoke with someone at the UCLA archives shortly before the film came out. I was told the producers and Dick Wilson had a specific list of shots they wanted. Of course, UCLA wished they were taking ALL of the negatives for processing and restoration, but that was not what they had in mind.
As a side note, Paramount (which owned RKO's vaults when this was "found") did NOT donate the color footage to UCLA, just the B/W. The color footage was considered more valuable because it was color (I know, I know). As far as I know it is still at Parmount, though they were kind to allow its usage in the film.
Another tidbit (from the documentary script and not the finished film), when a Paramount exec called Welles shortly before his death and told him of the find, the first thing he said was DID YOU FIND MY AMBERSONS?

[Roger Ryan]

A lot of the "It's All True" footage has been donated to the University Of Michigan under the auspices of Catherine Benamou. I don't know if it includes the color footage. Ms. Benamou sent along nearly an hour of black-and-white rushes to Locarno in August for the Welles retrospective. Due to the repetitive nature of the footage, only about 15 to 20 minutes were actually screened: beautiful looking coverage of the "four men on a raft" arriving in Rio, shot on the day that Jacare died (obvious from the content and the date on the slate, although no footage of the accident itself exists).

[Terry]

Does the It's All True DVD have any extras?

Regarding Tomorrow Is Forever, Welles' performance is superb and always makes me weep. The story is a bit absurd, but the film is a strong addition to any Welles collection.

[Terry]

Roger - I thought they were still shooting in colour the day Jacare drowned and only had to switch to B&W after RKO recalled everybody and cut the funds.

[RayKelly]

Roger,
I am thrilled that it is in Michigan and in the right hands. The footage deserves to be preserved and studied.

Hadji,
There are no extras on the DVD, which is a real shame.

I know they shot some B/W before the accident. Some of the Carnival footage in the documentary is B/W. I don't recall where I read (long, long ago) that the bulk of the film was planned to be B/W and switch to color at the Carnival sequence.

[catbuglah]

Comparatively speaking, ??? I'd say that Eisenstein's project :angry: currently has the merit of having comprehensive portions of all segments represented (plus some generous extras on the latest DVD)

http://www.kino.com/video/item.php?film_id=244

http://www.quevivamexico.com/coverage.html

http://www.cinescene.com/dash/eisenstein.htm

[catbuglah]

The actual contents of It's All True is actually quite similar to Que Viva Mexico

The marriage sequence (In Eisenstein) - marriage sequence in My friend Bonito

Funeral Sequence - Funeral in Jangadeiros

Socio-political story showing plight of exploited people via love story - Jangadeiros

Feast of the dead traditional carnaval festivity - Samba traditional carnaval festivity :laugh:

Eisenstein even has a bullfight sequence - something which of course Orson has done elsewhere :;):

[wellesfan66]

I enjoyed the film. The Samba interview at the end is a real hoot!
Wellesfan66

[jaime marzol]

brown:
did you like A SAFE PLACE, and TOMORROW IS FOREVER? i didn't like either one. TOMORROW IS FOREVER i though was just a crappy movie, but A SAFE PLACE was horrible. impossible not to pass out while watching it, but i did like the french music.

i tend not to like welles much as an actor in another diretor's film, though i have loved him in every film he directed.

[catbuglah]

...continued from Don Quijote thread...

Catbuglah: The Eisenstein project certainly looks like the model for the kind of venture that Bonani, Ciro, and the other artisans need to complete Welles' DON QUIXOTE. [Is this version substantially different than the Criterion edition, which I bought but never got to see?] G.Anders

I dont think it's been released yet. I didn't know Criterion put one out - I have their Ivan the Terrible, but haven' watched it yet. All I have is a funky IFEX - Soviet Cinema Today video - The Kino version (see Oct. 3 post for links) looks good, although I don't think they've added to the 1979 edit, which is more the 'let's put together a good commercial story package' philosophy rather that the (preferable) 'let's put in the maximum amount of material from all available sources while trying to faithfully restore the artist's original intended vision' philosophy which the new Arkadin is getting good credit for doing and which these guys are aiming to do.

[Glenn Anders]

cagbuglah: It may be a Kino version I'm thinking off. I remember buying it a couple of years ago, but because my TV was broken, I took it down to a guy who is crazy about Eisenstein. I thought that I'd go down to watch it with him and his lady friend, but that never happened. Now, he says that he can't find it.

BTW, going back a way on this thread, it is my understanding that RKO and at least one other studio used Welles' IT'S ALL TRUE Carnival footage as local color in a number of other films.

Glenn

[catbuglah]

other studio used Welles' IT'S ALL TRUE Carnival footage as local color in a number of other films.

I'd be interesting to include those as extras in future editions.

Kino seems to be a pretty good outfit - I have their 'Die Nibelungen' by Fritz Lang, restored by the Munich Film Archive, very nice. I do find Eisenstein's work in that film to be quite striking, a nicely creative aesthetic look. Eisenstein was apparently quite inspired by his Mexico experience, an artistic and personal renaissance of sorts, and I do see kind of a unique warmth in this one.

[Tashman]

Do we know how much of MY FRIEND BONITO exists? The documentary for IT'S ALL TRUE implies that shooting was called off very early on. But the Rosenbaum chronology at Jan 1944 says that Welles was still trying to edit that film as late as 1946. That seems more hopeful, that he had something relatively substantial to work with. It's strange too that the cans for all the IT'S ALL TRUE footage were labelled "Bonito," though that may have just been accidental.

MR. ARKADIN has everyone thinking of all the other things that could be attended to, and this is surely one of them. I think one way of packaging BONITO, since rights issues make an "expanded" IT'S ALL TRUE next to impossible, would be for Criterion to put out JOURNEY INTO FEAR. We lately have learned of its European incarnation, for one thing, making it a slightly more attractive release on its own. But if a whole package were built around Welles' RKO implosion, the Norman Foster films would complement each other. Extras could include the Welles episode of The RKO Story, and the Sketchbook telling of the Bonito story. The only downside is that the Carnival footage would probably be hung out to dry this way. But if the villanous Arkadin gets three discs and a book...

Is JOURNEY in the public domain?

[Jeff Wilson]

JOURNEY is a Warner title, and they have said they'll release it when they release AMBERSONS. Which could be never, the way they're going. But it won't be on Criterion, alas.

[Tashman]

Thanks Jeff. I guess, anyway, before any hopeful thinking is warranted, someone has to mount an independent reconstruction effort for BONITO along the lines of FOUR MEN ON A RAFT or the Comprehensive ARKADIN. Of course, there's no reason it couldn't also be Warner to instigate this effort...

And again, how much is there?