Didn't Pacino produce that Merchant of Venice? I thought that was fantastic. And Deniro- should he apologize for doing comedy, and I think damn well. He's given plenty of masterful performances, more than most do in a lifetime. Who are we to complain? I say it again: What have we done? Can't we just celebrate and discuss without always attacking and tearing down?
I just don't get it.
New TOUCH OF EVIL DVD set?
No Tony, Pacino did not produce that Merchant of Venice; he produced Looking for Richard; an earnest, decent, if unremarkable meditation on Shakespeare in general and Richard III in particular, in 1996. And no one is knocking De Niro for doing a little self-mocking comedy, any more than anyone belittled John Gielgud for his marvelous turn in Arthur. Keats: TriBeCa Productions is a production facility, not a studio in the traditional sense. TriBeCa is the go-to place in New York City when someone wants to film there, and De Niro deserves all the plaudits in the world for helping make New York, after a long interregnum, a production-friendly city. The various film credits for TriBeCa Productions listed on IMDB are explained in the second link in my previous post; De Niro has insisted on a producer credit and a one million dollar fee for any film that he has appeared in since the early 90's.
Tony, believe me, I am pleased as punch that you have turned over a new leaf and are now sleeping with a copy of Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking under your pillow. I, however, have not got there yet. I am asking a simple question that I have asked in other contexts on this site, for which I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer. For ages artists have bemoaned that they are beholden to rich philistines to fund their art, or that their creativity is held back by the vulgar dictates of the market place. It's like a mantra running through the history of art: the poor, miserable, misunderstood artist, forced to grovel for crumbs from ignorant plutocrats, or to compromise before the bovine standards of the great unwashed masses, in order to express their great shining ahead-of-its-time vision to the world: the artist as eternal victim. That particular artistic paradigm has been entrenched our culture for a long long time. Orson Welles, our hero, besotted by the artistic possiblities of the most expensive paintbox in the world, accepted part of the paradigm, but refused to play the victim, instead choosing to turn the tools and assumptions of the oppressor to his own advantage. As an actor and a celebrity he would play by their rules, acting in whatever dreck came his way as long as it paid well. But he would put that blood money into his own most deeply cherished projects, doing it his way, expressing his own vivid, tyrannical artistic vision, the public and the money men be damned. THIS IS ORSON WELLES' GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT, beyond Citizen Kane, beyond any of the individual films - he showed how a man of talent can use the system against itself.
Yet who has followed him? Old Hollywood and the studio system is dead. Actors and directors control that town. They make ungodly amounts of money. The actors and directors are the plutocrats now; they are finally in a position that an Orson Welles would have given his eye teeth to be in. Nine million a film? Twenty million a film? Can you imagine what Welles would (not could) have given us with one twenty million dollar paycheck? My mouth waters at the thought of it. I ask again, who has followed? De Niro? Pacino? Nicholson? Coppola? Scorsese? Lucas? Spielberg? Which one of them (well, Coppola excepted) has taken a real risk with their own money to give us something that, as artists, they are passionate about? Millionaires, billionaires, and not a drop to drink. De Niro and Pacino have been coasting for the last ten years, when they should have been producing their best work, and while they have the financial cushion to do so. If Gielgud, Olivier, Richardson, et al could do tremendous, groundbreaking work into their dotage, why can't these guys, who have far fewer impediments? It is a legitimate question...
Tony, believe me, I am pleased as punch that you have turned over a new leaf and are now sleeping with a copy of Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking under your pillow. I, however, have not got there yet. I am asking a simple question that I have asked in other contexts on this site, for which I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer. For ages artists have bemoaned that they are beholden to rich philistines to fund their art, or that their creativity is held back by the vulgar dictates of the market place. It's like a mantra running through the history of art: the poor, miserable, misunderstood artist, forced to grovel for crumbs from ignorant plutocrats, or to compromise before the bovine standards of the great unwashed masses, in order to express their great shining ahead-of-its-time vision to the world: the artist as eternal victim. That particular artistic paradigm has been entrenched our culture for a long long time. Orson Welles, our hero, besotted by the artistic possiblities of the most expensive paintbox in the world, accepted part of the paradigm, but refused to play the victim, instead choosing to turn the tools and assumptions of the oppressor to his own advantage. As an actor and a celebrity he would play by their rules, acting in whatever dreck came his way as long as it paid well. But he would put that blood money into his own most deeply cherished projects, doing it his way, expressing his own vivid, tyrannical artistic vision, the public and the money men be damned. THIS IS ORSON WELLES' GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT, beyond Citizen Kane, beyond any of the individual films - he showed how a man of talent can use the system against itself.
Yet who has followed him? Old Hollywood and the studio system is dead. Actors and directors control that town. They make ungodly amounts of money. The actors and directors are the plutocrats now; they are finally in a position that an Orson Welles would have given his eye teeth to be in. Nine million a film? Twenty million a film? Can you imagine what Welles would (not could) have given us with one twenty million dollar paycheck? My mouth waters at the thought of it. I ask again, who has followed? De Niro? Pacino? Nicholson? Coppola? Scorsese? Lucas? Spielberg? Which one of them (well, Coppola excepted) has taken a real risk with their own money to give us something that, as artists, they are passionate about? Millionaires, billionaires, and not a drop to drink. De Niro and Pacino have been coasting for the last ten years, when they should have been producing their best work, and while they have the financial cushion to do so. If Gielgud, Olivier, Richardson, et al could do tremendous, groundbreaking work into their dotage, why can't these guys, who have far fewer impediments? It is a legitimate question...
Last edited by mido505 on Sun Sep 14, 2008 11:53 am, edited 2 times in total.
mido: you SHOULD read Norman Vincent Peale! There's lots of good and great movies made every year not just in America but around the world; perhaps you also need a healthy dose of Rosenbaum's writings on international cinema, and do a film festival once in a while.
You just need to get out more often!
You just need to get out more often!
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ToddBaesen
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I wasn't aware until Mido pointed it out, that DeNiro and Pacino were being trashed for doing such bad movies lately. It seems to be the nature of media coverage to delight in tearing somebody down who is no longer at the top of their game, whether he's the President, or an actor. It's just the nature of the media business. At the same time, you can't help but regret they made such a terrible turkey as RIGHTEOUS KILL. You can't exactly call it good movie making.
The big difference is that DeNiro and Pacino are still very bankable stars, who surely have a wider choice then Welles ever did in picking projects that can actually get made. If Pacino wants to do Shylock, for instance, he can get it made. If DeNiro wants to direct a CIA movie, he can get it made. Welles couldn't, unless he used his own money, which is why he did so many terrible movies and wine commercials.
Welles also had no agent, publicist, or studio behind him to counter the "Crazy Welles" stories, while actors like DeNiro and Pacino have handlers galore to counter whatever bad press may appear about them. For instance, the CAA e-mail trashing DeNiro sounds very "genuine" but how do we REALLY know if that's what he demands for every film he makes? Obviously, the source is a bit suspect.
It sounds very much like the tactics RKO used when they fired Welles after IT'S ALL TRUE and then they put out the "fake" story that he was throwing money away and went way over budget while partying in Rio, and sending back tons of unusable footage of "Afro-Brazlians" dancing around!
To this day most people believe RKO's side of the story, but how could Welles have gone over budget if he had only spent $600,000. and the original approved budget was $1.2 million?
It should also be noted that Robert DeNiro was apparently the one (and only) actor who agreed to star in THE BIG BRASS RING for a paycheck of $2 million (in 1982 dollars), but Welles didn't think he would be right in the role and wouldn't cast him (according to Henry Jaglom).
The big difference is that DeNiro and Pacino are still very bankable stars, who surely have a wider choice then Welles ever did in picking projects that can actually get made. If Pacino wants to do Shylock, for instance, he can get it made. If DeNiro wants to direct a CIA movie, he can get it made. Welles couldn't, unless he used his own money, which is why he did so many terrible movies and wine commercials.
Welles also had no agent, publicist, or studio behind him to counter the "Crazy Welles" stories, while actors like DeNiro and Pacino have handlers galore to counter whatever bad press may appear about them. For instance, the CAA e-mail trashing DeNiro sounds very "genuine" but how do we REALLY know if that's what he demands for every film he makes? Obviously, the source is a bit suspect.
It sounds very much like the tactics RKO used when they fired Welles after IT'S ALL TRUE and then they put out the "fake" story that he was throwing money away and went way over budget while partying in Rio, and sending back tons of unusable footage of "Afro-Brazlians" dancing around!
To this day most people believe RKO's side of the story, but how could Welles have gone over budget if he had only spent $600,000. and the original approved budget was $1.2 million?
It should also be noted that Robert DeNiro was apparently the one (and only) actor who agreed to star in THE BIG BRASS RING for a paycheck of $2 million (in 1982 dollars), but Welles didn't think he would be right in the role and wouldn't cast him (according to Henry Jaglom).
Todd
That's right Todd: Welles thought he was too "ethnic" for the part. (What a great decision that was.)
As for an agent, wasn't Welles signed to one of the top agencies for many years?
As for an agent, wasn't Welles signed to one of the top agencies for many years?
Last edited by Tony on Sat Oct 04, 2008 4:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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ToddBaesen
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Looking at Welles TOUCH OF EVIL memo, he spells Dietrich's character name as "Tania." Thus it appears Welles was probably not thinking about Isak Dinesin. However, all the Universal press material seems to have spelled her name as "Tanya."
The "Tana" spelling must have come from somebody at Universal who probably was thinking about reviving The Mummy series in a new film starring Charlton Heston, who would play an Archeologist in Egypt, as he did later in Bram Stoker's "Jewel of the 7 Stars."
The "Tana" spelling must have come from somebody at Universal who probably was thinking about reviving The Mummy series in a new film starring Charlton Heston, who would play an Archeologist in Egypt, as he did later in Bram Stoker's "Jewel of the 7 Stars."
Todd
Boston Globe review
http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2008/10/04/dvd_report/
LA Times piece
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-secondlook5-2008oct05,0,2592885.story
http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2008/10/04/dvd_report/
LA Times piece
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-secondlook5-2008oct05,0,2592885.story
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ToddBaesen
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Rick Schmidlin posted this Saturday at the Criterion forum. Now, let the debate begin anew!
Back in 1996 I looked at all Universal release records in their legal file and TOUCH OF EVIL was released 1.85:1. I also asked Janet Leigh and Chuck Heston about this, and they both said that was the ratio in dailies and the one they remembered when it was released. Universal shot full frame for later use on Television as Lew Wasserman told me, but for theaters it was shown in 1.85:1.
And remember there was not one mention by Welles about the 1.85:1 ratio when he saw it projected. Ernest Nims was there. and he said when Welles wrote the memo the print he saw was 1:85:1. This was told to me by Nims in his living room in 1997.
Best, and enjoy the DVD,
Rick Schmidlin
Back in 1996 I looked at all Universal release records in their legal file and TOUCH OF EVIL was released 1.85:1. I also asked Janet Leigh and Chuck Heston about this, and they both said that was the ratio in dailies and the one they remembered when it was released. Universal shot full frame for later use on Television as Lew Wasserman told me, but for theaters it was shown in 1.85:1.
And remember there was not one mention by Welles about the 1.85:1 ratio when he saw it projected. Ernest Nims was there. and he said when Welles wrote the memo the print he saw was 1:85:1. This was told to me by Nims in his living room in 1997.
Best, and enjoy the DVD,
Rick Schmidlin
Todd
The "Touch of Evil" project at Parallax View
Hello,
I haven't posted on the site in years, but I have kept up the Welles faith through my own writing.
I recently launched a film site called Parallax View with a group of fellow critics. In celebration of the DVD release, we put together a week of features on the film, including two essays and five interviews (four of which I conducted in 1998, before the release of the revised cut, but never published ).
Essays:
The Making, Unmaking and Reclamation of Touch of Evil
http://parallax-view.org/2008/10/09/the ... h-of-evil/
Touch of Evil: Crossing the Line (a study based on the preview version)
http://parallax-view.org/2008/10/03/tou ... -the-line/
Interviews:
Charlton Heston of Touch of Evil
http://parallax-view.org/2008/10/05/cha ... h-of-evil/
Janet Leigh on Touch of Evil
http://parallax-view.org/2008/10/06/jan ... h-of-evil/
Bob O'Neil on Touch of Evil
http://parallax-view.org/2008/10/06/bob ... h-of-evil/
Rick Schmidlin on Touch of Evil
http://parallax-view.org/2008/10/06/ric ... h-of-evil/
Walter Murch on Touch of Evil
http://parallax-view.org/2008/10/07/wal ... h-of-evil/
I haven't posted on the site in years, but I have kept up the Welles faith through my own writing.
I recently launched a film site called Parallax View with a group of fellow critics. In celebration of the DVD release, we put together a week of features on the film, including two essays and five interviews (four of which I conducted in 1998, before the release of the revised cut, but never published ).
Essays:
The Making, Unmaking and Reclamation of Touch of Evil
http://parallax-view.org/2008/10/09/the ... h-of-evil/
Touch of Evil: Crossing the Line (a study based on the preview version)
http://parallax-view.org/2008/10/03/tou ... -the-line/
Interviews:
Charlton Heston of Touch of Evil
http://parallax-view.org/2008/10/05/cha ... h-of-evil/
Janet Leigh on Touch of Evil
http://parallax-view.org/2008/10/06/jan ... h-of-evil/
Bob O'Neil on Touch of Evil
http://parallax-view.org/2008/10/06/bob ... h-of-evil/
Rick Schmidlin on Touch of Evil
http://parallax-view.org/2008/10/06/ric ... h-of-evil/
Walter Murch on Touch of Evil
http://parallax-view.org/2008/10/07/wal ... h-of-evil/
Last edited by seanax on Fri Oct 10, 2008 1:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
www.seanax.com
DVD columnist for MSN Entertainment
(http://movies.msn.com/new-on-dvd/)
Film critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (http://www.seattle-pi.com/movies/)
Founding contributor of Parallax View (http://parallax-view.org)
DVD columnist for MSN Entertainment
(http://movies.msn.com/new-on-dvd/)
Film critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (http://www.seattle-pi.com/movies/)
Founding contributor of Parallax View (http://parallax-view.org)
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Rick Schmidlin
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ToddBaesen
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Welcome back Rick!
Unfortunately, it appears the TOUCH OF EVIL dvd set is getting very short shrift from the few remaining retail stores that carry older DVD's. I've heard that Best Buy is not carrying it in most of their stores, so you have to order it from their online site only! While that isn't such a bad thing, considering you can actually get it much cheaper online at Amazon, I doubt it will be much help in terms of overall sales for the DVD.
Sort of like 50 years ago when you couldn't see the film either, except for maybe a week or two at the bottom half of that double bill at your local theater.
Unfortunately, it appears the TOUCH OF EVIL dvd set is getting very short shrift from the few remaining retail stores that carry older DVD's. I've heard that Best Buy is not carrying it in most of their stores, so you have to order it from their online site only! While that isn't such a bad thing, considering you can actually get it much cheaper online at Amazon, I doubt it will be much help in terms of overall sales for the DVD.
Sort of like 50 years ago when you couldn't see the film either, except for maybe a week or two at the bottom half of that double bill at your local theater.
Todd
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