The Chinese Theater Sequence in THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI.

[Roger Ryan]

"- Extended dialogue during the Chinese Theatre scene where Elsa explains the play's plot to O'Hara (another important lost moment since the plot of the play is a thinly disguised parable of the O'Hara/Elsa story and clarifies Elsa's motivations). There is also additional dialogue from O'Hara explaining why he knows that Elsa killed Grisby."

This is a note I made after reviewing the Chinese Theatre scene from the "Dec. 2nd, 1946" cutting continuity of SHANGHAI. I apologize for not having more details; perhaps I can make another trip to the Special Collections library at the University of Michigan soon and transcribe exactly what the "play-within-the-movie" was about (at the time I looked the document over, SHANGHAI was not my main concern). At any rate, in Welles' original cut, the scene was indeed longer and included dialogue explaining the action performed on stage. This was the way Welles originally cut the scene. It's possible, of course, that Welles would have re-edited the scene himself at a later stage, but he lost control of the film not long after and ended up shooting inserts and retakes at the studio's insistence, and was effectively locked out of the editing room.

As I have stated before, while there was some material documented in this cutting continuity that I personally considered superfluous, I was amazed with how many fairly short sequences shot by Welles tidied up the plot and smoothed out the transitions from location to location (very important in a film that journeys from New York to Acapulco to San Francisco). If the released film was merely twenty minutes longer, it would have been a lot richer and made quite a bit more sense. I especially love the sequence (only a part of which remains in the released version) where Grisby asks O'Hara to kill him. The beginning of this sequence opened with Chris Welles' first on-screen appearance as a "spoiled American girl" demanding her mother give her a dollar for a shaved ice treat and followed Anders and Welles as they climbed a mountain path encountering other tourists complaining and arguing about money. Welles told Bogdanovich it was one of his favorite moments in the film and demonstrated the richness of the subtext Welles was trying to bring to this the picture. I would persume the Chinese Theatre scene would have been another moment where the subtext was important.

keats - Any particular reason you suspect the Chinese Theatre sequence was not shot on location at the Sun Sing Theatre? The entire scene has the look of a location shoot to me.

[Glenn Anders]

Thanks, Roger, for another superb explanatory post.

One of the photos included in Chris Feder's IN MY FATHER'S SHADOW (on p. 22) shows Michael O'Hara (Welles) and George Grisby (Glenn Anders) standing with young Christopher Welles and a couple other little girls (and Rita Hayworth? I think not.) before an ice cream vendor's stand. The shot was taken in Acapulco, but it is unclear if it were intended to be an actual part of the sequence you refer to. I would guess not, too.

Money (and Power) vs. Art (or Nature)? The theme works for me as Welles' intent for making THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI! If we follow your description of O"Hara and Grisby's ascent through the tourists preoccupied with money, we arrive at that incredible view of Acapulco Harbor. The Godlike camera looks down on these very flawed individuals (before it looks up at Grisby, at the sequence's end), as they discuss a relatively trivial sum of money (even for the time) to murder someone in order to escape the coming Apocalypse. What could be a more hopeless metaphor for the course of American culture toward fascism and its own destruction?

You make me wonder . . . .

Could the contrast between Mandarin and Cantonese (if there is one; our resident expert trifles with us) be another aspect of the theme you suggest? The coastal Chinese, traders and merchants by origin, watching aristocratic Manchu dramas at the Sing Sun Theater in San Francisco, as -- yes -- the Elizabethan groundlings might have watched Shakespeare's plays about the Elizabethan aristocracy at the Globe? Not understanding all the nuances, no more than Elsa and Michael understand them. Yes, maybe, there's a real insight there on your part.

Would you follow up on that for us, Roger, when you have time, time out from your busy, practical schedule?

Glenn

[Roger Ryan]

One of the photos included in Chris Feder's IN MY FATHER'S SHADOW (on p. 22) shows Michael O'Hara (Welles) and George Grisby (Glenn Anders) standing with young Christopher Welles and a couple other little girls (and Rita Hayworth? I think not.) before an ice cream vendor's stand. The shot was taken in Acapulco, but it is unclear if it were intended to be an actual part of the sequence you refer to. I would guess not, too.

Actually, I came upon that SHANGHAI publicity still in the U-M collection when I was reviewing photos for possible inclusion in Ms. Feder's memoir. I recommended to Ms. Feder that she include it in the book and am very happy the photo made it in.

Although it is a publicity still (not a frame enlargement) it represents the scene almost exactly as it was shot. The American mother and daughter (Chris Welles) are standing next to a Mexican girl who is getting a shaved ice treat. The American daughter demands that she be given the treat as well. "Shut up, darling" the mother replies. "But Mommy, it ain't even one American dollar" the girl cries as her mother yanks her away. O'Hara and Grisby observe this exchange as they are passing. As the mother pulls the girl away, O'Hara and Grisby turn and begin their ascent up the mountain path where they overhear a number of other tourists all complaining about money. This is straight from the "Dec. 2nd, 1946" cutting continuity.

[mido505]

Although our resident expert seems to think he is the only one here that has first-hand experience with various Chinese sublanguages, despite the fact that about 6 posts before his I mentioned that I had first-hand experience with various Chinese sublanguages, I have first-hand experience with various Chinese sublanguages, as I work for a company owned by an American-born Taiwanese who speaks passable Mandarin and excellent English. Evidently our resident expert's first-hand experience with various Chinese sublanguages does not include actually speaking, reading, or otherwise comprehending any of them since, by his own admission, he had to have the various lines of dialogue in LFS spoken in various Chinese sublanguages translated for him. So if having first-hand experience with various Chinese sublanguages means hanging out with various folks who speak, read, and otherwise comprehend them, I guess I'll do. Rather than throw a rock and possibly risk sending an Asian into our soon-to-be-defunct health care system, I have asked a Malaysian coworker who speaks excellent Cantonese and Mandarin to translate the sequence for me. If I get anything useful I'll pass it on, as I'm not planning on writing a book, article, or paper on the subject any time soon.

[Glenn Anders]

Now, we're getting somewhere. At last!

Thanks, guys. I'll stay tuned.

Glenn

[mido505]

Keats:

I am sorry if I am unclear; I am not saying that the sequence is spoken in different dialects; I am saying that I do not know whether the sequence is performed in Mandarin, Cantonese, or Classical Chinese. I have not seen the movie in a while, and the last couple of times I watched it that topic was not on my mind, so I did not form an opinion. I have no doubt that you know a great deal about Chinese Opera, so you are undoubtedly aware that Chinese Opera can be performed in any of the three dialects. My original "cut and paste", "trained chimp", "Wikipedia" disquisition on the differences between Chinese dialects was written only to correct some unclear statements that Glenn made, not to uncover some nonexistent hidden meaning in the sequence.

There was also no attempt to "correlate" Chinese Opera and Elizabethan theater. Although you put "correlate" in quotation marks to imply that I actually used the word, I never used that term or meant to imply it. I was merely stating that, for a modern native Mandarin speaker, the experience of watching Chinese Opera performed in archaic Classical Chinese would be akin to the experience of an average modern English speaker watching a performance of Shakespeare ON THE LEVEL OF COMPREHENSION; i.e., some of it would be hard to understand and certain subtleties might be lost. That's it.

[Roger Ryan]

When you say "subtext" I presume that you are not referring to a translation of the words spoken by the Chinese actors, that would be along the lines of subtitles. I guess the subtext is looking for connections between the plot of the play and the plot of the movie, as has been suggested. Like the sharks in the aquarium scene? I don't know what Ella was intended to say so I don't know if this works; given the nature of Ella's character she was as likely as not to say whatever she wanted to Michael at that point.

You are correct. I realize there are at least two discussions going on in this thread: one concerning the purpose of the Chinese Theatre sequence and how it was supposed to be related to the plot of the film, and one concerning the actual dialect/language being spoken by the actors in the scene and whether its authenticity (or lack thereof) reflects on Welles' sensitivity to racial matters. The latter is a big "what-if" which I don't think can be concluded to anyone's satisfaction. I'm primarily interested in the former.

I agree that Elsa is telling Michael what she wants him to hear. Chances are, she has no idea what the plot of the play is. She knows Michael doesn't understand the language being spoken and takes the opportunity to try and manipulate him a little more. The importance of the exchange is that, in describing the action of the play on stage, Elsa is revealing some of her motivations whether she realizes it or not. In reading the cutting continuity, I found this short exchange to be good drama coming at a point where we, the audience, needed some answers. Welles was giving us a little exposition to clear things up before diving head-long into the Crazy House sequence. Ultimately, some of this dialogue ended up being read as narration by Michael as he wakes up in the Crazy House, but as others have pointed out before, with so many surreal images being thrown at us, it is very difficult to concentrate on what the narration is saying.

I reviewed the "August 17th, 1946" script of SHANGHAI that was posted on this site, but it is of little help in our discussion. Even though the script is labeled "final draft" for budget estimation purposes, all of the action in it takes place on Long Island. Welles had still not determined by that point that he would set portions of the film in Mexico and northern California so there is no Chinese Theatre sequence in the script. What did strike me is that the subtext of exchanging money/greed, etc. is very much present in this draft - Mr. Bannister's law office is even located on Wall Street!

[Glenn Anders]

Things have slowed down here again. I would not like to lose your "money/greed [vs Art and Beauty?]" theme, Roger, but for the amount of space we have devoted to this little question, we could have re-created the dialogue of the entire TLFS.

Perhaps, we should take the advice given a while back to try simplicity.

For instance, we could just go to the IMDb [I know that this is anathema to some], but I did, and got this tip for exploration:

"Elsa spent time in Shanghai, which has its own dialect. But in Chinatown she switches between Mandarin and Cantonese."

Following up on that advice, whether it be accurate or not, has anyone ever just checked out the subtitles on one of the DVD editions of THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI?

I don't have a copy (I'm amazed to discover), but it might be a practical idea to help us arrive at an answer most of us could understand.

If that doesn't work, I have another idea which might . . . .

Glenn

[Roger Ryan]

Following up on that advice, whether it be accurate or not, has anyone ever just checked out the subtitles on one of the DVD editions of THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI?

I don't have a copy (I'm amazed to discover), but it might be a practical idea to help us arrive at an answer most of us could understand.

The subtitles on the DVD (the Region 1 release from Columbia, anyway) are not used to translate any language in the film other than the English dialogue.

[Glenn Anders]

Thanks, Roger, for that information on the Region 1 DVD of THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI.

And your observations are reasonable, too, Peter.

I would only add that Welles often maintained that it was the subtext and back story information in his films which he considered most important. And naturally, from a commercial standpoint, these were just the sequences which were often trimmed or deleted when pictures were taken out of his hands.

My intuition is, as you suggest, that the fact Elsa Bannister understands both Mandarin and Cantonese but is most fluent in a Shanghai dialect has a significance for Welles in the artistic meaning he is attempting to convey.

One is reminded of Josef von Sternberg's THE SHANGHAI GESTURE (1941), which plays decadence and orientalism for similar ironic effects. It is a picture that would have had appeal for Welles, I think.

I still wish that we could get a translation . . . .

Glenn

[Glenn Anders]

Peter: Having a discussion with you brings one up against the fact that each of us sees a different world when we step outside our front door each morning. At the moment, I don't do that very often, so I'm at a disadvantage. However (whatever happened to that old interrupter?), in the matter of subtexts, Orson Welles told many interviewers, including Peter Bogdanovich, Michael Parkinson, the BBC Arena people, and others that subtexts, background, and back stories were what principally interested him in his creations. What's more, almost every major stage work he ever attempted illustrated that interest: the "Black Macbeth" (Haitian ursurper copies imperialist model), The Cradle Will Rock (the need for a unions), Danton's Death (the course of revolutions), etc -- and of course, his most famous, history-making theatrical example, "the [much discussed here of late] "modern dress" Julius Caesar. How you could miss the obvious purpose of Welles' cutting the text to 90-odd minutes, in two acts, on a bare stage, dispensing with Elizabethan theatrical claptrap, putting characters in Fascisti uniforms -- to use one of your phrases -- is "jaw dropping." The point of his staging was to concentrate the audience's attention and interest on the relevant; that the tyranny and right wing revolutions of Rome in 44 B.C. were being repeated in "modern" 1937; that people now as then would be fooled by rhetoric and propaganda; and that what was happening in far places would eventually come here to America.

Need I go through every one of his films for equally unequivocal statements about subtext and back story? He told various friends and interviewers that "The Newsreel" was the best thing in . . . KANE. The whole point of . . . AMBERSONS (about the transformation of American classes by the motor car) was lost. The twenty minutes of back story cut from THE STRANGER about smuggling fascist war criminals out of Post-War Italy, using "rat lines," by way of South America to the United States, was what he had spent most of his time on. I could go on --

But clearly, the major theme of THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, now under discussion here, is how the vast greed of our world destroys innocence and all that makes life worth living -- not how a dumb Irish sailor got taken in by a femme fatale.

Neither in my question nor in anyone's discussion about THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI has it been intimated that the meaning of the film is contained in the Mandarin Theater sequence. Of course, at one level, the sequence is a device to advance the action and explain the plot, but my simple question was about what nuances in the sequence lent meaning to Welles' underlying interest. His vehicle was that of "a thriller," but his purpose, as always, was more ambitious.

The same could be said for von Sternberg's use of the old 1920's theatrical warhorse, The Shanghai Gesture. He was making different use of the play's elements, as Welles was adapting a pot boiler to his purposes in THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI. My guess is that in both cases, neither of these brilliant, difficult artists was concerned with race as such . . . rather, in the cultural domination of women by men.

Finally, Peter, to paraphrase Plato, Victor Hugo, or one of those New England guys: "Frustration is the Mother of Invention."

THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, one may discover if we huff-and-puff enough through thousands upon thousands of words here, is on Facebook. We don't need risking Asian friendships or being hauled off by the San Francisco Chinatown detail (like Michael O'Hara) in order to view and study that Mandarin Theater dialogue. The entire thing runs about four minutes, and though most of it requires no translator, about 30 seconds, as it stands, involves songs and dialogue from the stage which could use translation by an interpreter, and commentary by someone who knows what he's talking about.

THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, Peter, as Rawlston said to the "faceless" reporter: "dead or alive."

It ought to be pretty simple.

Glenn

[Roger Ryan]

Perhaps this point should have been made clearer: I would surmise that the reason the additional dialogue during the Chinese Theate scene was cut was due to the decision to use a first-person narrator late in the editing process. In Welles' original conception of the film, there was no narrator and so the twists and turns of the plot needed to be developed through action and dialogue. Since the character of O'Hara breathlessly rattles off his interpretation of Elsa's plot in voice-over as he stumbles through the fun house in the final edit, the dialogue coming a couple of minutes earlier would have seemed redundant. This is probably the reason it was eliminated. The first-person narration throughout the film allowed for the plot to move more quickly by using voice-over to replace lengthier dialogue scenes which imparted the same information.

This raises an interesting point regarding Welles' artistic choices in how he originally conceived of his films. It appears that, apart from the initial shooting script for HEART OF DARKNESS, he avoided using first-person narration in his projects until the project became compromised and he was asked to rework it. JOURNEY INTO FEAR was narrator-free until the eleventh hour when Welles added Joseph Cotten's narration. When MR. ARKADIN was taken away from him, the first-person narration was expanded. With SHANGHAI, Welles obviously wrote and recorded the narration himself, but that approach was not his original intention.

Personally, I prefer first-person narration not be used in films unless it is an "unreliable narrator" which can add some interesting irony to the story. Third-person narration, however, can be quite pleasant and this was used by Welles quite often.

[Glenn Anders]

Can't be long-winded, Peter. Ran out of my key lung medicine two days ago. Have to go scrape together 300 bucks to last me another quarter. Flopping and gasping like a fish brought up from a mile down. And so . . .

I'm glad you have your definitions straight. Now, could you just answer the question? I literally don't have much time.

Welles was able to achieve a straight run-through of Julius Caesar under 100 minutes by tacking what he left of Acts Four and Five onto his already radical condensation, re-arrangement, and revision of the first three Acts. Quite an accomplishment! That's all I meant. If we could get beyond minutiae, we probably agree on a lot of this stuff.

Let us both take lessons from Roger, who knows what he's talking about, and simply sticks to the facts his research has revealed.

What's in the thirty seconds of the Mandarin play which remains? That's the question, rather like the important point to be made about Welles Julius Caesar. What is there after all the other stuff has been taken out -- even if Welles didn't want it taken out.

If "the racism of decadence and racism" is subtext in THE SHANGHAI GESTURE, why is not decadence, racism, and sexism not subtext in THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI? I don't get your reasoning, Peter. I really don't.

Got to go. I leave it to you and "the fanboys," whoever they are out where you are.

Glenn

[Glenn Anders]

Peter: Sorry for the typo[s]. I was fatigued and in pain.

Finding middle ground and answering simple questions is not your strong suit, and you have taken over the discussion.

Congratulations.

We shall have to ponder your explanations.

Glenn

[Glenn Anders]

Yes, Peter, we have been over all of your contributions before.

But we still don't have the answer.

Thank you.

Glenn