The Affidavit of Isaac Woodard

[NoFake]

To most people, he was the guy that did CITIZEN KANE, WOTW, and Paul Masson commercials.

To be sure. But then, Frank Brady isn't "most people." In a nearly 600-page, otherwise (ostensibly) meticulously researched, soup-to-nuts biography, for him not to even be aware of the singular incident that, arguably, propelled Welles across the pond just . . . doesn't figure.

[Le Chiffre]

Yes, you're right, NoFake, and it looks like I was wrong in saying CITIZEN WELLES came out around the same time as the Leaming. Brady's book actually came out in 1989, which makes it even more inexplicable that the Woodard case was not mentioned. However, I based that on the index, and Jonathon Rosenbaum's 1989 critique of Brady's book laments that Brady's index is lazy and missing many things that are in the text, so who knows? Maybe it's in there somewhere, although I couldn't find any mention of it in the circa-1946 section.

One book that did come out around the same time as the Leaming was Charles Higham's RISE AND FALL OF AN AMERICAN GENIUS, which devotes a couple pages to Woodard, but gets some facts wrong, like saying Lynwood Shull (Higham calls him "Leonard") was found guilty and served a year in prison for the crime, when he actually was aquited by an all-white jury and served no time at all.

[NoFake]

One book that did come out around the same time as the Leaming was Charles Higham's RISE AND FALL OF AN AMERICAN GENIUS, which devotes a couple pages to Woodard, but gets some facts wrong, like saying Lynwood Shull (Higham calls him "Leonard") was found guilty and served a year in prison for the crime, when he actually was [acquitted] by an all-white jury and served no time at all.

I remember that, Le Chiffre, and recall being infuriated when I read it. His being brought before an all-white jury, which almost inevitably found him not guilty, was one of the most significant injustices (among innumerable ones) in that case.

[Le Chiffre]

For those that haven't seen it, 13TH, Netflix's great, Oscar nominated documentary from last year is playing on Youtube for awhile:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krfcq5p ... 1HPemyC_Dw

Does a great job of outlining the innumerable injustices done to African-Americans during the periods of slavery, Jim Crow, the phony War on Drugs, to today's mass incarceration and increasingly privatized prison system.

Welles's 1955 BBC Sketchbook program about the Woodard case also does a good job of tying racial injustice in with excessive nationalism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Crn_mPW ... e=emb_logo

[Wellesnet]

An upcoming PBS documentary will recount the story of Isaac Woodard — a Black army sergeant pulled from a bus in 1946 for arguing with the driver, savagely beat by a South Carolina police chief, and left permanently blind.
https://www.wellesnet.com/pbs-isaac-woodard/

[NoFake]

https://www.pbs.org/video/chapter-1-blinding-isaac-woodard/

[Steve Paradis]

https://www.pbs.org/video/chapter-1-blinding-isaac-woodard/

If it doesn't turn up on your player, it's the Affadavit broadcast, illustrated with some powerful art.
The first words you hear are Good Morning, this is Orson Welles speaking. I'd like to read you an affadavit . . . .

Richard Gergel explains the power of radio in 1946, and how the NAACP decided that Welles would be the best man to break the story.
https://youtu.be/FvQILFXgCVQ

[Wich2]

Richard Gergel explains the power of radio in 1946, and how the NAACP decided that Welles would be the best man to break the story.https://youtu.be/FvQILFXgCVQ

Awash in TeeVee, and then that folding right into the Interwebs, folks sometimes forget just how truly epochal the first real broad-casting (after affordable printing, of course) in human history was...

Happy Passover, Easter, and Spring, all.

- Craig Wichman

[Le Chiffre]

Looking forward to seeing this program. There was supposed to be a documentary on Welles and Isaac Woodard some years ago by Richard France, author of THE THEATER OF ORSON WELLES, and Robert Fisher, former manager of the Munich Museum (where the Welles archive is), but I don't know if that film was ever finished. There was a 30-minute promotional film for it shown at the 2005 Locarno Welles festival that Jonathon Rosenbaum mentions in his intro to DISCOVERING ORSON WELLES (https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2018/07/i ... on-welles/):

At the Welles conference held at the Locarno film festival in 2005, I saw Robert Fisher and Richard France’s fascinating 30-minute promo for a projected 75- minute documentary on the subject, CITIZEN OF AMERICA: ORSON WELLES AND THE BALLAD OF ISAAC WOODARD, that promises to be close to definitive — even though, paradoxically, and for strictly cinematic reasons, it can’t incorporate the original broadcast.

Glad to see a finished product has finally emerged about this important subject.

[Roger Ryan]

Looking forward to seeing this program. There was supposed to be a documentary on Welles and Isaac Woodard some years ago by Richard France, author of THE THEATER OF ORSON WELLES, and Robert Fisher, former manager of the Munich Museum (where the Welles archive is), but I don't know if that film was ever finished. There was a 30-minute promotional film for it shown at the 2005 Locarno Welles festival...

That 30-minute "promo" version was well-done and quite memorable. In fact, if memory serves adequately, it felt fairly complete at the tighter running time. I suspect copyright issues may have been one of the factors for why the film was not shown outside of festivals; as "B-roll", the producers included shots from commercially-released films to help illustrate the story. One shot of a late 40s courtroom came from The Lady From Shanghai and Robert Fischer teased me that, as a fan of Welles, I should have recognized it instantly even though I didn't. I prefer to think that I was so engrossed in how the film presented the events of the Woodard trial and Welles' broadcasts that I wasn't paying attention to how the soup was made.

[Steve Paradis]

Glad to see a finished product has finally emerged about this important subject.

Quite impressive in its totality, showing how what happened to Isaac Woodard led, step by step, to Brown vs Board of Education. Refreshing to see the emphasis on the ordinary people who made it happen, and not only the famous names. The NAACP is the thread of activism throughout, and that they knew Welles could be trusted to make the story go national, and keep up the momentum, speaks for itself.
Simon Callow suggests that Welles reverted to his Shadow days, creating melodrama with Officer X. I think it's more a case of Welles knowing how to hold an audience, and giving it agency--you are not powerless to stop this, justice is possible--as well as urging witnesses to come forward.
Many of us older ones were only reminded of the degree of murderous racism in post-war America; I'm afraid that for many of the viewers, all this was a revelation.

[Wich2]

I think Orson showed us many times in many ways over course of his career, that he did not intend to honor hard lines between "Theater" and "Real Life."

In this case and elsewhere, he brought strong Drama modes to the telling of True-LIfe tales; and on the other side, with such things as CAESAR and NATIVE SON, he used elements of Reality* in Drama.

(And of course, he was not the only Creative doing such melds in his era; witness Capra's WHY WE FIGHT.)

- Craig

(*The caveat being, that the Reality seen in the Arts is never REALITY.)

[Le Chiffre]

In this case and elsewhere, he brought strong Drama modes to the telling of True-LIfe tales; and on the other side, with such things as CAESAR and NATIVE SON, he used elements of Reality* in Drama.

Quite impressive in its totality, showing how what happened to Isaac Woodard led, step by step, to Brown vs Board of Education. Refreshing to see the emphasis on the ordinary people who made it happen, and not only the famous names. The NAACP is the thread of activism throughout, and that they knew Welles could be trusted to make the story go national, and keep up the momentum, speaks for itself.

Quite right, Steve and Craig. I have no doubt that the French/Fischer documentary would have emphasized Welles's contribution much more, but the American Experience show definitely gives Welles his due credit as the one whose passionate and flamboyant style gave the case national attention, while showing that there were other heroes in this story too, including President Truman and Thurgood Marshall, who risked his life to take the case to another level. A nice surprise to see the later interview with Isaac Woodard, and to hear that the military gave him his benefits after 1962.

Thanks Roger, I'd love to see that 30-minute promo sometime.