British Film Institute plans 2-month Welles tribute

[Wellesnet]

http://www.wellesnet.com/british-film-i ... s-tribute/

[tonyw]

And so they should - along with other international Film Institutes!

[cinescot]

More details on the BFI tribute:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/announcements/great-disruptor-bfi-celebrates-orson-welles-centenary

[tonyw]

I would expect no less from the BFI and hope that all the Film Institutes in the world will also contribute to TOSOTW project.

[cinescot]

The BFI press release confirms the following titles being screened:

July:
ARENA: THE ORSON WELLES STORY
CITIZEN KANE
THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS
IT'S ALL TRUE
JOURNEY INTO FEAR
TOO MUCH JOHNSON
THE STRANGER
THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI
MACBETH
JANE EYRE
OTHELLO
MR ARKADIN
THE TRIAL

AUGUST:
Arrested development: how Orson Welles tried to revolutionise TV and why TV wouldn’t let him. An illustrated talk by Ben Walters.
AROUND THE WORLD WITH ORSON WELLES
CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT
THE IMMORTAL STORY (+ Person to Person Interview from 1955)
F FOR FAKE
FILMING OTHELLO

There are also extended runs of TOUCH OF EVIL, THE THIRD MAN (4K restoration) and the MAGICIAN documentary

[tadao]

The BFI have published the online version of their July programme including the first leg of the Welles season, which they've subtitled 'The Great Disruptor'. http://www.emagcloud.com/bfi/BFI_Southbank_Guide_July_2015/index.html#/34/. [edit: I see that title was already out there, just not mentioned in the body of the thread.] It's Flash-based instead of a nice, sensible PDF, but after a few moments' loading time it worked quite well for me.

In addition to dates for the screenings already announced, there's a talk by Geoff Andrew entitled 'Rosebud and the Giant Trainset: The Extraordinary Cinema of Orson Welles'. There are also details of some of the screening formats: Kane, Ambersons, Jane Eyre and Macbeth are slated to be (35mm) Film, most of the others are stated to be Digital (DCP). A couple of stragglers don't list a format; the Arena programmes will probably be a Digital Betacam dub of Quad/2" analogue tape masters of the (16mm?) filmed interviews; news from the programme is that they're due to have an intro by producer Leslie Megahey; It's All True might also be from Digital Betacam, although I think there are 35mm prints in circulation?; surprisingly Journey Into Fear is listed as Video; I would have thought like the other RKO titles it would be on 35mm. I speculate that they've inherited the BBC's film print of the 'Euro version' and are reluctant to project it due to its rarity, resorting to an old broadcast format video dub instead (most of the RKO library screens on the BBC from telecine transfers apparently dating back to the 1980s), but this may only be my over-active imagination at work! The programme also lists the running time as '83 minutes' which doesn't relate to any version I'm aware of at film or PAL speed, surely this is an error rather than an even more extended feature deriving from the '91 minute' preview/premiere version?

[tadao]

Can't seem to get the edit function working for the previous post, but having looked into it a little more, I'm leaning towards thinking that Journey Into Fear at 81 minutes (not 83 as I'd stated, not sure whether I misread that or whether the programme's had an update) and on 'Video' could be the latest iteration of Stefan Droessler's reconstruction incorporating stills and screenplay excerpts? I would have thought the BFI would indicate this, and I can't find any reference to this having played elsewhere lately (other centenary screenings seem to have been from 35mm materials); the last information I could find about length is '78-79 minutes' in 2007, but I think I'm willing to be optimistic that I might get a chance to see this version at BFI Southbank this year...

There *is* a PDF of the programme too, linked to from within the Flash version; might suit some devices better: http://www.emagcloud.com/bfi/BFI_Southbank_Guide_July_2015/pubData/source/BFI%20SB%20Guide%20Jul%202015.pdf

[tadao]

The BFI have issued their press release for their August activities, the Welles section of which gives the new details that Simon Callow will give a talk on Orson Welles and Theatre as adjunct to a screening of Chimes, and that Stefan Droessler will present a six-programme series on The Unknown Orson Welles (I'm taking this as a hopeful sign that we might get his reconstruction of Journey as speculated above!). Press release:
http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-press-release-august-2015-bfi-southbank-2015-06-16.pdf.
I anticipate the full August programme will be released in the next few days!

The BFI's Magazine, Sight and Sound, devotes 8 pages of its July issue (including pictures) to an article by Ben Walter, Rare Genius: The Other Side of Orson Welles, as well as awarding the front cover to Welles, and the back cover, inside and out, to advertisements for the season and the run of The Third Man respectively; it also includes an article on John Huston and The Misfits which is enjoying a run at the moment. Promo here: http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/july-2015-issue.

[Le Chiffre]

Thanks for the info, Tadao. There's also a good story on THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS in this month's issue of EMPIRE, another major film magazine from Britain. Features quotes from Joseph McBride and Roger Ryan. Now on newsstands. The issue can also be read online at:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/265050878/Emp ... 015#scribd
(The Ambersons story, called THE AMBERSONS TAPES, is on page 107)

[tadao]

That's a pretty decent effort from Empire, Le Chiffre, thanks for the link, it would have passed me by otherwise.

The BFI August Guide, with an F For Fake cover photo, has popped up unheralded:
http://www.emagcloud.com/bfi/BFI_Southbank_Guide_Aug_2015/index.html (Flash)
http://www.emagcloud.com/bfi/BFI_Southbank_Guide_Aug_2015/pubData/source/BFI%20SB%20Guide%20AUG%20%28Page%20Turner%29.pdf (PDF)

The Callow talk is billed as a 70 minute run time, and is a separate ticket preceding a showing of Chimes, not merely an introduction on the same bill. I may tweak my summer travel plans to attend! Adjuct to that day's screening itself is a Q+A with Keith Baxter. Unfortunately I've often found these Q+As hurried in the past, as they tend to be scheduled too tightly with a later screening booked in the auditorium, making an attractive Unique Selling Point for a screening less satisfying than it could be, but will have to see how this one pans out. I've enjoyed reading Mr Baxter's lucid recollections of the filming as reported on Wellesnet (http://www.wellesnet.com/keith-baxter-on-chimes-at-midnight/) and see from a quick look online that there is also an interview transcribed in the Rutgers University Press book on the film, which I'd previously thought was only the screenplay, might have to seek this out.

Stefan Droessler's programmes have been titled Stage and Theatre; Around the Globe; It's All Magic; Obediently Yours, The Storyteller; Unfinished Works; Looking Back. They look like a highlight of the season. The Stage and Theatre synopsis states

It also contains rare footage such as a version of Moby Dick

(which I assume is the excerpts from the solo readings shot by Gary Graver rather than rediscovered footage of Moby Dick Rehearsed!)

[tadao]

Very pleased to say that Journey Into Fear as shown last Saturday was the reconstructed version. The brochure listing and printed film notes made no mention of it, and I wondered whether my wishful thinking imagination had run away with me, but the feature started with a Munich Filmmuseum logo and continued with a slate of notes on the reconstruction. I might make an observation or two about it the relevent thread. Kudos to the BFI for making the effort to source this.

The previous week's Kane print seemed to date from about 2000, and Ambersons from the 1980s maybe, guessing from the slates and logos at the head of the presentations. Ambersons fared very well and is the only time I've seen it on genuine film, previously only VHS (at college in a screening theatre) and TV broadcast at PAL speed, and Laserdisc at film speed. I've always found Agnes Moorehead's performance quite shrill and I can't say I admire it as much as some; however it played completely differently in a theatre, I was much more engaged, noticed subtleties, and found the archly theatrical side of the performance was fitted excellently towards viewing in a movie theatre as intended. The Kane element looked quite tired, emphasing the limits of muti-generational film copying, but it always seems to play to best advantage with an audience.

I also attended the talk Rosebud and the Giant Trainset, and thought it was a very creditable overview of Welles as a director of feature films, pitched at interested cinemagoers who might have seen a couple of the better known pictures but not the whole canon. My original guest had to cancel at late notice, so the spare ticket went to another friend who was new to Welles, and who was most impressed with clips from The Trial and Chimes, so much so that he's going to come along to the Callow lecture and Chimes screening next month. The illustrative clips seemed to be from DVD copies, and it was a shock to hear the pitch-shifted PAL speedup of some of them, with Mickey Mouse sounding voices, when placed alongside others without the shift. Maybe that's why poor Aunt Fanny had always seemed even more strident than was calculated!

Roll on the next round!

[Le Chiffre]

Thanks for the rundown, Tadao. So I take it the JOURNEY INTO FEAR shown did not have any still photos and script excerpts? Sounds like the same restoration Stefan Droesler was showing on the lecture circuit a few years ago (which I still have yet to see - I'd like to).

Glad you saw the "Giant Trainset" lecture too. I was wondering if that was a film or a lecture.

Here's Welles author Ben Walters with an introduction to the fest. This page also includes a schedule and ticket info for the remainder of the retrospective, which ends in early August:
https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/defau ... =#synopsis

[tadao]

Hi Le Chiffre, the Journey reconstruction did indeed include the stills (few) and script excerpts (quite numerous, more than I'd imagined), and has a copyright date of 2005 and includes a 'Thank You' acknowledgement to Roger Ryan of this parish. I've jotted some notes down and will give them a polish before dropping them in the Journey thread for posterity!

The season runs all the way through August, for some reason they've appended the Immortal Story screenings on August 5th and 6th on at the end in that link. A Farewell To Arms, not Welles related as far as I know, has also got muddled into the mix! Unfortunately I can't attend the Ben Walter talk on Welles and TV, but should be able to get to all the other notable events.

[Wellesnet]

Simon Callow, author of "Road to Xanadu", "Hello Americans", and the upcoming third volume, "Orson Welles, Volume 3: One-Man Band", will lecture on Welles and the theatre at the BFI this Monday:

From the BFI's schedule program:
"Orson Welles began his career in the theatre, and the Mercury Theatre (the rep company he co-founded) was the crucible from which his cinematic career was born. In this insightful lecture, celebrated actor, director and writer Simon Callow draws on his multi-volume biography of Welles (the third part of which is published in November), to trace the huge significance theatre had for Welles’ approach to acting and directing."

Chimes at Midnight will be shown afterwards.

[Wellesnet]

British Welles author Ben Walters ("Orson Welles: Life and Times") gives a lecture on Welles's TV work tonight at the BFI. Here's the writeup in their program:

Welles was no less fascinated or inspired by TV than by theatre, radio or cinema, and he created several radical, wonderful programmes in the 1950s. The industry, however, found little use for him beyond talk shows, adverts and voiceovers. Using rare archive material, season programmer Ben Walters explores Welles’ bold – yet largely unknown – vision of TV as the ultimate storyteller’s medium. Followed by Around the World with Orson Welles, episode 1, which kicks off a first-ever showing of the complete series, plus "The Dominici Affair", throughout the month.