Lost Welles films at MOMA in November

[Wellesnet]

http://www.wellesnet.com/lost-orson-wel ... nov-19-22/

[Wellesnet]

Stefan Drossler answers questions about the upcoming MOMA screenings:
http://www.wellesnet.com/stefan-droessl ... on-welles/

[Wellesnet]

From Wellesnet Facebook:

Oja Kodar will not be attending the Museum of Modern Art screening of footage from "The Other Side of the Wind" and "The Dreamers" on November 20 in NYC. According to a MoMA spokeswoman, "Ms. Kodar had originally been confirmed to co-present this program, but unfortunately she is unable to make the trip to New York and will not be present to introduce the Welles program on the 20th, so Stefan Dröessler will do the intro solo."

[A Sled in Flames]

Went to all 4 nights. I posted thoughts about The Merchant of Venice, The Dreamers, and The Deep in their respective threads, leaving me with one movie about which I haven't talked:

Journey into Fear was a wonderful watch on the big screen. When I watched it in the past, I never really registered the humor nor the sheer joy of having the major Mercury Players on screen at their prime. As labeled, it is the last Mercury Film Production, after Kane and Ambersons.

Additionally, after viewing the reconstructed version, I had an added appreciation for the craft. The long tracking shot of Howard and Josette is pretty amazing, especially considering it is not whole in either popular version! The aural foreshadowing of Benat is another nice touch. The movie is truly as Wellesian as people have commented through the decades.

The deleted scenes were interesting, though I daresay nothing particularly vital is cut. The omitted dialogue is more political and philosophical in nature. It makes the movie more complete so to speak, but it ultimately doesn't change it that much. Most lamentable is the loss of an explicit relationship between Howard and the Dolores Del Rio's character; I don't know how they planned to get this past the censors. That said, the movie, as-is, does pretty clearly imply to such a relationship fairly strongly, and, moreover, in deleting certain scenes, it becomes more vague what exactly transpired between the two...

What bothered me on previous viewings is the seemingly utter passivity of Howard, Joseph Cotten's character. It only registered to me now to read it, like I read The Third Man, which is to say the passiveness is utterly intentional-- the meaning. Looking at it in the context of Howard representing America, his line about how he struck back at Benat because the latter "made him mad" is interesting. Never thought a B-thriller could have political implications! But, of course, that's classic Welles for you.

It's a shame this has been mistreated on home video. I don't see the situation getting better to be honest. Mr. Drossler's reconstruction seemed to be formed of SD elements and as admitted was merely shown off of a non-HD video master. How amazing would it be to have a bonafide 4K restoration of Journey into Fear, reconstructed with all the footage from the two versions! Until then, the existing French and Spanish DVD will have to do, which, as I'm sure could be married to make a reconstruction (as I think others on this board have done?), not dissimilar in technical quality and academic merit to Mr. Drossler's version.

[Roger Ryan]

...The deleted scenes were interesting, though I daresay nothing particularly vital is cut...

When Welles was able to convince RKO to pull the film from release and allow him to rework it, I suspect he was only able to use the footage contained in the version already mutilated by the studio (as opposed to having access to the preview cut or other deleted material). His choice to frame the story as a lengthy flash-back told from the perspective of Graham required dropping any scene where Graham was not present to witness the action. I believe this is also the reason the single-take scene of Benat preparing to leave the hotel room became a pre-credit scene - Welles needed to separate it from the rest of the narrative since Graham could not logically include the action in his recounting of the tale.

...Most lamentable is the loss of an explicit relationship between Howard and the Dolores Del Rio's character; I don't know how they planned to get this past the censors...

Welles' original intentions were to push the "sex farce" aspect of the story as far as he could. Not only were Graham and Josette supposed to be having an affair, but Graham's wife was doing the same with Col. Haki! Welles wrote a concluding scene in which Graham learns of his wife's infidelity just as the hotel elevator door closes on the couple to give the film a Preston Sturges-style comic ending. The Hayes office was censoring this material at the scripting stage so very little of the sex farce material was actually shot. The suggestive scene between Mrs. Graham and Haki (which Welles cut since it could not logically be part of Howard's first person account) is a remnant of the comic sexual element that Welles had hoped to weave through the entire film.

[A Sled in Flames]

Thanks for the info, Mr. Ryan! That makes a lot of sense.

Incidentally, Mr. Drossler gave an admiring nod to your magnificent Magnificent Ambersons reconstruction during his introduction to this.