Yet more on OSotW

[ChristopherBanks]

I'm no fan of Thomson, but his final comment - that TOSOTW could be Welles's "8 1/2" - I thought was positive.

[jaime marzol]

..................

i feel just like mr beasen feels every time i read what is written on welles by thomson, keal, higham, and carringer. it's like they have an ax to grind at the expense of their readers.

people have hailed the books and articles carringer has written on welles. and carringer was even asked to speak about welles at the director's guild memorial! why not ask higham, and kael to speak also?

if you read between the lines in all of carringer's work on welles, like higham and kael, he assigns credit to anyone on the project. he never assigns credit to welles for anything that appears on the screen. welles never came up with anything. he rode to glory on the coat tails of the cheap help he was able to afford on his projects. except for toland, james g. stewart, lynwood dunn on Kane, and trauner on Othello, the rest of the people welles worked with in all the other films he made, were budget employees. even russell metty was a bargin basement find at universal. look at his credits a few years before he worked on Touch Of Evil. he was making exploitation teen age flicks.

If we are to beleive carringer, thomson, kael, and higham, welles had no talent and relied on those around him for the brilliance that we find in every film he made.

[fantomas]

toddbaesen:

during the welles conferenz in mannheim oja was asked about the supposed meeting with paola mori you mentioned to settle OSOTW which didn't take place because of mori's death. oja said that there was no intention and no reason for such a meeting. the last will says clearly that the unfinished films belong to her and that she should finish them. so where does this information about a missed meeting come from?

[Jeff Wilson]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it Frank Brady's bio that mentions the supposed meeting between Kodar and Mori?

[Fat Annie]

It's such a tragic irony.
At the end of his career, The Great Director, hustles up funding for the last time and spends five years, on and off,
making a personal film that may summarize his view of things.
The film's finances are a mess and he dies before being able to untangle the various interests to release his Last Work. He was always years ahead of his time, but the years go by and slowly interest in the man and his work builds until the time is right for the film to be seen and appreciated. And just at that moment, when Billionaires are alledgedly offering to pay whatever it costs to get the film ready to show, what person, what sinister force, is the only thing standing between the film and a waiting world?
The man's youngest daughter

[jaime marzol]

....................

you can understand her being gun shy after franco's debacle of don q, the castrating of her Othello, but there seemed to be no idiots involved these last few times. wasn't it bogdanovich working with showtime's money? and before that a billionaire hewlett packard guy? what is she waiting for?

[Terry]

I have an old phone number and address for Welles' estate - in Las Vegas. I'll have to see if it's valid and diplomatically press the issue.

I'll post it when I can - or do you think that will generate too many angry phone calls and force them to change the number? Actually, they inserted it in a book a few years back, so they must have wanted people to contact them.

[maxrael]

sorry to be getting away from the subject, but does anyone know anything about the website:

The Estate Of Orson Welles
http://www.bway.net/~nipper/

i mean is it 'official' in any sense of the word?.. and if so, official in a 'Beatrice' or 'Oja' kind of way... etc.

thanks,
max!

[jaime marzol]

........................

the welles estate site is not an official site, though it does have an official sounding name.

in an exchange of welles related e-mails with a researcher about 8 or 9 months ago, he said the welles estate site was run by the guy who did the bad othello restoration, the estate approved restoration. i don't know if that is so, i never looked into it, but that is what the researcher said.

[Fat Annie]

Three Points regarding Ms. Welles

1) There needs to be a brief summary of what has been written on the board about the status of Welles legacy. Orson Dies, Oja gets the rights to unfinished works, Mrs. Welles gets__, Mrs. Welles dies, Beatrice has this status.

2) There should be a list of projects that have been held up, canceled at the last minute, witheld from the public etc., because of threat of litigation by Mr. White.

3) There should be a letter stating that the circumstances outlined above have had a negative impact on Public appreciation of the Art of Orson Welles. The Letter might call for a neutral party to arbitrate the artistic issues so that the Works may be released and completed. The letter should be signed by prominent persons concerned about the logjam in Welles related projects.

[Jeff Wilson]

I'd prefer that no contact info for the Welles estate be posted on the board. Should anyone wish to contact Hadji privately for that info, feel free, using the personal messenger option or via email.

[jaime marzol]

.......................

the whole OSOTW thing is about money, legacy, pride. i hardly think a well meaning letter from the peanut gallery is going to hit it's mark, and if it does, it not going to brush aside legacy, money, and pride.

it's just another letter with long intentions and no cash.

got 5 or 10 spare million laying around? then maybe you have a chance.

,

[Le Chiffre]

Unfortunately, I think you're right, Jaime. It's mainly about the cash and upholding the power of the estate. I doubt if a pleading letter would even be seen by Beatrice. What I find curious, given Beatrice's intransigent meddling, is how so many Welles-related projects have managed to be released in recent years. These projects have apparently met with Beatrice's blessing:

THE BATTLE OVER CITIZEN KANE
RKO 281
CRADLE WILL ROCK
THE BIG BRASS RING
A&E'S remake of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS

These projects, apparently have not:

Franco's DON QUIXOTE
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND
Bogdanovich's reedit of ONE MAN BAND (as well as the original version)
RECONSTRUCTING EVIL and the Schmidlin/Heston commentary for the TOUCH OF EVIL DVD
The CD edition of ORSON'S SHADOW

Not a very good track record, and one has to wonder if cash payouts and the ability to make them made the difference.

Concerning TOSOTW, if Oja is so sure about her ownership of it, then why is she so afraid of Beatrice's lawyer? Beatrice reportedly owns at least three O.W. films (OTHELLO, CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT, and THE IMMORTAL STORY) and clearly owns Welles' image. However, Welles' image does not appear in TOSOTW. If worse came to worse, couldn't they withhold Welles' name from the credits and release it in America as "an Alan Smithee film"? I mean, just about anyone who would want to see the film already knows who made it. Maybe they could even advertise it as "a film by You-know-who".

[Harvey Chartrand]

Welles said that working for posterity was as bad as working exclusively for money — a form of artistic prostitution, so he probably wouldn't mind if his name were taken off the film, although he might object to the Alan Smithee monicker, because its use invariably means that the film is a bomb. In F for Fake, Welles waxed poetic about the anonymous builders of the Chartres Cathedral (where my ancestors hail from), and said that no one artist could lay claim to this architectural wonder built over several centuries. Perhaps this same principle of creative anonymity could apply to a film whose production and post-production lasted 35 years (so far), if one goes back to the days when Welles was trying to get money for The Sacred Monsters (movie about bullfighting that was eventually reworked as The Other Side of the Wind).

[Le Chiffre]

Harvey,
Very good point about Welles and Chartres cathedral. And I suppose the name Alan Smithee does bring alot of negative cannotations. Maybe they could release it instead as "film by Oja Kodar". It's been said that TOSOTW was very much a collaborative work between Welles and Kodar. She should just put HER name on it. Or, if they need a bigger directorial name, maybe Bogdanovich could put HIS name on it, since he probably had a hand in the editing as well as appearing in it. Or list BOTH Kodar and Bogdanovich as co-directors. Lots of possibilities...