Orson Welles

[Canon Editor]

Tomorrow is the big day! 

Who's looking forward to it?

 

[TM2YC]

For my final viewing session before the new-last Welles film drops on Netflix tomorrow, I've been watching three interrelated films from his final years (all more-or-less shot during the protracted production of 'The Otherside of the Wind'):

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F for Fake (1974)

Unless 'The Otherside of the Wind' surpasses it, 'F for Fake' is Welles' great career end masterwork. Going out with a film as groundbreaking as the one with which he began. It could be argued that 'F for Fake' is an early FanMix. The heart of the film is a straight-forward Documentary about the infamous art forger Elmyr de Hory, by another Director (François Reichenbach). Welles took the footage and reshaped into something very different, a free wheeling exploration of the subject of fakery, lies and illusion, in both the art world and the film world.

Welles called this new type of movie an "Essay Film" and a central thread of this essay is the "Everything I say is a lie" paradox. It's revealed that Elmyr's biographer Clifford Irving wrote a fake biography of Howard Hughes, raising the amusing notion that Elmyr is really "A fake faker". Welles points the finger at himself too, including a fake 'Citizen Kane' style "News on the March!" reel about Hughes, covering his own legendary 'War of the Worlds' hoax and the cheeky lies that got him started as a young stage actor. Scenes of Orson at his Moviola editing-desk invite us to believe the lie that we are watching the film as he is cutting it together, winding the film back and forth for us. The editing is very rapid but the narrative that is being constructed has such a clarity that it's never jarring. 'For for Fake' is a genre of film all of it's own.

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Filming Othello (1979)

Largely unseen for many years and only debuting on home video last year in 1080p, as a bonus feature on Criterion's 'Othello' blu-ray. Welles' last completed film is in a similar "essay" style as 'F for Fake' but much looser, slower and less ambitious stylistically. That's not to say it's not good (I loved it) but it's mostly Welles sitting in an armchair, or sitting at his Moviola talking to us the viewer in a conversational fashion, even going so far as to say things like "I hope I've answered your questions?".

The stated subject is the making of his 1951 masterpiece 'Othello' but like 'F for Fake' he digresses often. More run-time is probably devoted to general ruminations about the motivations of the central characters within the original play, aided by two of the film's cast (over dinner and wine). It's almost what it must have been like to spend an evening listening to Welles hold forth on life, love, film and art. For fans of Welles the Director, Welles the man and scholars of Shakespeare.

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Orson Welles: The One-Man Band (1995)

Not actually a Welles film, it's an assembly of fragments of various uncompleted projects from the last 20-years of his life patterned deliberately after the style of 'F for Fake'. It was overseen by Oja Kodar, who was Orson's love, muse, collaborator and subject of many of his films for those last decades (he left all his unfinished films to her). Two complete (but rough, damaged and faded) scenes from 'The Otherside of the Wind' are included and look astonishing in the way they are Directed and edited (plus a section is devoted to the making of).

The disparate array of comedy sketches, travelogs, unfinished projects and magic tricks are woven together to paint a picture of Welles himself. It's more than a simple collection of clips, it also deconstructs the Documentary genre, deliberately revealing the artifice behind the presentations of fact and inviting us to question the truth of what we are being told. So it's a worthy companion to 'F for Fake'.

 

[Handman]

I'm a bit surprised that Netflix hasn't been adding more Welles titles in anticipation of the new release (some of his films are public domain after all) but I did notice that their HD stream of 'The Stranger' looks very good. Much better quality than my Kino Lorber blu-ray. Not quite as sharp but far less damaged, a better grade and smoother audio. It's best I've seen the film look so far.

Could it be the same transfer as the Olive Blu-ray?

 

[TM2YC]

I'm a bit surprised that Netflix hasn't been adding more Welles titles in anticipation of the new release (some of his films are public domain after all) but I did notice that their HD stream of 'The Stranger' looks very good. Much better quality than my Kino Lorber blu-ray. Not quite as sharp but far less damaged, a better grade and smoother audio. It's best I've seen the film look so far.

Could it be the same transfer as the Olive Blu-ray?

Just looked that one up: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Stranger-Blu-ray/184417/#Screenshots

and it does look good. I'll keep an eye out for a copy of that. Thanks.

 

[Canon Editor]

I just noticed, rewatching the beginning to "TOSotW" that Jake Hannaford's assistant is called Costello... which happens to also be the name of Dolores Costello, the actress that interpreted Isabella in The Magnificent Ambersons...

 

[TM2YC]

I must say Netflix's (the UK site at least) handling of Otherside has been shoddy. I only found it was uploaded by searching the database late on Friday, there was no mention on the front page, or the "newly added" section, or on their Twitter/Facebook feed (same goes for the new feature doc).

I almost couldn't find the 38-minute making of film at all. It doesn't come up when searched for because they've mis-tagged it as a trailer, so you wouldn't know it was there unless you checked the Otherside trailers section. FFS. Unless it's all part of a clever meta reference to the shabby way the film and Welles were treated and ignored?  

By the way, I noticed this interesting production detail on welles.net:

Using artificial intelligence and complex algorithms to compare 12 million frames per second, Video Gorillas was able match images on the workprint to the corresponding shots on the Technicolor's 4K scanned negative. Brahms notes in A Final Cut, "The process took two and half days of machine time. If a human being were to do it, it would take eight, nine months to do."

Cool.

 

[Canon Editor]

That’s a shame… and really really strange.  
Well… have you seen it?

I’m looking forward to your opinion!

 

[TM2YC]

Well… have you seen it?

Yes, it's terrific. More thoughts later but RLM's Jay Bauman just posted on twitter and could not have said it better:

https://twitter.com/JayBauman1/status/1058916412490764288

It's crazy that The Other Side of the Wind just exists now. Even better, it's really good. Inventive, smartass, and it feels really alive and urgent like a lot of the best films of the 70s. The movie-within-the-movie stuff is beautifully shot and edited. Also, Cameron Mitchell.

I really hope RLM do a review.

 

[Handman]

Jay's the artsy fartsy one.  RLM generally doesn't talk about artsy fartsy stuff, I can't imagine Mike or Rich or any of the others being too interested in it.

 

[TM2YC]

Jay's the artsy fartsy one.  RLM generally doesn't talk about artsy fartsy stuff, I can't imagine Mike or Rich or any of the others being too interested in it.

Jay tends to review niche films on the re:view strand. I could see him and perhaps Josh discussing it but the probability is against it as you say... although with the Cameron Mitchell appearance, maybe?

Could it be the same transfer as the Olive Blu-ray?

Just looked that one up: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Stranger-Blu-ray/184417/#Screenshots

and it does look good. I'll keep an eye out for a copy of that. Thanks.

I got a copy for a decent price on eBay.

At a glance the Olive transfer is super clean video wise (hardly any damage or dirt) and doesn't suffer from the serious over brightness of the Kino Lorber blu-ray, plus the soundtrack is clean and clear (unlike the crackly/damaged KL blu-ray audio). On the downside, it's much softer and less detailed and is missing a lot of the frame at the bottom (and some at the sides):

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/WKYWNNNX

On balance I think this Olive Blu-Ray is the better option because the KL transfer is so damaged, plus it has a different commentary which is nice to have. Maybe one day I'll sync a regrade of the KL transfer to the clean Olive soundtrack and use it to repair missing sections, to create an ultimate blu-ray.

 

[Canon Editor]

I recently did some research on the italian DVD-Blu-ray releases of “Touch of Evil” because after having seen the theatrical I really wanted to see the 1998 restoration edited by Walter Murch.  

After a lot of digging, something quite strange and unexpected has surfaced: the preview version from 1976 has not been released on DVD (only on Blu-ray in the three-disc box set) and the theatrical is basically unfindable on its own.  What is absurd is that the 1998 restoration is normal is the way it should be in its original english audio track, but when you play it dubbed in italian (which I don’t, but I had in mind to make some friends/parents watch it), the opening scene (which should have no credits and no music by Henry Mancini) does NOT have the credits but DOES have the music.  I don’t know how the distributors got away with that, but they actually made an arbitrary, fourth cut of the movie… stranger things, I guess.  :huh:

On the other hand, I bought this beautiful box set which contains the theatrical cut (only present in this edition) and the 1998 restoration both remastered in 4K HD.  That’s beautiful.

 

[TM2YC]

the preview version from 1976 has not been released on DVD

It may well be out-of-print but I do own a copy of the preview on Region 1 DVD. It's a 2-disc DVD with a sweet replica of Welles' memo:

What is absurd is that the 1998 restoration is normal is the way it should be in its original english audio track, but when you play it dubbed in italian, the opening scene (which should have no credits and no music by Henry Mancini) does NOT have the credits but DOES have the music.  I don’t know how the distributors got away with that, but they actually made an arbitrary, fourth cut of the movie

I'd speculate that the makers of the Italian dub did not have access to a clean version of Murch's complex soundmix and couldn't be bothered to do the soundFX replacement needed in order to recreate it in Italian (obviously not faneditors ). Where as an Italian-language version of the intro with Mancini's music was probably freely available from back in the day.

I bought this beautiful box set which contains the theatrical cut (only present in this edition) and the 1998 restoration both remastered in 4K HD.

The theatrical cut is available on a couple of DVD/blu-ray releases (the best being the Eureka! 2-disc blu-ray with the TC and Reconstruction available in two aspect ratios) but the liner notes are unclear whether they are 4K or 2K scans. Could you please post a link to the boxset you mention... I might want to get a copy .

 

[Canon Editor]

The theatrical cut is available on a couple of DVD/blu-ray releases (the best being the Eureka! 2-disc blu-ray with the TC and Reconstruction available in two aspect ratios) but the liner notes are unclear whether they are 4K or 2K scans. Could you please post a link to the boxset you mention... I might want to get a copy .

That GIF is affascinante!

It may be they didn't have access to the mix, but since they had the credits removed an the opening long-take has no dialogue... they could have really lifted the audio from the original.  Oh, well... at least the credits aren't there!

On the other hand, my Italian copy of the DVD is the one of the latest (if not the latest) to come out and the only DVD to have both the theatrical and the reconstruction to my knowledge available.  It does say "Restored in 4K" on the front cover, so I guess it is, unless they incredibly mislabeled it.  My eye is not as trained to judge so!

Here is the cover:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/linfernale...541877236&sr=8-1&keywords=L'infernale+Quinlan

I linked to UK's portal of Amazon.  Beautiful cover, by the way!
The only downside is this edition has no reproduction of Orson Welles' original memo, nor does it have any documentary-featurette about the restoration.

If anyone's interested in watching the 30-minute documentary on the production and restoration of the film, though, I'll link it here:

PART I:

PART II:

As an aside, I saw F for Fake just about some hours ago, with a friend.  I found it amazing.  A revolution in editing and a wonderful essay about humanity's condition and our art.

 

[TM2YC]

The new Netflix Welles doc features several shots from Star Wars and I noticed the source is not the SE. Kudos to the editor that made that choice .

 

[Handman]

The new Netflix Welles doc features several shots from Star Wars and I noticed the source is not the SE. Kudos to the editor that made that choice .

Do you recognize the source?  Despecialized, 4k77, SSE, even GOUT?

 

[TM2YC]

The new Netflix Welles doc features several shots from Star Wars and I noticed the source is not the SE. Kudos to the editor that made that choice .

Do you recognize the source?  Despecialized, 4k77, SSE, even GOUT?

People more learned in Star Wars sources would have to verify but if I had to guess... on close inspection, I think some shots are just the regular SE blu-ray (because they look HD) and then for shots like the Death Star explosion, whoever edited this documentary decided "We ain't having that CGI cr*p in our movie" and reached for the GOUT DVD (it looks lower res to my eyes). I wonder if they got Lucasfilm permission to do that? Or just thought it was better not to ask permission .

Screenshots:



(^ Click image for full res image)

(There are other shots)

 

[Canon Editor]

I’m not that good, but would say all apart from the last two are from the Special Editions.  Glad to know, in fact!

 

[Jrzag42]

I know next to nothing about Orsen Welles. I should become more cultured. 
What's the best film of his to start with?

 

[Neglify]

I know next to nothing about Orsen Welles. I should become more cultured. 
What's the best film of his to start with?

I say start at the beginning, Citizen Kane.

 

[Canon Editor]

Yep, start with that @"jrWHAG42".  His masterpieces are commonly said to be Kane, Touch of Evil and Chimes at Midnight.  According to him, The Trial would be on that list too (I have yet to see it).
Close behind I would place F for Fake, a groundbreaking video essay (about truth, art and... editing!) and his 40-years-in-the-making last movie, released on Netflix last 2nd of November, The Other Side of the Wind (you can find more on that one in the beautiful Netflix documentary They'll Love Me When I'm Dead).  
I truly believe that, as great a movie his second outing The Magnificent Ambersons can be, it deserves a spot all its own: the studio butchered the original cut and we will probably never get to see what the original was like, since they burned the original negatives.
The Stranger, The Lady from Shanghai and Mr. Arkadin deserve a watch too if you're interested, but all are movies somewhat tinkered by the studio and somewhat less important than his other masterpieces.  You might as well not forget Macbeth and Othello, which are said to be two of the most bold representations of Shakespeare out there (the latter also won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1952), and The Immortal Story, his first film in colour.  

His most famous and celebrated role as an actor is in Carol Reed's The Third Man from 1949, and his work in theatre and on the radio with the Mercury Theatre on Air at the beginning of his carreer is also fondly remembered. 

I hope this little summary-guide may help you in the discovery of this great director and his oeuvre. This artist's genius can not be overstated.