they showed the Moby Dick sermon too, which OW allegedly did in one take after downing a bottle Huston gave him for stage fright.
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 18 January 2015 18:07 (nine years ago) link
that falstaff's good got chimes at midnight dvd a while ago been meaning to watch looking forward to it saw for the first time henry iv 2 last night and 1 last week
― conrad, Sunday, 18 January 2015 19:35 (nine years ago) link
Resaw The Immortal Story, made for French TV circa '68... adap of Isak Dinesen, sort of his hourlong Eyes Wide Shut w/ OW as Dying Wealth, Jeanne Moreau as Middle Age (discreetly palming her nipples in nude scenes), some blond Brit hunkstiff as Youth. Stilted and solemn, but I like it.
Shot in amber glow by Willy Kurant, he of the amazing filmography from Masculin-Feminin to Pootie Tang.
http://images.moviepostershop.com/the-immortal-story-movie-poster-1968-1020488190.jpg
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 22 January 2015 13:05 (nine years ago) link
Hadn't seen It's All True in 20 years. The reconstruction of "Four Men on a Raft" really is a helluva silent film, and the whole story of OW's sojourn down there is incredible.
complete 1993 version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hy-4cI3EVc
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 25 January 2015 23:34 (nine years ago) link
I definitely sensed a queer sub(barely)text in The Trial this time... OW admitted as much from Perkins casting, also the BDSM flogging scene in what appears to be a broom closet.
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 1 February 2015 17:04 (nine years ago) link
David Thomson is quite high on The Immortal Story; I keep forgetting to check YouTube availability.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 1 February 2015 17:40 (nine years ago) link
it aint there. wait to see it properly, it's got to make the rounds at some point.
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 1 February 2015 17:56 (nine years ago) link
Chimes print!
http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/how-a-near-pristine-35mm-print-of-orson-welles-chimes-at-midnight-was-found-20150227
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 1 March 2015 16:25 (nine years ago) link
!
― I am not BLECCH (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 1 March 2015 16:58 (nine years ago) link
new book on The Other Side of the Wind, and an excerpt:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/orson-welless-last-movie-book-786518
Still in its infancy, Century City was nothing more than a few mirrored buildings and lots of construction dirt when Welles arrived. He transformed it into a neo-futuristic landscape by putting large mirrors on rolling platforms, then positioning them in ways that turned the reflections of the existing buildings into a strange world that existed nowhere but in his own mind and then on celluloid.
Securing a permit for Gary Graver Productions, Welles skirted additional fees by having Graver erase the date each time it expired and enter a new one. By Christmas, they’d rubbed a hole right through the permit.
Since Hannaford's film was supposed to be beautifully composed, faux-symbolic nonsense, Welles ran wild in Century City, conceiving visuals and then taking them to extremes. With no sound and Orson directing him on the fly, actor Bob Random (who played the lead in Hannaford’s film-within-the-film) recalled, the experience was like “a silent movie, except you never knew what you were going to do.”
During this period, Welles also fell in love with the idea of creating his own wind and had the crew load a Ritter fan (an airplane propeller on a giant motor) onto a truck and haul it around to various locations, where Random would drive his motorcycle into a blistering dust storm they’d manufactured or spend half a day walking into a blizzard of garbage that crew members were tossing into the fan.
Graver was able to rent the MGM back lot for $200 a day by having the crew pose as U.C.L.A. film students and making Orson duck whenever they drove past the security gate. Once inside, Welles filmed on half-demolished Western sets where tumbleweeds blew across the street, and shot as much footage as humanly possible, culminating in a final, 72-hour filming spree that took place over a three-day weekend.
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/04/orson-welles-the-other-side-of-the-wind-making-of
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 15 April 2015 03:31 (nine years ago) link
Some great anecdotes throughout... "Idiot, I haven't the foggiest idea what to do!"
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 15 April 2015 15:09 (nine years ago) link
looks great, thanks! wonder what they were spiking their frescas withhttp://photos.vanityfair.com/2015/04/10/552823982447462e4e0113f5_orson-welles-citizen-kane-the-other-side-of-the-wind.jpg
― tylerw, Wednesday, 15 April 2015 15:21 (nine years ago) link
Huston made the same life decision per drinking vs driving i did (choosing the first).
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 15 April 2015 15:28 (nine years ago) link
finally saw chimes @ midnight, and it lives up to the hype! welles's editing (esp. his sound editing) is so eccentric, you wouldn't mistake it for anyone else's.
― he quipped with heat (amateurist), Wednesday, 15 April 2015 16:27 (nine years ago) link
haven't watched that in forever, but it's definitely stuck with me. far and away the best shakespeare film i've ever seen.
― tylerw, Wednesday, 15 April 2015 17:01 (nine years ago) link
otm, by a very long ways
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 15 April 2015 17:08 (nine years ago) link
this is where i say 'not even OW's best shakespeare film'
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 15 April 2015 17:09 (nine years ago) link
curious, but I can't imagine it's better than Macbeth
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 15 April 2015 17:12 (nine years ago) link
it is! just not Othello.
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 15 April 2015 17:23 (nine years ago) link
haven't seen othello in a long time but i remember thinking that welles's own performance in it wasn't quite as good as it should have been.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 15 April 2015 17:26 (nine years ago) link
othello is great, possible i just prefer the chimes at midnight plays more than that one.
― tylerw, Wednesday, 15 April 2015 17:26 (nine years ago) link
ranked in descending order:
Chimes at MidnightMacbethOthello
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 15 April 2015 17:27 (nine years ago) link
as i said last time i saw it, some of the Chimes dialogue is unintelligible. That's kind of important (and I've seen most of the Falstaff plays! Some more than once).
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 15 April 2015 17:29 (nine years ago) link
Oh, there isn't one of these films marred by budget constraints. CAM is the most realized though. I like David Thomson's line about Welles' capturing the "sea spray" of Shakespeare in Othello.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 15 April 2015 17:34 (nine years ago) link
i do think Othello is in toto helped by the fly-by-night makin' it up vibe! which also is the most hopeful element of Other Side to me, reading that VF excerpt (hint hint).
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 15 April 2015 17:38 (nine years ago) link
last time i saw chimes i got a bit distracted by some of the dialogue being out of sync. i assume that nobody's tried a serious restoration just because no one's been able to sort out who actually owns the film.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 15 April 2015 17:40 (nine years ago) link
the "lost" welles film i'd really love to see somehow salvaged is don quixote, but i have a feeling it's never gonna happen.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 15 April 2015 17:41 (nine years ago) link
who knows? i think they said that about other side of the wind, too, but it seems like that'll happen sooner rather than later.
― tylerw, Wednesday, 15 April 2015 17:44 (nine years ago) link
There was a Chimes restoration a few years back that made it on to DVD before Beatrice W squashed it. They did a great job sync'ing the audio and - well - it's an overall excellent restoration! It's floating around on the 'nets. Also my fave Welles Shakespeare film by a long margin.
― Acid Hose (Capitaine Jay Vee), Wednesday, 15 April 2015 22:45 (nine years ago) link
the restoration i saw cleared a lot of that up. there were still some lines (unfortunately a few of gielgud's) that were quasi-intelligible, but most was fine. and yeah, you don't really want to miss the dialogue. among other things, C.A.M. served as a great reminder that Shakespeare is funny as hell. the guy playing Prince Hal was fantastic, as was Margaret rutherford. Gielgud goes w/o saying.
i think that there are some challenges to comprehension aside from the murky sound quality, mostly the manic sound editing such that there's often little pause between lines of dialogue. my senses is that both C.A.M. and othello were shot completely "wild" and everything you hear was added in a studio, which allowed him to manipulate the dialogue for rhythmic effect. I wonder when Welle's first fully "post" film was... "Lady from Shanghai" probably has some synch dialogue but not much.
― he quipped with heat (amateurist), Friday, 17 April 2015 18:49 (nine years ago) link
the dialogue is just out of synch a lot of the time, sometimes you hear a line and the character just doesn't open their mouth at all. or they are moving their mouth but no dialogue! i think welles just didn't give a fuck. but frankly it's only occasionally distracting. some actors seem to have been looped better than others, and i think that contributed to my impression of the quality of their performances.
anyway, among the seemingly indelible images in this film, the one that sticks in my head the most is of portly falstaff in his adorable-grotesque suit of armor hiding behind some trees, avodiing the battle raging around him.
― he quipped with heat (amateurist), Friday, 17 April 2015 18:51 (nine years ago) link
i meant to write, the dialogue is NOT just out of synch....
btw i think the rights issues with Chimes have mostly cleared up and there will be a few legit video releases soon.
but then again, this stuff is pretty strictly believe-it-when-I-see-it, since it seems like every year or even month comes with a new announcement that various parties are "very close" to working out the rights issues/restoration problems/etc. on this or that unfinished or obscure Orson Welles film, and then nothing has happened. people (including Peter Bogdanovich) have been trying to get Other Side of the Wind assembled and released for... 25 years? 35?
― he quipped with heat (amateurist), Friday, 17 April 2015 18:54 (nine years ago) link
On the post-synch tip: it's always fun in later Welles films ( or at least from "Othello" on ) to play "Which One's Welles?" since he'd provide often large chunks of the male voices himself.
― Acid Hose (Capitaine Jay Vee), Friday, 17 April 2015 19:59 (nine years ago) link
Centennial Week
"You’d better be good in this scene or else I’ll have to use a close up.”
https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/rosenbaum-on-welles-at-100
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Monday, 4 May 2015 19:43 (eight years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPDgGxLb2OM
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 5 May 2015 21:18 (eight years ago) link
Happy 100 Great Man!
― Acid Hose (Capitaine Jay Vee), Wednesday, 6 May 2015 13:53 (eight years ago) link
I believe the only OW feature screening in NYC today is F for Fake. Fuckin' hipsters.
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 6 May 2015 14:32 (eight years ago) link
Who Run The World
― Norse Jung (Eric H.), Wednesday, 6 May 2015 14:34 (eight years ago) link
(the Maysles Cinema, actually)
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 6 May 2015 14:37 (eight years ago) link
from the new FX Feeney bio:
"This was the America in which Welles was functioning. If we interpret his life strictly in terms of his frustrated relations with the film industry, we lose touch with what he actually cared about, and what he meant to his contemporaries. If we free our eyes from the gunk of Hollywood-Golden-Age nostalgia, we can view Welles more fairly and fully in the greater context of American history. In such a context, his years in Europe after 1947 cease to be an abdication, as many have posited, and constitute a stance. If we take the mythic Hollywood line that Welles was a dangerous and ungrateful houseguest who misbehaved and was sent packing, we buy into a narrative that affirms the conformity of the 1940s and '50s that brought us the blacklist, and implies: That's just too bad; that's how things are. If instead we accept the challenge of thinking in a larger political context—as Welles always did—we're faced with a tale of independence and a man who was always devoted to building a better world, long before he got to Hollywood, and who stayed on that course long after he left town: building worlds for himself, if no one else, come what may."
http://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/a-citizen-of-the-world-orson-welles-at-100/
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 6 May 2015 15:10 (eight years ago) link
roundups:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/criticwire/the-best-writing-on-orson-welles-100th-birthday-20150506
https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-welles-100
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 6 May 2015 17:42 (eight years ago) link
i think it's possible for both of things feeney talks about to be true. studios weren't knocking at his door, but of many available options he chose to go to europe and make art films (sort of). he could have wound up hosting a regular TV show (which he actually did, but never for very long), writing novels, whatever.
it's impossible not to be entertained by stories about welles's appetite for good food and good conversation.
― he quipped with heat (amateurist), Wednesday, 6 May 2015 17:48 (eight years ago) link
Americans seem constitutionally averse to buying all-region DVD players, but this Region 2 DVD of Chimes is fine, and has been available legit for two or three years:
http://www.mrbongo.com/products/falstaff-chimes-at-midnight
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 6 May 2015 18:32 (eight years ago) link
outside the Callow bio that Lumenick piece is the only one I've read about Welles' Post columns
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 6 May 2015 19:22 (eight years ago) link
xpost
i've heard bad things about that DVD? anyway, mr. bongo in the UK is putting out a putatively "restored" version on Blu-Ray, and Criterion will do the same in the US. so just wait a few months and you'll have yr fill of Welles's Falstaff.
― he quipped with heat (amateurist), Wednesday, 6 May 2015 19:54 (eight years ago) link
Criterion confirmed?
― Norse Jung (Eric H.), Wednesday, 6 May 2015 20:02 (eight years ago) link
hints
http://www.wellesnet.com/will-criterion-be-releasing-chimes-at-midnight-on-blu-ray-and-dvd/
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 6 May 2015 20:15 (eight years ago) link
the Janus imprimatur seems like a guarantee
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 6 May 2015 20:20 (eight years ago) link
woo!
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 6 May 2015 20:27 (eight years ago) link