An Orson Welles film was horribly edited — will cinematic justice finally be done?
One of the greatest American directors of the 20th century is known for only a few films.
After Orson Welles made his masterpiece Citizen Kane in 1941, he fought bitterly with the studios that released his subsequent films — often after they bowdlerized Welles' work. Films such as The Lady from Shanghai and The Magnificent Ambersons were drastically changed and cut, altering the auteur's vision.
Now, a Welles superfan named Brian Rose — himself an accomplished filmmaker — has used animation and countless hours of painstaking research to recreate missing footage from The Magnificent Ambersons.
Welles started filming what was intended to be his second masterpiece in 1941, hot from the success of Citizen Kane. The movie is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Booth Tarkington.
Welles, who had already adapted the novel for radio, wanted to tell a timeless story about Americans buffeted by unsettling new technology and economic decline through the fortunes of a small town's richest family. He was given a princely budget and built an entire mansion with moveable walls for filming. But costs kept mounting and RKO studio executives disliked the film's dark take on American aristocracy, especially in the jingoistic era before World War II.
"The studio took his 131-minute version of The Magnificent Ambersons. They cut it down to 88 minutes," says Ray Kelly, who runs the Orson Welles fansite Wellesnet. "Not only that, they took out the ending, which was rather bleak, and replaced it with a very Hollywood happy ending that doesn't seem to fit the mood of the film in total."
All in all, Kelly says, only 13 scenes out of 73 were left untouched. And despite all the studio's re-editing and the unconvincing happy ending, The Magnificent Ambersons was still a massive flop. RKO burned its silver nitrate negatives to salvage the silver and make space to store other movies.
"So Welles' version has been lost to history," Kelly says.
Not so fast, says filmmaker Brian Rose. "Fortunately, the film is remarkably well-documented for a film that was so badly altered," he says. "There is quite a lot that can be inferred from the surviving materials."
So that's what he's doing, using animation and voice actors to fill the gaps.
Rose is not the first to attempt to reconstruct The Magnificent Ambersons. Several other Welles enthusiasts have attempted to correct what Kelly calls "the challenge of undoing a cinematic injustice" through various means. But none have used animation.
"A lot of it was based on photographs and on diagrams of camera placements and descriptions of scenes," Rose explains. Plus, new technology.
"Basically, in a 3D environment, I rebuilt all the sets from diagrams and photographs," he continues. "The challenge was populating them with characters. I took for inspiration the original storyboards, which were hand-drawn pencil and charcoal, very ethereal looking, kind of like the world of the Ambersons. They feel like there's a haze over them. So even when I do take the artistic license of creating these scenes in animation, they still are referencing they still draw a reference to Welles' original artistic vision."
There is also a bit of a haze over this project regarding intellectual property rights and how legal it is to be animating this fan version of The Magnificent Ambersons. "The thought was to beg forgiveness later," Rose admits.
The filmmaker is not going to get rich with this passion project. Indeed, he's sunk a considerable amount of his own resources into what he hopes is a respectful and scholarly transformational work.
Rose hopes to eventually share his version of The Magnificent Ambersons with other Orson Welles fanatics. A screening is planned as part of a series at the Free Library of Philadelphia. And he'd love for it to be packaged as part of a Criterion Collection edition. In the era of TikTok, it's an homage to a wounded film.
Edited by Ciera Crawford
Produced by Isabella Gomez Sarmiento
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Transcript
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
We have an update on one of the most influential film directors of the 20th century, Orson Welles.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CITIZEN KANE")
ORSON WELLES: (As Charles Foster Kane) Rosebud.
SCHMITZ: Of course, that is "Citizen Kane," the 1941 classic, his best-known film. Welles followed it up with another potential classic, "The Magnificent Ambersons." The studio, RKO, didn't think so. They recut it without his approval. Welles later said, they destroyed "Ambersons," and it destroyed me. But there's new hope. NPR's Neda Ulaby reports that an Orson Welles superfan is using animation to conjure up the director's lost vision.
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: "The Magnificent Ambersons" is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS")
WELLES: (As narrator) The magnificence of the Ambersons began in 1873.
ULABY: Orson Welles wanted to tell a story about small-town Americans buffeted by unsettling new technology and economic decline through the fortunes of the town's richest family.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) There it is.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) The Amberson mansion, the pride of the town.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) Well, well.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) Sixty thousand dollars for the woodwork alone.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As character) Hot and cold running water...
ULABY: Welles was hot from "Citizen Kane." In 1941, he was given a princely budget and built an entire mansion with movable walls for filming. But costs kept mounting, and the studio hated the film's dark take on American aristocracy.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS")
WELLES: (As narrator) This was the last walk home he was ever to take up National Avenue to Amberson Edition, the big old house at the foot of Amberson Boulevard.
RAY KELLY: So the studio took his 131-minute version of "The Magnificent Ambersons." They cut it down to 88 minutes.
ULABY: Ray Kelly runs an Orson Welles fan site called Wellesnet.
KELLY: They took out the ending, which was rather bleak, and replaced it with a very Hollywood happy ending that doesn't seem to fit the mood of the film.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS")
AGNES MOOREHEAD: (As Fanny Minafer) How is Georgie?
JOSEPH COTTEN: (As Eugene Morgan) He's going to be all right.
ULABY: All in all, only 13 scenes out of more than 70 were left untouched, Kelly says. And in spite of all the re-editing and the fake happy ending, "The Magnificent Ambersons" was still a massive flop. The studio, RKO, burned its silver-nitrate negatives to salvage the silver and to make space to store other movies.
KELLY: So Welles' version has been lost to history.
ULABY: Not so fast. Here's forensic filmmaker Brian Rose.
BRIAN ROSE: Fortunately, the film is remarkably well documented for a film that was so badly altered.
ULABY: Rose had access to photographs, to the original storyboards, the original title cards and a detailed description of what was shown, scene by scene, to the first test audiences. And he had new technology.
ROSE: So basically, in a 3D environment, I rebuilt all the sets from diagrams and photographs.
ULABY: And he used black-and-white animation to recreate lost scenes.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE ACTOR #1: (As character) I won't go home now, Harry. Drive to the city hospital.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE ACTOR #2: (As Harry) Yes, sir.
ULABY: Voice actors speak while the animated images create a sense of what was lost. Rose is the first to say the animation's pretty simple, intended to evoke the pencil and charcoal storyboards they're drawn from.
ROSE: They sort of feel like there's a haze over them, and I wanted to try to recapture that.
ULABY: There is also a bit of a haze over this project when it comes to the intellectual property rights and how legal it is to be animating this fan version of "The Magnificent Ambersons."
ROSE: The thought was to beg forgiveness later.
ULABY: Brian Rose hopes he can eventually legally share his version of "The Magnificent Ambersons" with other Orson Welles fanatics. Later this month, it'll get screened as part of a series at The Free Library, Philadelphia, and he'd love for it to be packaged as part of a Criterion Collection edition. Rose is not expecting to make any money from a version of this project that's more scholarly than commercial. It's a passion project. In the era of TikTok, it's an homage to a wounded film.
Neda Ulaby, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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