water, wind, faces and music. containing some of the most beautiful footage ever recorded in brazil, welles’ tender, inventive and observative eye is put to great use in this wonderful compendium of politics, art, representation and life.

Nosso Getúlio fez cara feia, um dos carinhas da Jangada morreu e a RKO mandou o diretor voltar para casa quando já tinham destruído a edição e o sentido de Soberba. Nesse ano foi lançado os resquícios do filme da política da boa vizinhança de Orson Welles e fica claro que este é expressivo demais para concorrer com o Zé Carioca. Tudo bem, isso acabou rendendo uma vida de obsessão ao Sganzerla.

Kind of a mess as a documentary and kind of insulting as a reconstruction (that music, that foley!), but any movie containing this much Orson Welles direction and ideas can't be a complete waste, his genius is pretty much irrepressible. The style and structure of other Welles movies suggest that he may have been a radical, but here it's made explicit as he attempts to utilize RKO funding and U.S. "Good Neighbor" policy in order to make what is essentially a neorealist short about fishermen risking life and limb in a brutally stratified economic system. It's also cool to see him practicing some compositions and visual ideas that will later turn up in his Othello (the nets casting shadows and the funeral procession, specifically). Sadly, the editing and the 1993 soundtrack don't do the footage justice, and we're left with yet another "what coulda been" in Welles filmography.

just when u think u can't love Orson any more, he goes and invents Italian neorealism before the Italian neorealists had ever heard of it. seriously, if this shit hadn't been suppressed by racist RKO execs, i can only imagine the reputation it would have today.

first Eisenstein's ¡Que Viva México!, then this, later Kalatozov's Soy Cuba... why is it that every time a genius filmmaker leaves home for Latin America to make a ridiculously innovative movie exalting the native proletariat, that movie is immediately quashed, shelved, locked in a vault, scattered to the wind by the powers that be...

naturally, there's a handful of zero-budget b/w compositions that beats the hell out of anything in most filmmakers' filmographies (not to mention that mind-blowing 3-strip technicolor footage of the Brazilians moshing to samba). God willing, some day all the surviving unedited footage will be restored, assembled with a bit more taste than it is here, and get its due.

The early documentary on Welle's unfinished film about Rio is fascinating, but when we finally get to the footage he shot, it's akin to watching a bunch of outtakes sloppily put together. Those sound effects!

Woof.

I guess it's better than Jess Franco's edit of Orson Welle's DON QUIXOTE? But not by much.

30 minutes of pretty basic (but informative) documentary filmmaking, and 50 minutes of beautiful footage from Welles’ unfinished masterpiece. Made me really sad. Fuck RKO.

“Of course, we all live with our past, but I try not to encourage it to misbehave.”
– Orson Welles

Inevitável a tentação de pensar que não deixa de rondar aqui uma velha ironia: trata-se de mais um filme em que a montagem fugiu das mãos de Welles. Duas vezes.

Some real fascinating stuff presented here, not quite rising above studio butchery the way surviving versions of Welles' other films have (but hey, those other films were at least completed in some form), but still undeniably worthwhile. But I think of Orson's ghost watching his abandoned footage glued onto these cheap foley effects and music and it makes me a little sad.

The rhythm of the samba. To us neighbors, it doesn't sound easy and it doesn't look easy, but Brazilian babies can beat out samba rhythm before they can talk. And they can uh... dance to the sound of samba before they can walk. At least that's what I was told. And I believe it.

Orson Welles's rediscovered reels are shown to completely disprove the rumors of his riotous filming in Brazil, since what we witness here is high-quality cinema that also exposes the odious priorities of those film studio executives who couldn’t care less about the work of a genius.

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A must see for Welles die hards. Everyone else not so much. I’ll forever be annoyed at Hollywood for fucking over Orson his entire life.

Os monumentos do que poderia ter sido.

Goodness only knows what format this would’ve been compiled as had it been seen to fruition, or how Welles’ career might have played out differently. It’s quite possible nothing would have considering the film’s subversive undertones.

Side note: I feel something in this format would be the only way really that Don Quixote could see justice, rather than attempting a full feature.

Amidst the production of The Magnificent Ambersons, a movie that was actively being stripped from Welles' creative control, he went down to Brazil due to the impending war and the US desire to curb Nazi influence in South America. The intended results of these two creative efforts would never be truly revealed, as the footage from It's All True and the Welles cut of Ambersons would both become lost. It wasn't until the 80's the the footage from Brazil would be discovered. It's unfortunate that the discovery would not lead to anything more significant than this documentary. Although it is historically fascinating, and Welles' footage is undeniably his, this specific doc feels as far from a Welles' DNA as Hubie Halloween. It seems misguided to use this cinematic artifact this way and unfortunately, I couldn't shake that feeling throughout. However, it's an artifact regardless and seeing it at all is certainly valuable.

I partly wish this had been done in a style closer to say, Oja Kodar’s One-Man Band, because the first half of this isn’t all that interesting, and the Welles-shot stuff is beautiful but a bit like looking at a plate of ingredients and knowing that it will help make a meal but not knowing what the meal is?

Inevitável a tentação de pensar que não deixa de rondar aqui uma velha ironia: trata-se de mais um filme em que a montagem fugiu das mãos de Welles. Duas vezes.

just when u think u can't love Orson any more, he goes and invents Italian neorealism before the Italian neorealists had ever heard of it. seriously, if this shit hadn't been suppressed by racist RKO execs, i can only imagine the reputation it would have today.

first Eisenstein's ¡Que Viva México!, then this, later Kalatozov's Soy Cuba... why is it that every time a genius filmmaker leaves home for Latin America to make a ridiculously innovative movie exalting the native proletariat, that movie is immediately quashed, shelved, locked in a vault, scattered to the wind by the powers that be...

naturally, there's a handful of zero-budget b/w compositions that beats the hell out of anything in most filmmakers' filmographies (not to mention that mind-blowing 3-strip technicolor footage of the Brazilians moshing to samba). God willing, some day all the surviving unedited footage will be restored, assembled with a bit more taste than it is here, and get its due.

10.14.20

check website for showtimes

www.cinephobe.tv

Holy shit

Of the many attempts to restore the vision of unfinished Welles projects, this will remain the most important, not just from the realm of film restoration but within the cultural impact that the footage unveils within the history of world affairs. There are stories of importance packaged in this cinematic act of redemption that exceed Welles... as Im sure Welles would be most pleased.

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Orson Welles's rediscovered reels are shown to completely disprove the rumors of his riotous filming in Brazil, since what we witness here is high-quality cinema that also exposes the odious priorities of those film studio executives who couldn’t care less about the work of a genius.

More reviews on filmotrope.com