It's All True

The history behind Orson Welles' planned third feature, after his debut (which we all know the name of) and during his troubled post-production on Magnificent Ambersons and role in Journey into Fear, is as fascinating and miraculous as the footage still salvaged. Welles was sent down to make a "good-will" doc on a carnival in Rio. When he got there, he was over-whelmed with the "humanity" of the people, and got pieces of footage whenever he was awake during the time of the carnival. He also filmed footage on a sound-stage (one of his few times to work with color) of the people in their celebration. But as he focused a crucial part of his documentary on a story he read on Time, about four impoverished, immensely courageous fishermen wanting to see their government and sailing hundreds of miles over two months on a raft to do so, the plug was pulled on the film. Apparently the studio, which switched hands (hence, the Ambersons situation), didn't like what Welles' was showing them, which was a bunch of dailies without the essential musical element. So, Welles, not fazed by the rumors that he was partying the whole time with the Brazilian brethren, did what any creative genius would do- he went from being a wunderkind in Hollywood to a Guerilla filmmaker along the high seas.

It's All True, the original title of the scrapped-by-the-studios project, is put into two parts, and while it resonates with the kind of movie-doc exposition of Lost in La Mancha in the first part, the second part is simply put, Wellesian. Richard Wilson (once Welles' assistant), Bill Krohn, and Myron Meisel, gather up interviews with the real locals from the time, or relatives, and put together a sort of video history on the tale of the Jangadeiros, and Welles's impact on the people (many of whom never saw a movie before). First, there are wonderful, if all-too-brief, clips of an unfinished part of the documentary called "My Friend Bonito". Then, we get to see an inside look at how the (un-true) rumors of Welles' debauchery that supposedly ruined the project, ironically, forced Welles' to cut corners to get his vision done - which becomes more intense after the original leader of the fishermen, Jacare, dies in a drowning accident. There are interesting interviews as well with Welles and his collaborators. Some of this is rather adulatory, but it's also enthralling as a trip into a time capsule, and into a director's process (i.e. using an extremely limited budget to finish the film).

And the second part of the film is, aside from the part on the film's checkered history, is a unique example of history itself. "Four Men on a Raft", Welles' silent-film dramatization of the events as detailed in the Time article, is for me one of the greatest silent films never seen. Like in Citizen Kane, he uses some of his trademarks, like inventive low-angles and deep focus, but as well he implements such a heavy documentary style (some have said it's "Eisenstein-like", which I can see since it concerns a story of the working people against the fascist-types), it's no less than one of Welles' most daring feats as a director. Although this version has no audible dialog (people talk, no voices), and unlike many other silent-films there are no inter-titles explaining what they say. On top of that, there is a musical score provided by Jorge Arrigada that is rousing and pretty appropriate for the tones and sections of the film, but is arguably not what Welles' might have used. What is extraordinary about this kind of dramatized (and I say dramatized because there is an added love story in the mix, not based on truth) film is that it's the precursor to neo-realism that barely saw the light of day.

It's amazing that by himself, Welles' managed to form together his own sort of storytelling style in what remains of his film, that is very simplistic and completely with non-actors, and makes it work as a remarkable piece of art. The camera just watches things happen, and how it watches is all the more special in how Welles, with his cinematographer George Fanto, uses as much expressionism as naturalism in the compositions. Bottom line, this one part of the film is as courageous as the people who inspired it, and as a piece of film history, It's All True successfully provides insight and enjoyment. After all, what better way to showcase Orson's passion for life and film with a Samba!

At the start of WWII, Orson Welles was sent to Brazil with $1,000,000 to shoot Carnival as a good will gesture. New management at RKO disliked what they saw of what he was shooting and pulled the plug, but Welles stuck around as long as he could to complete shooting the true story of 4 fisherman who sailed a small raft along the coast to Rio to petition the President for equal access to public resources.

This 1993 documentary is essentially a half hour that tells this story, and then an hour of the footage Welles shot presented in as complete a version as possible. It's incredible footage that clearly isn't complete since it's largely without sound, but it's dazzling to look at. Welles gets really incredible performances from locals who are not only not actors, but have never seen a camera or even a film before.

After Citizen Kane, Orson Welles's next film is supposed to be It's All True, a collection of short documentary stories of real people around the world. He is rehearsing The Magnificent Ambersons when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He is recruited by Rockefeller and others to do a film in Brazil to entice the Nazi-leaning dictatorship. He rushes to finish both the Ambersons and Journey Into Fear simultaneously just in time to get to Rio for Carnival. There he finds two stories to add to his It's All True documentary.

It's a fascinating cinematic history. The Brazil stories are also fascinating on their own. They do get to the section where the unreleased footage is put together. I would like for a narrator to give this section more color but the visual is still fascinating. It's a fascinating documentary and a must for cinephiles.

It's All True (1993)

*** (out of 4)

Fascinating documentary about the trouble Orson Welles fell into with RKO when he finished up THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS and went to Brazil to film what was basically a South American trilogy. Welles was involved in three films: MY FRIEND BONITO, filmed in Mexico about a boy and his donkey; CARNAVAL, which footage shown here is in glorious Technicolor; and FOUR MEN ON A RAFT, which contains the majority of the footage here. IT'S ALL TRUE isn't going to be a movie for everyone and I'd imagine that most people would find it deadly dull and lifeless. Film buffs, however, should get a real kick out of it but the sad thing is that you could remake this movie a dozens times because it happened so often to Welles. The documentary starts off at the end of CITIZEN KANE when Welles was already considered controversial. It then moves onto the disastrous screening of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS where Welles thought he'd have a chance to re-edit the movie but instead the studio did it behind his back. We then get into the filming of the three films and learn of the various issues that happened including the lack of money, a curse from a voodoo man and eventually the studio taking the films away. In a bit of great luck, the footage to the three movies were discovered in 1985 and seeing the footage is interesting. CARNAVAL really stuck out to me because of the amazing colors, which just leap off the screen in Technicolor. The footage looks remarkably well and just look at the wonderful details in the costumes that the people are wearing. The stuff on FOUR MEN ON A RAFT has the most footage and also gets quite a bit of a backstory about the real event, the real tragedy and of course how Welles got involved and what he did to try and save the film. Film buffs and fans of Welles will certainly want to check this out. We get some nice interviews with people who worked on the film as well as relatives to those actual people that the film is based on.

I loved this examination of Welles' South American misadventures, because it challenged and successfully overturned my prejudices towards Welles; namely, that in his early years he squandered much of his talent and potential while becoming Hollywood's "bad boy," partying in the streets of Rio on RKO's tab until they had no choice but to pull the plug on his project. Instead, the filmmakers paint a much more sincere portrait of Welles as a committed filmmaker and artist, with circumstances beyond his control ultimately destroying not just his hard work, but the hopes of an entire oppressed underclass.

Amazingly, the filmmakers were able to locate the survivors (and their relatives) to piece together, first the chronology of Welles' stay in Brazil, and eventually the raw footage itself, to give us at least a glimpse of what Welles had planned to release. It's also a fascinating look at the early documentary tradition pioneered by Robert Flaherty and John Grierson (though ultimately I think the evidence suggests Welles may have been more influenced by Eisensteinian agit-prop).

For anyone interested in a sympathetic portrayal of American cinema's most praised and controversial director, I highly recommend IT'S ALL TRUE.