07/11/2002 Entry:
"Working With Orson Welles - Gary Graver (1993)"

Things are very very busy right now with work right now, and I've been trying to actually see a movie or two on the weekend. I actually wrote this piece three days ago and haven't had time to put it up until now. I have pieces to write about ivans xtc and Where Is The Friend's House? which will hopefully show up sometime next week, plus I'm seeing Life And Nothing More and Sunshine State this weekend. Anyways, on with the crap.

I'm really not all that familiar with Welles' history or his work when it comes right down to it. Of the films he's directed, I've only seen Citizen Kane, A Touch Of Evil and Othello. I was hoping this documentary would offer some history and fill in some context for his work, but I was sadly disappointed. Working With Orson Welles was put together by Gary Graver, who worked as Welles' cameraman for his later films, and it largely covers the making of one of Welles' unfinished works - The Other Side Of The Wind. Graver interviews various people involved with the project and offers up some clips and things, but it is all done just so poorly. A friend of mine described it as being like "you got cornered by Graver at a party for an hour and a half" and he really hit the nail on the head with that one.

First, the whole thing is edited terribly. The interview segments could easily be cut down to make them more interesting, there are terrible obviously filmed later reaction shots from Graver interspersed through them, and clips from Welles' work are dropped in at various points with absolutely no introduction or context. At least one of these clips, of Welles acting in some film, is not even identified. Later, a trailer for Jaded, a film by Graver and Oda Kolja, is shown completely out of context to anything which was said around it. Its almost as if the editing was put together for the purpose of padding the whole thing out, but this project shouldn't need padding. There are interviews with John Huston, Susan Strasberg, Peter Bogdanovich, Curtis Harrington, Frank Marshall...I can't imagine there isn't an hour and a half of usable interesting material there. My cat could interview Bogdanovich for an hour and a half and come out with something interesting, its not like the guy has nothing to say.

The camerawork on some of these interviews is pretty awful as well. During the Bogdanovich interview in particular, the camera zooms in and out with no apparent purpose, as if whoever was running it was simply bored and felt the need to "liven things up." I looked up Graver on imdb and noticed that ever since his work with Welles, the majority of his work has been softcore porn, which explains his shooting style completely.

Still, all of these technical details could have been forgiven if the film was simply interesting, but its not. The stories are kind of interesting in spots, but they mostly drag. All too often the stories are reduced to Welles cheerleading, and it gets tiresome. I mean, I'm completely unfamiliar with this period in Welles' life, but it seemed to me that he wasn't doing his best work during this time. And while I'm sure it was fascinating being on the set with him, I would have liked to see some other viewpoints addressed. Graver also introduces himself into the proceeding a little too often, and although he is trying to act as narrator, he is very off the cuff and unplanned (which doesn't work.) Then the clips and editing remove any kind of momentum which the documentary manages to build up at any point. A truly disappointing work, but if one positive thing came out of it its that my interest has been piqued and I feel the need to fill in this historical gap I have.