dawson 3rd draft

7/28/2019 Dawson 3rd Draft

1/11

LF: I was just looking at the American Cinematographer article you did on

OTHELLO. You say in this article that you were going to do a documentary on

Orson Welles?

MD: Interesting that you should mention that. I was recently at a cocktail party in

Chicago, and I was surrounded by friends who were saying "All right Mike; it's time

to get on with the show, so to speak." Originally (CITIZEN WELLES) was thought

of as a 90-minute feature. With Orson Welles, the material...let me give you an

example: a professor who teaches at the University of Tallahassee, was writing a

history of radio, but he kept finding more and more material, and this just went on

and on and on, and that's kind of the way the situation has been with the

documentary. Of course, when you take on Orson Welles, it can become anastronomical Black Hole.

We now have probably about 35 hours of raw footage in the can, shot in all different

formats, including 35mm. We realized we've got a three volume - at ninety minutes

per volume - series of films here. So essentially, Volume 1 is about 80 percent done.

Like with anything though, when you get involved in other projects outside the film

industry, you can get waylaid. So that's where that lies. I'm pursuing the idea of at

least releasing Volume 1. We've got some real rare stuff that I can't divulge, but

what's interesting now is something I had asserted thirty years ago, watching thenews footage about Welles passing and thinking about the mythology of his decline

after CITIZEN KANE and how it should be rectified somehow. He continued to

make masterpieces, but just did so under increasingly difficult circumstances. That's

been essentially my attitude about it.

LF: So does this footage consist of interviews with people and so forth?

MD: Interview footage, some rare footage from the Todd School for Boys, things of

that nature. We in the Midwest have been glad to discover that he sprang from us,and had his formal schooling at the Todd School in Woodstock, which is about an

hour and a half from Chicago. It's like a wonderful little oasis in the middle of the

cornfields, but of course, everything is always expanding.

Michael Dawson interview with Larry

French 2012


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LF: I've talked with Kathleen Spaltro, who wants to put on a show there for the

centennial in 2015. She was the one who spearheaded the effort to save Grace

Hall, the last remaining building at Todd. The council eventually voted against it,

and tore it down to build apartments instead.

MD: That's too bad. When we had Beatrice there as a guest years ago, weactually stayed with the woman and her husband who came up with the money to

restore the Opera House. At that time there were two buildings left from Todd,

the other being, I believe, their stage building, which still remains. It became a

Masonic Lodge before being converted into a condominium complex called

Roger Hall.

TOP: Orson Welles with Todd School class in front of Grace Hall, 1930BOTTOM LEFT: Grace Hall destroyed in 2011BOTTOM RIGHT: Woodstock Opera House


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Woodstock Opera House

MD: As you know, I recently attended the Opera House Orson Welles stage

dedication, an idea conceived by Chuck Workman for his project on Welles. I was

also shooting some footage for these little spots that were going to release forpromoting the 100th anniversary festival, and the 80th anniversary fest next year

(of the 1934 Theatre fest that Welles staged with Hilton Edwards and Michael

Macliammior). Chuck was wondering why there were cameras there at the stage

dedication, because he knows I have my own project. I told him that the joke was

originally, since my project was started in 1988, was CITIZEN WELLES going

to be finished before the 20th Century was over? Now the joke is, Is the film

going to be finished before the end of the 21st Century?

Ive since been approached by several people, including an affiliate of the BBC

which surprised me. They had done the Arena documentary back in 1982,

probably one of the better documentaries on Welles. We put together this

expansive 30-minute work-in-progress trailer, which we did copyright...and one

of the original investors, who wanted us to at least get Volume One done in time

for the 100th birthday, was concerned that I might be giving away things in my

interview for Chuck that they wanted kept secret for my film. So theres been a

bit of pressure from my friends and investors in the project not to show my

cards, so to speak.

LF: You mentioned footage of the Todd School and Roger Hill. Have you thought

of putting some of that together for the celebration next year?

MD: Im going to take a lot of stuff from Volume One and use it for these one-

minute promos, for both next year and the 100th. Itll be showing bits and pieces

of it to promote both the fests and my documentary; hopefully it will serve a two

fold purpose.

So one thing Ive thought about is releasing Volume One at the beginning of

2015, then a few months later release Volume Two, then at the end of the year

release Volume Three. That way, we can get the whole thing off the shelf. Next

year would be a perfect opportunity to show the Woodstock stuff, so its certainly

possible we could show some of it as a work-in progress.


4/11

LF: Last year marked the twentieth anniversary of the restoration of OTHELLO

that you produced for Beatrice and the Welles Estate. What are your thoughts as

you look back on that?

MD: In regards to the Othello restoration, I had wanted Harvey Weinstein and

Miramax to be the distributors. I think they would have done a better job; we

wouldn't have had a situation where there were too many cooks in the kitchen, and I

think it would have made more money. Instead we went with the distributor that we

did, and in getting a project like a Welles film done, one keeps one's silence. One of

the stigmas attached to Orson Welles, even postmortem, is the fact that his projects

have the stigma of being problematic subject matter. We were trying to be altruisticabout it, to just get on with the show, but we had a distributor who played musical

chairs with the laboratories, they had some problems with the timing on the

dialogue track, and it became over processed. I had a DAT tape that I would listen

to, and with all these test prints that were being made in New York and sent back to

Chicago, it became clear that something was not right. Unfortunately, it got far

enough down the road so that even at the (World premiere) screening at the Lincoln

Center, it was just not our soundtrack.

The other producer Arnie Saks, and I, tried to send them some original elements tomake changes, but as it turns out, the distributor had gotten a hold of a test track,

thinking it was a master track, and an untimed work print which they used as an

interpositive for making a duplicate negative. Obviously, because they did not

realize they were in possession of the wrong elements, they did additional work in

an attempt to rectify the situation for the theatrical release. It was during that

process that they did a couple of things that we disagreed with. One was that they

eliminated the chanting of the monks, in Latin, at the beginning of the film. We

said, "What the hell are you guys doing?" and they said, "Well, modern audiencesdon't understand Latin anyway, so we're going to yank that out." It was one of those

moments where you can put yourself in a straight jacket if you're not careful. Even

Jonathon Rosenbaum called them up and said "Put it back in." So the chanting was

back in time for the film's Academy VHS release.

1992 Othello Restoration


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We improved the image quality for the UK and Image discs. After the Image DVD

was released, Cinar released a VHS having obtained the rights from the now-

defunct Academy Home Entertainment.

Their release on VHS has a documentary on the restoration, and this uses the same

artwork and cover front that was used by Criterion, which we provided. So theres

a VHS made when VHS was still a viable format that has a very clear picture,

virtually artifact free. The primary restoration was done in early 1990-91 when we

were at a crossroads between the analog and digital ages, and there are still purists

who do consider what youre doing in terms of manual restoration versus digital

restoration, how the two compare, etc.

We had a kind of hybrid approach - and of course, the technology has

tremendously evolved - but were real proud that we were a part of that with the

Othello project, and that it turned a Bunsen burner up on studios looking at otherart fare that they had in their archives, which created a restoration industry.

However, the term restoration took on a more expansive definition, and it got to

the point where you made a print from a cleaned up negative, and that was

considered a restoration.

Michael Dawson with Welles forMagazine article on the restoration

Original 1-sheet poster for therestored version


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CRITERIONS

OTHELLO LD

MD: In regards to the Criterion release, part of the

problem with the restored version, and peoples

contention with it, is the fact that Criterion had

advertised the laserdisc as the restored version. It

had marketed it as such, and in fact used the same

artwork that was used for the restored version Its

the famous shot that lasts for about a second, in the scene just before Othello kills

Desdemona. Its such a stunning shot, that I said That should be the cover. And it

also became a poster that was utilized, not everywhere, but by several theater chains

as well as the Sarabande CD of the music, and the Cinar VHS release.

Unfortunately, a lot of people bought the Laserdisc thinking they were getting the

restored version. People who bought it would open it up, read the liner notes which

were written by Jonathon Rosenbaum, and realize that no, they were looking at the

original version. And so we received approximately 100 letters complaining about it

not being the restored version. Of course, there was a legal issue as well; those rights

were purchased prior to the DVD era, and Image Entertainment, which had obtained

those rights, passed them on to Criterion, and got very upset when they didnt use the

restored version. Criterion got caught in the crosshairs legally, and I think there was

an out of court settlement, which involved yanking the Laserdisc off the shelves,

accordingly.

Im not against people seeing the original version; the paradox in that case is that

Othello is probably the one Criterion Laserdisc that has the greatest number of

production credits. I talked to Gary Graver not long before he passed away, and he

said they made the LD from a 35mm print, and there was consternation on the part of

Criterion in that there was a restored version out there, and the original versionneeded to be cleaned up as much as possible, so there wouldnt be such a difference

between the restored version and the original. Hence, there was a huge effort on the

part of Criterion to create an extremely cleaned up original version - in terms of

filtering the soundtrack, doing all kinds of timing to improve the image quality, and

doing what, at that point, was some very primitive digital cleaning in order to close

the gap between the two.


7/11

So people had the original version when they thought they had the restored version.

But heres a second thing: There were also a lot of people who bought it thinking it

was the restored version, and never bothered to read Rosenbaums liner notes

explaining that it was not. So after watching the film, they concluded that the

restoration was not very good. Unfortunately, Beatrice was victimized by this too,

since people would say, Oh, she did a lousy restoration. There are scratches there, it

has a really high artifact level, the sound is not that good, and they talked about fixingthe lip-sync, but the LD is still out of sync, etc.. So there was a negativity because

people thought Oh, weve been hearing about the restored version, and after taking a

look at the laserdisc, its a decent version of it per se, but it doesnt look restored. And

they said they re-recorded the music score, but it doesnt sound that good to me.

We got even more letters complaining about that; about two to one. Then we would

have to explain to people to read the liner notesthat it was the original and not the

restored version. And so what came out of all this was a kind of schizophreniaregarding the restoration, with some taking issue with Beatrice, and some taking issue

with the restoration in general. But certainly when it was first released, about 90% of

the critical communitys reaction was very positive. It got great reviews, and thats

why we all kept our mouths shut about all the various problems wed been having.

Criterions Othello Laserdiscs liner notes were written by Jonathon Rosenbaum, a

film critic and a leading Welles scholar. So the antagonism towards the restored

version began with Jonathon who wrote an article in the Chicago Reader called

Othello Goes Hollywood. Not everyone agrees with him, and even those who agreewith him in print have told me something else privately. A lot of the technicians that

worked on it have a disdain for film critics and scholars, because they dont always

understand some of the fundamentals of production. They tend to go out on a limb,

and sometimes go too far out and fall off. I personally dont have the fervor of a

Rosenbaum or McBride. The whole purpose of the restoration was to eliminate those

technical flaws that are always pinpointed as further examples of Welles going

downhill after Citizen Kane, particularly his later soundtracks.

LF: Any chance well ever see that 3-DVD set of OTHELLO, like the complete MR.

ARKADIN?

MD: Maybe. The problem is that when you compare the Image Entertainment DVD

version to the Cinar Version, other than having substantial artifact reduction, the

differences may not be substantive enough to warrant having both in the same DVD

set.


8/11

LF: But theres also the European version, the original that won the Cannes Film

Festival, which has different editing at the beginning.

MD: Yes, you could include that as a European version if you want, since it was

also an edit by Welles himself. But then you get into an argument of saying Wait a

minute. Youre re-releasing an earlier edit that he had? Which one rules, his earlieror his later? Assuming he did one final edit on the film, theres a strong argument

that thats the way he wanted the film to be seen. But I would be up for that; a set

including both the original Cannes and restored Chicago versions. But to include all

three might be redundant.

Now, I dont want to appear to be anti-Jonathon Rosenbaum, because I still consider

him to be an associate and a friend, and I have great respect for his writing ability.

Its just that we have this gentlemans disagreement about the OTHELLO music

score. But theres no real point of contention about the visual portion of the film.Michael Pendowski, was the transcriber of the Othello score which was composed

by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino.

TOP LEFT: Sarabande CDof the rerecordedOTHELLO score

TOP RIGHT: JonathonRosenbaum, film critic andleading Welles scholar

BOTTOM LEFT: AlbertoFrancesco Lavagnino,composer of the originalscore

BOTTOM RIGHT: MichaelPendowski, transcriber ofthe redone score


9/11

OTHELLO MUSIC SCORE RECONSTRUCTION

MD: One of the main complaints about the restored version was that we took Othello

stereo, but I remember Graver, as well as, if I remember correctly, Chris Welles Feder,

telling me that Welles had wanted to re-release both MACBETH and OTHELLO in stereo

The real reason we re-recorded the music score was because the original score had beenrecorded optically, and was over-modulated, so theres about 10-15 percent of the

frequency response that was clipped at both ends. When we began analyzing those optical

tracks we realized that there was a lot of nuance that people would not be hearing, so when

we re-recorded the music with members of the Chicago Symphony and Lyric Opera, it was

much closer to what Lavignino had recorded originally.

There's a phenomenon that we call the "dirty-plate syndrome", where people become used

to a particular aesthetic, so that when something gets cleaned up you're hearing things for

the first time. One can garner from a purist point of view that "Well, this is different,therefore it's not part of the artist's original intention." The best example I can give of that i

when they cleaned up the Sistine Chapel. When they eliminated the brown varnish caused

by modern 20th Century automobile pollution along with centuries and centuries of candle

soot, the images became day-glow; but that's how they looked when Michaelangelo came

off the scaffold. So that's kind of our counter argument to that. I think the issue gets down

to eliminating technical flaws, so that we're allowing people to appreciate the aesthetics tha

were always there to begin with. The purists came back with the idea that those technical

flaws are in fact aesthetic virtues, and that's where I'm willing to have a debate.

LF: Well actually, Rosenbaum was complaining because Michael Pendowski (who

reconstructed the music score) didn't use Lavignino's score, which existed in Rome. He had

problems with Pendowski's orchestration because they didn't use all the mandolins.

Jonathon said the original used forty mandolins, which I think is an exaggeration.

MD: Well first of all, the mandolin is not an orchestral instrument, and in the original

soundtrack there were not forty mandolins. One of the things that Jonathon doesn't realize

is that, by 1991 technical standards of equipment capability, we were able to analyze howmany mandolins there were. I know Welles said that there were forty - maybe that's what h

had wanted, maybe that's something he thought he could get away with saying - but the

bottom line is that there were not forty mandolins in that original soundtrack. So one gets

into this area where one says "C'mon in, and we'll show you that there were not forty", and

there's a resistance to that because, if you have an academic argument and someone's going

to technically prove it wrong, then one wants to avoid facing the reality of that situation.


10/11

There was a lot of research done as far as those scores were concerned, and we eventually

found, not the original score, but a copy of the worksheet score that was used, and it was

a perfect match with what Michael had done.

What I think happened - and I think this gets into a situation where one domino knocks

over a whole series of dominos - is that Michael had been up all night and was tired, and I

think he and Rosenbaum got into a major argument. Michael didn't know who Jonathon

was, and Jonathon considers himself to be one of the foremost Welles scholars. For a

gentleman doing a reconstruction of the music score to a great Orson Welles masterpiece,

there was some friction caused by not knowing who Jonathon Rosenbaum was. It was an

unfortunate situation; I had not debriefed Michael in that regard, and there was a bit of an

argument that occurred there, and unfortunately it got into a situation where Jonathon

took issue. Also, at one point, one of Lavignino's offspring said "I don't think that's my

Fathers score", but I'm telling you, that if you listen to what Welles says about that score

on the Arena BBC documentary, he says, "the music score was originally beautiful. Idon't know what happened to it." He told Gary Graver that it was one of his best scores,

that's why he used Lavignino for CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT.

Coming: Part 2, The CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT restoration


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