As a quite a fan of many the works of Welles (but not unconditional, as I am bored by 'The Stranger' and puzzled by 'Confidential Report', relatively lukewarm about the Scottish one) I find it quite emotional watching Franco's piecing together of this much loved project of Orson Welles; a film he spent fourteen years making.
He made enough masterpieces of course (Touch of Evil, The Trial, Othello and of course that ever so famous one), but to see here the mixed footage and voices (three for at least one character) is both spooky and strangely exhilarating: like looking into some Egyptian tomb somewhere.
While others have questioned this project's right to be (that is the project available on Spanish DVD not of the original plan) I for one am very happy to have it available to view on my DVD machine. Some of the scenes obviously look a little amateurish/lo-fi (e.g. the poor expanding windmills out of a brief moment in effects prior to the advent of CGI) others are beautifully realised (in the aforementioned mixed footage), like the scenes of Akim Tamirof running around modern day Italian streets searching for Quixote and seeing rockets going to the moon as reported on the television screens in disinterested bars. I also love the scene where he finds (SPOILER) Quixote in a cage in an alleyway, where the shot reverse-shots mirrors those famous disjunctures of Othello. These spatial elisions seem to work beautifully.
Finally there is something charming about the mixture of footage in and of itself; something I imagine Welles was turning around within the act of creation, not only in the poor quality of the footage now remaining. He famously turned negatives into positives so making production nightmares like costume (Othello) and location (The Trial) into real, abiding and innevitable textual strengths. This I believe he would have done beautifully given the chance of 'completion'.
I suppose however the death of your main actor through age related illness proved insurmountable obstacle for him. At least all was not lost, and of what remains, all fans of Welles should cherish.
He made enough masterpieces of course (Touch of Evil, The Trial, Othello and of course that ever so famous one), but to see here the mixed footage and voices (three for at least one character) is both spooky and strangely exhilarating: like looking into some Egyptian tomb somewhere.
While others have questioned this project's right to be (that is the project available on Spanish DVD not of the original plan) I for one am very happy to have it available to view on my DVD machine. Some of the scenes obviously look a little amateurish/lo-fi (e.g. the poor expanding windmills out of a brief moment in effects prior to the advent of CGI) others are beautifully realised (in the aforementioned mixed footage), like the scenes of Akim Tamirof running around modern day Italian streets searching for Quixote and seeing rockets going to the moon as reported on the television screens in disinterested bars. I also love the scene where he finds (SPOILER) Quixote in a cage in an alleyway, where the shot reverse-shots mirrors those famous disjunctures of Othello. These spatial elisions seem to work beautifully.
Finally there is something charming about the mixture of footage in and of itself; something I imagine Welles was turning around within the act of creation, not only in the poor quality of the footage now remaining. He famously turned negatives into positives so making production nightmares like costume (Othello) and location (The Trial) into real, abiding and innevitable textual strengths. This I believe he would have done beautifully given the chance of 'completion'.
I suppose however the death of your main actor through age related illness proved insurmountable obstacle for him. At least all was not lost, and of what remains, all fans of Welles should cherish.