"A Linguagem de Orson Welles" ("Welles' Language") is a diminutive essay on Orson Welles adventures in Brazil, back in 1942, a goodwill mission offered by Nelson Rockfeller as a way to support the war efforts as part of the Good Neighbor Policy and establish a good partnership between Brazil and U.S., coming on a very good time since Vargas government was flirting with Nazism (besides those efforts, the final drop would be the sinking of ships in the Brazilian coast by German submarines).
Welles project fell apart due to many communication problems at the same time he was commanding "The Magnificent Ambersons", which was heavily cut by the studio, RKO, who edited the film behind his back while he was making the documentary, later released incomplete, the known "It's All True". Most of the clips of this short film appears in "The Story of Samba" segment.
By the time this was shown (1990) very few things were seen by the public, and that's why there's a certain sense of curiosity in seeing what Orson filmed in Rio. Now, it's completely irrelevant, expendable and uninteresting since the documentary, although not completed, is out there (released in 1993). In the end, the images of Orson delighted with the carnival, some small dialogs and meetings with Vargas, Rockefeller and other famous celebrities, works as a long trailer for the upcoming attraction. It begins, it goes and it ends and...that's it. It doesn't cause anything and not even inform us much about anything because it's just too few, no coherence in its presentation except for the good narration by Grande Otelo which opens the film. What we get is a man who seemed to love Brazilian's culture, wanted to do more in here, make his film but he couldn't. The best he got is present in other film, not in this one. 5/10
Welles project fell apart due to many communication problems at the same time he was commanding "The Magnificent Ambersons", which was heavily cut by the studio, RKO, who edited the film behind his back while he was making the documentary, later released incomplete, the known "It's All True". Most of the clips of this short film appears in "The Story of Samba" segment.
By the time this was shown (1990) very few things were seen by the public, and that's why there's a certain sense of curiosity in seeing what Orson filmed in Rio. Now, it's completely irrelevant, expendable and uninteresting since the documentary, although not completed, is out there (released in 1993). In the end, the images of Orson delighted with the carnival, some small dialogs and meetings with Vargas, Rockefeller and other famous celebrities, works as a long trailer for the upcoming attraction. It begins, it goes and it ends and...that's it. It doesn't cause anything and not even inform us much about anything because it's just too few, no coherence in its presentation except for the good narration by Grande Otelo which opens the film. What we get is a man who seemed to love Brazilian's culture, wanted to do more in here, make his film but he couldn't. The best he got is present in other film, not in this one. 5/10
