DON QUIXOTE OF ORSON WELLES
A film review by Raymond Johnston
Copyright 1994 Raymond Johnston
DON QUIJOTE DE ORSON WELLES (DON QUIXOTE OF ORSON WELLES) Produced, written, directed by Orson Welles Cast: Francisco Perez, Akim Tamiroff, Orson Welles, Editor and head of post production: Jess Franco Mexico/Italy/ Spain 1955-1969, Post Production Spain 1992
When Orson Welles died almost ten years ago he left several nearly finished but unreleased films. Most Famous of these is THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND, tied up in a legal dispute with Iranian financiers. Other projects included the fragments of IT'S ALL TRUE, his aborted documentary on Brazil; and a film called THE DEEP, apparently similar to the recent DEAD CALM. Most legendary and speculatively exiting of the projects is DON QUIXOTE. Over the years this unseen project has gained a reputation as one of his best films, because the match of Welles and the character of Cervantes' novel seemed perfect. Welles used his own money, completely, and between 1955 and 1969 filmed enough footage to make at least three films, changing his concept constantly. If any of these films would have been a masterpiece, it is impossible to say. The project currently being screened by his former long time companion Oja Kaddar, who has the rights to his unfinished projects, is an insult to the memory of a sometimes brilliant director.
Technical considerations make this film close to unwatchable. A film consists of nothing more than a visual or image track, and a sound track. The visual track of this film is incredibly poor. It seems as if, and this is a guess, an early rough cut of film was transferred to primitive home video some time in the sixties. This poorly focused and washed out video then was retransferred to film. The result is something not as good as the "Lost Episodes" of the Honeymooners TV show. Cut into this are a few better quality close-ups. An occasional original quality shot sneaks in, reminding one of the great visual quality of other Welles films. This poor footage makes up most of the film. About three quarters of the way through, there is a very good twenty minutes of high quality footage of the running of the bulls in Spain. Welles appears in this, making a film called DON QUIXOTE. Henry Fonda can also be seen briefly. The film the returns to poor quality images as the editors struggle to make an ending out of the available footage. The running of the bulls section seems to be edited by Welles, or at least a professional. The rest, the mixture of poor quality footage, lacks any sense of pacing or focus. The cut in close ups are obviously left over scraps used to stretch out the scenes to accommodate the narration.
The audio track of the film is even worse. Bad sound plagued Welles later works. Why a film maker who got his start in radio and made sound innovations on his early Hollywood films used such poor sound technique in later life is a subject of speculation among film scholars. Many film makers shooting in Spain and Italy in the sixties did not use direct sound, since the films would be dubbed for different markets. As a result, Welles shot most of this film silent, hoping to use his own voice for the English language version. He recorded about ten minutes. The rest of the sound was created in post production. It is an incredibly poor dubbing job that would not pass muster in a kung-fu film. The head of modern post production was Jess Franco. His own films include the women's prison film 99 WOMEN and horror opus NIGHT OF THE BLOOD MONSTER. His team added a flat and hollow track of bored actors trudging through the dialogue, making no effort to match the lips of characters. It is difficult to tell if some lines are supposed to be narration or dialogue. This is accompanied by stock sound effects and almost no music. It is like watching the 'Here's Harold' television versions of Harold Lloyd shorts.
The climactic scene of the film, jousting the windmills, is created by matting a long shot of the actors on their burros over stills, similar to some of the "restoration" Georgio Moroder did on METROPOLIS.
I doubt that this version will get any distribution in the US. For Welles fans I will recount the basic storyline. The story of the film, as it is in this version, has Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in armor wandering through the landscape until all of a sudden they encounter a woman, (Oja Kaddar) on a motorcycle. It is Franco-era Spain. They encounter several modern people, mistake sheep for an army, joust windmills, etc. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza then split up. Sancho Panza hears that Orson Welles is making a film about Don Quixote. Panza wanders through the running of the bulls looking for Orson Welles, who might know where Don Quixote is, or have a use for him in his film. After encountering Welles, Sancho Panza finds Don Quixote. People recognize him Don Quixote as the guy from the book. He passes a Don Quixote restaurant and a Don Quixote Beer sign. They wander off again into the distance.
If the images can be digitally cleaned up, and the sound recorded by true professionals, with a solid score and convincing sound effects, this film would make an interesting footnote to Welles career. As it is, this version should be avoided by all but serious film scholars that need to see what Welles possibly had in mind. Compared to the brilliant OTHELLO; recently cleaned up and restored; DON QUIJOTE DE ORSON WELLES looks like PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE.
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