Orson Welles Returns

Orson Welles Returns

(c) Copyright (2016) by Kathleen Spaltro

All Rights Reserved

Following the hundredth anniversary celebration in May 2015 of Orson Welles's birth, several new releases of his films have come out on DVD. Criterion Collection recently issued a DVD edition of "The Immortal Story," Welles's 1968 interpretation of an Isak Dinesen tale. Beautiful, haunting, and mysterious, Welles's rendition is fabulous—in the sense that the tale edges on the fable and the fairy tale. Besides Welles's version of Dinesen, two other DVD editions make newly available his "Macbeth" (1948) and "Chimes at Midnight" (1965), both productions closely tied to his years in Woodstock, Illinois during and after his time at the Todd School for Boys.

In the summer of 1934, Welles made his debut as an American theatre director on the Woodstock Opera House stage, created his first film ("The Hearts of Age"), and published on the Todd Press "Everybody's Shakespeare." Written with Welles's lifelong mentor, Todd School headmaster Roger Hill, "Everybody’s Shakespeare" emphasized study of Shakespeare's drama through performance. This 1934 edition of "Julius Caesar," "The Merchant of Venice," and "Twelfth Night" evolved into "The Mercury Shakespeare," an edition of four plays published at the end of the Thirties when Welles had become famous as a radio and stage actor and director. The fourth play added to "The Mercury Shakespeare" was "Macbeth." Harper & Brothers issued the four volumes as companions to full-length audio recordings of the plays performed by Welles and his Mercury Theatre actors (spread over twelve 78 rpm records produced as Mercury Text Records).

In addition to the inclusion of "Macbeth" in "Everybody's Shakespeare," Welles produced "the Scottish play" several times—twice on the stage, once on radio, and twice on film. (Welles's famous stage production in Harlem of a "Macbeth" set in Haiti rather than Scotland occurred in 1936, just two years after his directorial debut on the Woodstock Opera House stage.) The DVD set just issued by Olive Films includes high-definition digital restorations of the original release by Republic Pictures (1948) and the 1950 revision. A very atmospheric and cinematic treatment of the play, Welles's film powerfully entices the viewer just as the witches entice Macbeth.

The Olive Films DVD special features include audio commentary by Welles scholar Joseph McBride, scenes from the Harlem "Macbeth," as well as interviews with director Peter Bogdanovich and other Welles experts. Optional English subtitles may make the films easier to follow and to enjoy.

Another Shakespearean film by Welles has close ties to his time in Woodstock. Between entering Todd School in Fall 1926 and graduating in 1931, young Orson participated in about 30 theatrical productions as actor, writer, scenic artist, and/or director. These included an unwieldy 1930 welding of Shakespeare's "Henry VI" and "Richard III" produced for graduation. This early wrestle with the Wars of the Roses plays prefigured a later troubled 1939 Mercury Theatre / Theatre Guild production in Washington, Boston, and Philadelphia called "Five Kings," still later recycled into stage (Dublin, 1960) and film (1965) productions of "Chimes at Midnight." Hence, Woodstock saw the genesis of a film that many consider Welles’s greatest cinematic achievement.

For years, I have heard that "Chimes at Midnight" is not only a masterpiece but Orson Welles's greatest film. Joseph McBride emphasizes that "Chimes at Midnight" is "Orson Welles's masterpiece": "Playing Falstaff was one of the few things Welles wanted to achieve as an actor. He, John Gielgud, and Keith Baxter all give great performances in the film." Michael Phillips concurs:  "The best of 'Chimes' is the best Shakespeare on film, and as good as anything Welles ever made in his careerlong scramble toward immortality" and "the Battle of Shrewsbury [is] the equal of any battle scene on film, before or since."

When I finally watched the new Criterion Collection release (with optional English subtitles) of "Chimes at Midnight," Welles's film of Shakespeare's "Henry IV" plays, I felt impressed by its extreme visual beauty and fluidity, by the vividness of the faces of the characters, but most of all by the imagination with which Welles transformed two stage plays into a film. For, as his rival Laurence Olivier admitted, Olivier filmed stage productions of Shakespeare, while Welles did something quite different, and much more difficult, by creating Shakespearean films.

First appeared in The Woodstock Independent