A brief history: in 1942, Orson Welles abandoned post-production work on The Magnificent Ambersons to shoot a documentary, at Nelson Rockefeller's request, about Rio's annual carnival (the Rio project was part of a goodwill mission to South America, and Welles couldn't resist). He left The Magnificent Ambersons in the care of then-editor Robert Wise (future director of The Day the Earth Stood Still) and others, and cabled instructions about how he wanted the film cut. Unfortunately, Welles was soon faced with parallel disasters: the Rio project ran out of money (yet Welles kept shooting in defiance of producers) and a local man died during the filming of a sequence called "Four Men on a Raft." Meanwhile, Wise couldn't make sense of Welles' long distance instructions, and the studio, angered by the director's absence, ordered the film to be edited quite differently from Welles' intentions. When he returned to America, Welles' career and reputation were badly damaged, and he struggled for the rest of his life to escape the reputation of a profligate filmmaker. As if that weren't enough, his raw footage for It's All True disappeared for nearly 50 years, but was eventually discovered in a Paramount vault. What appears on this disc is a 1993 compilation of Welles' Rio footage, as well as interviews with various people who were either with Welles at the time, or knowledgeable about the subject (the comments by Welles' old artistic allies and friends are terribly moving). Something of a cinematic Holy Grail, It's All True is highly recommended. Editor's Choice. (T. Keogh)
It's All True
Paramount, 85 min., G, DVD: $14.99 February 21, 2005
It's All True
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