[The following is Bright Lights After Dark ’s contribution to the ongoing Contrarianism Blog-a-Thon hosted here.]
Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (1958) is a noir masterpiece. For some, it represents Welles’ greatest achievement as a director. At the very least, it is Welles’ greatest contribution to genre filmmaking (most of his other films - Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Trial, F for Fake, and the Shakespearean films - falling outside popular genre categories).
Evaluation of Touch of Evil has been complicated by the fact that there have been at least three different versions of the film released in this country. The first and shortest (95 min.) was the version edited and released by Universal Studios in 1958. We’ll call it the First Studio Cut. It was justifiably criticized by Welles as not representing his original vision, having been re-edited by the studio after Welles left for Mexico to work on his never-completed Don Quixote.
We’ll refer to version No. 2 - released by Universal in the mid-‘70s - as the Second Studio Cut. It represents a significant improvement on the First Studio Cut, restoring approximately 13 minutes of footage that had been removed from the first version, and clarifying some plot points that had previously been obscure. Notably, it restores the scene of Police Sergeant Menzies (Joseph Calleia) driving Susie Vargas (Janet Leigh) to the motel and explaining to her how his beloved boss, Capt. Hank Quinlan (Welles), once took a bullet for him. It not only explains Quinlan’s limp (and why "Citizen Quinlan" always carries a cane), but also clarifies Quinlan’s line at the end of the film, "That’s the second bullet I stopped for you, Pardner." It remains the best available version.
The third version - the so-called "director’s cut" released in 1998 - was not, in fact, cut by Welles, but by the Academy-Award-winning film editor/sound designer Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now) in supposed conformity with a 58-page memo written by Welles after viewing the studio’s first rough cut. In the name of accuracy, we’ll refer to this version as the Murch Cut. While the Murch Cut has been endorsed by such Welles scholars as Jonathan Rosenbaum and Joseph McBride (who consulted on it), I consider it a travesty.
The Mancini Factor
Touch of Evil’s 3½ minute-long opening shot is one of the most famous long takes in screen history, a tour-de-force of crane and dolly that starts with someone planting a ticking time bomb in the trunk of a car, and follows that car as it crosses the border into Mexico, while at the same time introducing us to honeymooning couple Mike and Susie Vargas (Charlton Heston and Ms. Leigh) as they cross the border on foot. The shot ends when Mike and Susie kiss and - simultaneously - the bomb explodes. The shot is underscored by Henry Mancini’s brilliant Latin-inflected title music, his first genuinely important score, setting the tone for the film as a whole.
But not in the Murch Cut. In the Murch Cut, Mancini’s music has been removed, and replaced (as suggested in Welles’ memo) with "ambient sound," honking horns, bleating goats, and music from the bomb-car’s radio as well other sources, cross-fading in and out as the couple (Mike and Susie) and the bomb-car move in and out of the frame. It reminds one less of Welles than of what Murch did vis-a-vis the sound design of Coppola’s The Conversation. Murch also removed the title credits that appear over the opening shot in the first and second studio versions.
Murch’s reconfiguration of the opening shot turns Touch of Evil into something of a graduate student’s experiment (a lá Van Sant’s Psycho), instead of what it was and should be, one of the most exciting genre pieces ever made. And it’s important to realize that the excitement of Touch of Evil begins with its opening shot, those ominous Mancini chords over the image of a hand twisting the bomb’s timer, Mancini’s bongo drums picking up and amplifying the rhythm of the time bomb’s ticks as the car trunk is closed and the camera cranes upward. The credits superimposed over the opening shot in the first and second version of the film only add to its complexity and excitement. Without the Mancini music and carefully placed studio titles, the shot feels relatively empty.
The fallacy of calling the Murch Cut a "director’s cut" is that we have no way of knowing what Welles would have done with the film had he been allowed to edit and re-edit it to his heart’s content. Welles was notorious for changing his mind in the editing room. (He never stopped cutting and recutting Don Quixote.) It’s possible Welles might have approved an opening shot sans Mancini music as in Murch’s cut, but if so, he would have been wrong – just as Alfred Hitchcock was wrong when he believed Psycho’s shower sequence would play better without music. Hitchcock changed his mind after he saw the shower scene accompanied by Bernard Herrmann’s shrieking violins. Who knows? Maybe Welles might have had a similar change of heart if he’d had a chance to compare Murch’s version of the shot to the version accompanied by Mancini’s breakthrough score.
Sure, the studio versions of Touch of Evil look and feel like other Universal Studio films made in the late 1950s, but so what? Citizen Kane looks and feels in many ways like an RKO film of the early 1940s, but is none the worse for it.
Aspect Ratio Madness
While a case can be made for what Murch did to the opening sequence, there is no excuse for the Murch Cut’s most serious crime - the cropping of the film from 1.33:1 to 1.85:1 - effectively removing the upper and lower parts of the frame. (What were they thinking? Were they trying to "enhance" the film for 16x9 televisions?) Stanley Kubrick always insisted that the DVD versions of his films be shown in full frame, without any cropping. I believe Welles, if he were still alive, would take a similar position.
In fact, I know he would. In Peter Bogdanovich’s book-length interview, This is Orson Welles, he asks Welles about the various signs and painted images that appear throughout Touch of Evil’s frames. Welles replies:
"Yes. I did all those and all the artwork–the pinups and everything–I painted myself, from blowups. You have to watch awfully carefully to see them, but I worked hard on those."
If you compare a full-frame version of Touch of Evil’s opening shot to Murch’s cropped version on DVD, you will see that some of Welles’ signs, "pinups and everything," are cropped right out of the image. I can’t imagine that Welles would have approved this evisceration of his work.
Beatrice Welles, Orson’s daughter, tried to stop the release of the Murch Cut on the legal ground, among others, that referring to it as a "director’s cut" was false advertising. While I certainly do not condone her attempts to forestall the release of The Other Side of the Wind; with respect to Touch of Evil, I believe she is right.
The Solution
At the moment, the Murch Cut is the only cut of Touch of Evil available on American DVD. It is the version that Turner Classic Movies shows when they run the film on cable. If you want to see the superior Second Studio Cut, you would have to know someone who has it on videotape or laserdisc.
I’m not calling for a suppression of the Murch Cut. The ideal solution would be for some company - Criterion perhaps - to release the Second Studio Cut and the experimental Murch Cut (uncropped, of course) in a single boxed set. That way viewers could compare and decide for themselves which version "touches" them the most.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Why Murch’s TOUCH OF EVIL Doesn’t Make the Cut!
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24 comments:
Chris Fujiwara covered some of this ground on the late, lamented, Hermenaut.
Anon
An excellent observation, and one that I agree with. Fortunately I still have my MCA VHS version (with Gene Shalit on the cover!), and I may pop it in right now.
I agree with this... I miss the funkiness of the Mancini opening, plus the black and white seemed blacker and whiter in that version. The new version is all overly gray, as if Murch (?) wanted to bring out a wide gray shading of details rather than the starker black & white of deep noir. c'est merde!
In some instances (i.e. BLAERUNNER) it's a no-brainer to ditch the original cut. But imagine for example if they only released the recent original cut of THE BIG SLEEP without only the added Bacall inserts as "extras." I for one would be crying like a little bitch
I can't tell you how much I thought that brilliant opening lost when they eliminated the music. Bravo for this piece and its careful point-by-point defense of the version of Touch of Evil that I fell in love with, and still prefer to the Murch cut.
Hmm--this certainly gives me something to think about.
I know only the Murch cut, which I've seen and enjoyed several times.
I had no idea about the cropping. Very strange choice, given the opportunity to get it right that Murch had had.
It's a noble effort, just the same. Yet I would dearly like to see the Mancini-scored opening to compare to Murch's version.
Thanks for this info.
Briefly, I was consultant on the Murch cut, so it's misleading to say that I praised it; I'm partly responsible for it. We (I, Murch, and producer Rick Schmidlin) went out of our way to insist in all the press materials that what we were doing WASN'T a director's cut or a restoration, so your point about Beatrice, who knew practically nothing about it, is invalid.
It seems to me that the best way to approach the logic of our cut would be to consult the memo itself, available on Wellesnet.com, which you haven't bothered to do.
We never wanted our version to supplant the others. This is exclusively Universal's decision.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
With all due respect, JR, this doesn't wash. Recropping is a pretty direct assault on a film, and rather arrogant; certainly that seems so in this case. And pointing to Universal as the culprit in the matter of the Murch version more or less replacing the 2nd or 1st cut seems disingenuous. It would surely be clear to anybody undertaking such a radical project that when it is sanctioned by the studio, there's little hope that it wouldn't take the place of any earlier versions in both the commercial marketplace and the cultural consciousness. Imagine if other self-styled "reinterpreters" decided to do the same thing to other canonical works, even ones like Touch of Evil that have a troubled history? We need our canon as intact as possible, not "repaired" by possibly well-meaning but decidedly lesser talents who imagine they're honoring the original vision.
"Briefly, I was consultant on the Murch cut, so it's misleading to say that I praised it; I'm partly responsible for it."
Thank you for your comments, Jonathan.
While you may not have actually praised the Murch cut, you did, in effect, endorse it by consulting on it and by providing materials to the press on its behalf. I have revised my post accordingly.
Really, this is quite an interesting discussion. To what degree might/should one consider Murch’s cut of Touch of Evil to be in the same category as Moroder’s 1984 re-cut of Metropolis? [Honestly, I didn’t intend to bring Pat Benatar, Adam Ant, Billy Squier, and Loverboy into a discussion of Touch of Evil, it just happened.] There has always been a fascination with the “lost” versions of films, or the “true” version, or the “best” version. Neither of these films purports to be such (per se), certainly not Moroder’s, which is in an opposite camp in a sense. Murch’s Touch of Evil would seem to be something very different than Moroder’s Metropolis, but is it really? Any cutting, re-editing, re-arranging of an artist’s work without the artist present must rely on a certain level of personal preference, fantasy, guesswork, professional experience, and the momentum of history – regardless whether one has some notes from the artist or not. And both re-edits came out of, I imagine, a love for the original. The difference here, however, seems to be Moroder attempted to “update” Lang’s film while Murch tried to take Welles’ film back to its original conception. Murch’s goal was the nobler in terms of Auteur politics, maybe, but it certainly was the bigger pipe dream. In other words, I believe one cannot help but see Murch’s cut as an attempt to create a “director’s cut” regardless of what claims have been made after the fact – and a director’s cut it can never be.
On the second page of my DVDuell review for the German "Touch of Evil" DVD you can see comparisons between the 1.85:1 and 1.33:1 aspect ratios.
It seems to me that the best way to approach the logic of our cut would be to consult the memo itself, available on Wellesnet.com, which you haven't bothered to do.
We never wanted our version to supplant the others. This is exclusively Universal's decision.
*****
Two points (briefly):
1) Whose decision was it, then, to crop the image? Is anyone willing to take credit for that one?
2) Was there ever a point where Murch, Schmidlin, yourself, or anyone else pressed into service, noticed that the opening scene simply wasn't as effective (cropped or uncropped) without the buoyancy of Mancini's score? Did anyone question the wisdom behind this strategy; or were your labors on behalf of Welles' deathless memo more . . . faith based?
Is this supposed to be a serious conversation about TOUCH OF EVIL?
As Jonathan Rosenbaum, a renowed Welles scholar indicates, there are serious flaws and a complete lack of research done by most of the people commenting on this piece.
Whether you think the opening of TOE is better or not without titles or the Mancini music, LOOK AT THE WELLES MEMO!
Orson Welles directed the movie, not you or you or you. He DID NOT want titles over the credits. End of story. Maybe it's worse than with the titles. But that's the director's choice, not the hacks at Universal.
I understand that it's the mission of courtiers . . . I'm being charitable in using that word, lest there be some doubt . . . to defend their regent with furious, if not exactly seemly, zeal. But it says, I think, something essential about the (if you'll pardon the expression) character of your position that you chose to do your sniping anonymously.
That being said, the fact that the omission of Henry Mancini's score in the opening shot of Touch of Evil was a thing specifically requested by Orson Welles is all very nice for keepers of the faith, but it is absolutely meaningless. It's still a misguided decision, regardless of whose wishes it reflects. Mancini's score gives it an unmatchable forward drive, and the shot is considerably lessened without it. In other words, we're faced with that rarest of things: a studio-imposed 'improvement' that is, in fact, an improvement.
Now, I've got one for you: Can you point to anything anywhere which would suggest that Orson Welles continued to desire this alteration after 1958?
And as to your opening salvo: It is extremely revelatory about the intense class/status-consciousness of cinephile discourse that you would call the seriousness of an exchange on the merits of changes made to Touch of Evil into question simply because the discussion did not immediately end after word was brought down from the Olympus of film criticism. If you were truly interested in a discussion (which you clearly aren't), then you would want it to go on, with all views accorded equivalent weight, and not question its seriousness (which you are in no position to do) because Class lines have not been properly observed.
You have no idea, none, how through I am with cinephiles like you who presume to tell me or anyone else what is serious and what is not.
If that be cinephilic heresy, then make of it what you will.
And by the way . . . who in hell uses phrases such as "renowned Welles scholar" outside of dust jackets, DVD cases and ad copy?
Talk about yer Stepford Cinephiles . . .
You know, you really shouldn't be throwing words like 'hack' around quite so loosely.
You live in a glass screening room.
Here is the deal though: if they left the music in AGAINST THE WISHES of the the Welles memo...we would be all arguing the other viewpoint. They were damned if they do damned if they don't either way on that call....
And who knows what Universal was tellling them at the time. Reading between the lines, I would say that they did not think their version was going to supplant the other ones and maybe it just happend that way. No one wanting to work with Universal on a later packaging at a later day is going to shit talk their decisions now....I wouldn't if I was Murch, Schmidlin, or Rosenbaum
Here is the deal though: if they left the music in AGAINST THE WISHES of the the Welles memo...we would be all arguing the other viewpoint.
*****
I wouldn't.
I'm sorry, but you've been immersed in the 'Oceania is at war with Eastasia' universe of cinephilia too long if you think everyone would shift their values on such a cheap pretext. Many would, I grant you ("Sheep, thought I"), but not everyone.
Not that you couldn't argue me out of my position, however (though you'd have to try really hard); I'm not hidebound by any standard. But I believe my view sound enough that I would hold to it no matter what Universal did (with the technical and, um, cosmetic assistance of Messrs Murch, Rosenbaum, et al)
And who knows what Universal was tellling them at the time. Reading between the lines, I would say that they did not think their version was going to supplant the other ones and maybe it just happend that way. No one wanting to work with Universal on a later packaging at a later day is going to shit talk their decisions now....I wouldn't if I was Murch, Schmidlin, or Rosenbaum
*****
And here you may be closer to the truth of the matter than anyone to date. It is entirely possible that Universal's word, at all stages, was law. I'm willing to accept that as an admissible matter before the court.
Now . . . who wants to hold their breath waiting for any of the luminaries involved in that project to confirm it?
Show of hands.
A good solution would be to simply issue both versions. Then we could all raise a toast to Touch of Evil and Welles!
Let's also remember that Touch of Evil, "butchered" as it may have been, was not simply Welles' vision but the product of a number of creative and commercial forces, including the noir genre, Universal's commercial impulses, that ever-elusive zeitgeist, etc. Welles didn't -- couldn't -- make the film in a vacuum. The idea of the auteur can coexist with the idea of multiple auteurs that include studio, genre, etc. The original release has its own claim to existence (if not to the canon), but unfortunately has been supplanted by a pod in the form of the Murch cut.
Does anybody know if Murch has commented anyplace on this? I'd be very curious to read his statements, given the level of the controversy. Also, I wonder what Joe McBride, another "renowned Welles scholar," has to say. Anyone know?
A good solution would be to simply issue both versions. Then we could all raise a toast to Touch of Evil and Welles!
*****
Signor Kutner's idea of having Criterion do their voodoo and put the film out, in its myriad forms (including the 93min. cut) as one of their mutli-disc extravaganzas is the best I've heard yet; though I would add an original doco investigating exactly how the 1998 travesty was perpetrated. I know they put out their own 'Making Of' infomercial. Scrap that mu-fugger. Hire some junkyard dog investigative journalist with a real flair for showmanship to track down (literally) everyone involved in that thing and chase them for blocks till they give a statement.
I'd go 50 for that.
Let's also remember that Touch of Evil, "butchered" as it may have been, was not simply Welles' vision but the product of a number of creative and commercial forces, including the noir genre, Universal's commercial impulses, that ever-elusive zeitgeist, etc. Welles didn't -- couldn't -- make the film in a vacuum. The idea of the auteur can coexist with the idea of multiple auteurs that include studio, genre, etc. The original release has its own claim to existence (if not to the canon), but unfortunately has been supplanted by a pod in the form of the Murch cut.
*****
Yes. And that's a point which should never be ignored; but if we are to believe the faithful, this revision was carried out in as much of a vacuum as (in)humanly possible; restricted solely to the specifications of that living document, the Welles Memo -- which, by the way, I read 5 years ago (nothing could induce me to read it again) -- a memo written under God-only-knows what conditions and what haste.
In other words, they did what Welles himself, in making the film, did not do: ignore everything (including the film as we, and they, knew it) except the 58-page instruction manual, with no thought as to whether this would actually improve the work before them.
That, I have to say, takes a degree of discipline you only see in True Believers . . . or Hired Gunmen
I daresay that Welles, if he were carrying out his own specifications, would have dropped some, kept others, thought up new ones along the way. He was, I think we can agree, a capable enough artist (and this is why Walter Murch's participation in this enterprise is marginally scandalous) to never tie himself down to any standard including his own.
But, sad creature that he was, Orson Welles did not have the abiding faith of the Renowned Welles Scholar. He could never have restored Touch of Evil to his 'Original Vision' (as it says in the ad copy) nearly as well as those who delivered it unto the multitudes in 1998.
Does anybody know if Murch has commented anyplace on this? I'd be very curious to read his statements, given the level of the controversy.
*****
I would as well, but I'm unaware of any.
Also, I wonder what Joe McBride, another "renowned Welles scholar," has to say. Anyone know?
*****
I don't, but I doubt if we're going to hear any vigorous criticisms from within the RWS (Renowned Welles Scholar) ranks anytime in the near (or distant) future.
I think it was dear old Clive James who remarked, on the subject of G.B. Shaw's momentary admiration of Mussolini, that men who have a low opinion of the lower classes generally have a high opinion of one another. Cinephiles . . . the really class/status-oriented variety . . . have an esprit du corps that the Hell's Angels (and no one else) would envy. One RWS-er isn't going to drop a safe on another RWS-er for anything less than outright heresy; whereupon their 'renowned' status will be withdrawn.
As for who approved the latter-day cropping of Touch of Evil (a question which seems to bother no one in the RWS community . . . which should tell you a lot)?
I have my ideas (oh, do I have my ideas), but I would be surprised if definitive word came during anything other than a death-bed confession.
Appreciable observation. Cropping could be strange choice,I believe. Murch's version touches the most veiwers.
Well this has been a fascinating read. I'm not going to speak for my father, but I am going to say that he went into this with the most honest of intentions to follow the Wells Memo that was written in one night after Universal showed him the film after they kicked him off the project. It was a plea by Wells to fix the train-wreck that he thought that Universal had created. Whether he would have changed his mind later with more time, we will never know as Wells was never given the chance. I'm glad to hear that you have read the memo, but really, that is the basis for this work, so if you want to understand the recuts, you should re-read the memo. It's quite amazing how he churned all that out in one night.
My father was astonished to find out that he was not the first to come up with the idea of hearing music in situ in a film. He thought he came up with that for American Graffiti, but Wells did this for the opening scene. Obviously, he couldn't have been influenced by Wells' technique here because he had never heard it without the score covering all the native sounds, so he did come up with that independently. Personally, I like hearing all the music from the tinny speakers and the laughter from the bars, etc. because it gives a sense of movement to the scene. I really feel like I'm following the car as it drives through the town.
To me, mr Murch's cut is a sort of proposition: I think Universal should have released on dvd it with the original 105 minutes cut that includes the Mancini titles. It is obvious that Mancini scored his music in relation to what's on screen, and it is a splendid achievement in film music. Being extremely familiar with the soundtrack of Touch of Evil, I am not the best to judge this 1998 cut : but it's true that it has some very interesting ideas. The music heard in the car radio duing the opening shot is actually "source music" createdby Mancini for the motel scenes. I recognized it immediately ad suddenly was kept away from teh scene. Perahaps I would have reacted differently if I had not identified the music. As for the 1/85 framing, well, it's true that I always saw Touch of Evil in 1/33. Otherwise, I think this "controversy" brings the same problems raised by the stereo mix of Vertigo, which to me was much more questionable, and of course the"remastred" Star Wars which actually opened the "Pandora's box" of film restauration. I hink that we will begin to be very upset if one day, someone decides to change North By Northwest "cropduster" for a digital high tech jet plane instead. We're far from this yet, an the 1998 version of Touch of Evil is nothing less than a very rich and exciting examination of what the film could have been. Universal has recently decided to rerelease Vertig on DVD with its mono track. It should reissue Touch f Evi with a side a of the "original 105 minutes UClA" print and a side B with Mr Murchs exciting "Welles remix".
Nicolas Saada
Kubrick didn't say he wanted his movies in 1.33 on DVD, just VHS and TV because of the low resolution. He always shot for both formats and his Blu-Ray are all 1.77. I think it's pretty well documented now.
The real problem is that the Touch Of Evil remaster is badly framed, not that it's 1.77.
I can't say anything about the other alterations, not having seen anything but the latest version, but I'm surprised to find someone serious about film complaining about this cropping. I find it hard to believe this would have been done for any other reason than that the movie was shot "open matte," where the entire Academy ratio frame is exposed, but with the full intention of being cropped in projection (and, later, on home video). This is a *very* common method, but apparently not very well known to the public; the same argument against the movie's image being "butchered" came up when 'Psycho' was first released in a letterboxed edition.
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