Editing Orson Welles (section)

==== ''It's All True'' ====
{{Main|It's All True (film)}}
[[File:Welles It's All True.jpg|thumb|Welles on location in [[Fortaleza]], Brazil, while filming the "Jangadeiros" section of the unfinished film ''[[It's All True (film)|It's All True]]'']]
[[File:It's-All-True-Crew-1942.jpg|thumb|Some of Welles's ''It's All True'' film crew at the top of [[Sugarloaf Mountain]], Rio de Janeiro, in early 1942]]
In July 1941, Welles conceived ''[[It's All True (film)|It's All True]]'' as an [[Anthology|omnibus]] film mixing documentary and [[docufiction]]<ref name="Leaming" />{{Rp|221}}<ref name="Benamou" />{{Rp|27}} in a project that emphasized the [[dignity of labor]] and celebrated the cultural and ethnic diversity of North America. It was to have been his third film for RKO, following ''[[Citizen Kane]]'' (1941) and ''[[The Magnificent Ambersons (film)|The Magnificent Ambersons]]'' (1942).<ref name="South American Cinema">Benamou, Catherine, "It's All True". Barnard, Tim, and Peter Rist (eds.), ''South American Cinema: A Critical Filmography, 1915–1994''. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1996; Austin: [[University of Texas Press]], 1998 {{ISBN|978-0-292-70871-6}}</ref>{{Rp|109}} [[Duke Ellington]] was put under contract to score a segment with the working title, "The Story of Jazz", drawn from [[Louis Armstrong]]'s 1936 autobiography, ''Swing That Music''.<ref name="Teachout Duke">[[Terry Teachout|Teachout, Terry]], ''Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington''. New York: [[Penguin Group|Gotham Books]], 2013 {{ISBN|978-1-59240-749-1}}</ref>{{Rp|232–233}} Armstrong was cast to play himself in the dramatization of the history of jazz performance, from its roots to its place in American culture.<ref name="South American Cinema" />{{Rp|109}} "The Story of Jazz" was to go into production in December 1941.<ref name="Benamou" />{{Rp|119–120}}

Mercury Productions purchased the stories for other segments—"My Friend Bonito" and "The Captain's Chair"—from documentary filmmaker [[Robert J. Flaherty]].<ref name="Benamou" />{{Rp|33, 326}} Adapted by [[Norman Foster (director)|Norman Foster]] and [[John Fante]], "My Friend Bonito" was the only segment of the original ''It's All True'' to go into production.<ref name="South American Cinema" />{{Rp|109|date=April 2014}} Filming took place in Mexico September–December 1941, with Norman Foster directing under Welles's supervision.<ref name="Benamou" />{{Rp|311}}

In December 1941, the [[Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs]] asked Welles to make a film in Brazil that would showcase the  [[Brazilian Carnival|Carnaval]] in Rio.<ref name="McBride" />{{Rp|65}} With filming of "My Friend Bonito" about two-thirds complete, Welles decided he could shift the geography of ''It's All True'' and incorporate Flaherty's story into an omnibus film about Latin America—supporting the [[Franklin D. Roosevelt|Roosevelt]] administration's [[Good Neighbor policy]], which Welles advocated.<ref name="Benamou" />{{Rp|41, 246}} In this revised concept, "The Story of Jazz" was replaced by the story of [[samba]], a musical form with a comparable history and one that came to fascinate Welles. He decided to do a ripped-from-the-headlines episode about the epic voyage of four poor Brazilian fishermen, the [[Jangada|jangadeiros]], who had become national heroes. Welles later said this was the most valuable story.<ref name="Welles TIOW" />{{Rp|158–159}}<ref name="Bret Wood" />{{Rp|15}}

Required to film the Carnaval in Rio in early February 1942, Welles rushed to edit ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' and finish his acting scenes in ''Journey into Fear''. He ended his lucrative [[The Orson Welles Show (radio series)|CBS radio show]]<ref name="Wilson" />{{Rp|189}} February 2, flew to Washington, D.C., for a briefing, and then lashed together a rough cut of ''Ambersons'' in Miami with editor [[Robert Wise]].<ref name="Welles TIOW" />{{Rp|369–370}} Welles recorded the film's narration the night before he left for South America: "I went to the projection room at about four in the morning, did the whole thing, and then got on the plane and off to Rio—and the end of civilization as we know it."<ref name="Welles TIOW" />{{Rp|115}}

Welles left for Brazil on February 4 and began filming in Rio on February 8, 1942.<ref name="Welles TIOW" />{{Rp|369–370}} It did not seem that Welles's other film projects would be disrupted, but as film historian Catherine L. Benamou wrote, "the ambassadorial appointment would be the first in a series of turning points leading—in 'zigs' and 'zags,' rather than in a straight line—to Welles's loss of complete directorial control over ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' and ''It's All True'', the cancellation of his contract at RKO Radio Studio, the expulsion of his company Mercury Productions from the RKO lot, and the total suspension of ''It's All True''."<ref name="Benamou" />{{Rp|46}}

In 1942 RKO Pictures underwent changes under new management. [[Nelson Rockefeller]], the primary backer of the Brazil project, left its board, and Welles's principal sponsor at RKO, studio president George Schaefer, resigned. RKO took control of ''Ambersons'' and edited it into what RKO considered a commercial format. Welles's attempts to protect his version failed.<ref name="AFI Ambersons" /><ref>Barnett, Vincent L. "Cutting Koerners: Floyd Odlum, the Atlas Corporation and the Dismissal of Orson Welles from RKO". ''Film History: An International Journal'', Volume 22, Number 2, 2010, pp. 182–198.</ref> In South America, Welles requested resources to finish ''It's All True''. Given a limited amount of black-and-white film stock and a silent camera, he was able to finish shooting the episode about the [[Jangada|jangadeiros]], but RKO refused to support further production.

"So I was fired from RKO," Welles recalled. "And they made a great publicity point of the fact that I had gone to South America without a script and thrown all this money away. I never recovered from that attack."<ref name="Estrin">Estrin, Mark W., and Orson Welles. ''Orson Welles: Interviews''. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002. {{ISBN|1-57806-209-8}}</ref>{{Rp|188}} Later in 1942, when RKO Pictures began promoting its new corporate motto, "Showmanship In Place of Genius: A New Deal at RKO",<ref>{{cite news |last=Brady |first=Thomas F. |date=November 15, 1942 |title=Off the Hollywood Wire; Orson Welles Attempts to Appease His RKO Bosses |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1942/11/15/archives/off-the-hollywood-wire-orson-welles-attempts-to-appease-his-rko.html |work=The New York Times  |access-date=May 7, 2024 }}</ref> Welles understood it as a reference to him.<ref name="Estrin" />{{Rp|188}}