Orson Welles
IT'S ALL TRUE

In 1941, Orson Welles, just 26 years old, directed and starred in “Citizen Kane” (Quarto Potere). The film world was astounded by such a complex and innovative work. Welles paved the way for modern cinema. A triumphant success. He was rightly proclaimed a genius of cinema. All the enthusiasts, industry professionals, and production houses were already in a frenzy about the next work, wondering what he could create.

Three years earlier, in 1938, he directed and starred in a radio program, which was intended to be just a radio adaptation taken from the novel: "The War of the Worlds" by H.G. Wells. This event inadvertently caused panic among radio listeners, due to its extraordinary realism. People truly believed in an impending "Martian attack." Although unintentional, Orson Welles' alien invasion can still be considered the greatest fake-news of the modern era.

The uproar was enormous, Welles suddenly rose to fame to the point that RKO offered him a contract to make 3 feature films in Hollywood.

However, he encountered many difficulties, as the historical period (World War II) was not favorable, and his ideas and directing techniques were considered revolutionary for the time.

His projects were, for various reasons, obstructed, unresolved, reworked, subject to imposed changes... it is a long, complex, and "painful" story. In the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Government sent Welles to shoot a documentary in Brazil, particularly on the Rio carnival for “political” reasons. In Brazil, the dictator of the time was said to have pro-Nazi sympathies... All this while he was filming the ambitious: “The Magnificent Ambersons” which suffered a 50-minute cut and was imposed with a happy ending.

And here we come to IT'S ALL TRUE. Welles, a volcano of ideas, had in the pipeline, among other things, the project for a documentary composed of two episodes inspired by the documentarian Robert J. Flaherty.

Welles began to develop the idea, adapting IT'S ALL TRUE to the new Brazilian location and began to plan a three-episode documentary: “The Carnival of Rio”, imposed by the government, “My friend Bonito”, the story of the friendship between a Mexican boy and a calf but which in the documentary would become the tale of the custom of baptizing farm animal cubs, in a Catholic-pagan cult in vogue at the time in the Brazilian favelas. The carnival footage, made with makeshift means, was harshly criticized by the production "we only see savages jumping!" ...this because Welles captured the true Brazilian carnival and not the “tourist” one.

The third episode he had in mind was the representation of the Voodoo rite cult, which however was never filmed because before the shooting began, RKO stopped the production and informed Welles that IT'S ALL TRUE "is not to be done." The voodoo priest, the spiritual leader who would have officiated at the voodoo rituals, was very, very offended by the affront, learning the news directly from Welles in his office. Welles did everything to continue filming, left his office to make phone calls, to convince RKO to reconsider but in vain. When he returned to the office, the voodoo chief was gone, and on the pages of the script, from the first to the last page, there was a pin lodged at the top of which hung a red wool thread. The voodoo curse.

Anyway, Welles, against all odds, decided to remain in Brazil and was totally captivated, fascinated, and overwhelmed by this world to the extent that he said something like: "the rhythm of jazz pales before the samba."

Despite the budget now reduced to the bone, he remained to “shoot” or rather to “create”... it is precisely the case to say it. So he stayed in Brazil against RKO's will, which later fired him.

And so he managed to carry out, nonetheless, the third episode, inspired by an actual event that occurred in Brazil a short time before his arrival. It concerns the extraordinary, legendary, and unrepeatable feat of four jangadeiros. The jangadeiros were Brazilian fishermen, extremely poor, who earned their living every day on makeshift rafts fishing in the open sea. These fishermen were exploited, underpaid, had no social or health support, no pension, nothing.

The 4 heroes, I could not define them otherwise, departed with their raft headed to Rio de Janeiro, to speak directly with the government on behalf of their category. They traveled, along the coast, 1600 km in 61 days, and as they progressed and stopped briefly in various port cities, their fame increased tremendously. Upon arrival in Rio, a crowd of a hundred thousand people awaited them to celebrate...

The reels of the filming were found in a film library only in 1985, the year of his death. The man who viewed them, I do not remember his name, found them absolutely extraordinary and just by seeing them, he said: "but this is Orson Welles!."

In the central part of the documentary, 45min- out of a total of 90, it is thus possible to see this episode, the feat of the Jangadeiros interpreted by the original 4 fishermen themselves and not by actors. Welles stayed in the village for months and developed incredible filming techniques with makeshift means. The episode is nothing short of extraordinary, the entire village portrayed itself in the reenactment of everyday life, women in shacks sewing, mending, braiding wooden baskets to hold the fish, children playing on the seashore, men on rafts fishing, all filmed in a “cinematic” way by the genius of Orson Welles, who lived in those villages for months and knew everyone by name, loved everyone and was loved by all. A unique and unrepeatable work within which Welles even inserted a love story and the marriage of two young people. The sound, the soundtrack (Brazilian) is stunning. Let these few last lines suffice for the “review” because this, you will have understood, is not a review, it is the tale of the endeavor of an artist who for love and passion does not yield to any compromise and continues his work without a script, without means but only with the strength of his ingenuity and will.

During the filming at the port of Rio, the 4 fishermen who accomplished the feat were hit by an unexpected, anomalous, gigantic wave. As they flew in the air, one of the four, the leader Jacaré, who met with the dictator himself the day they arrived in Rio and was subsequently considered a “dangerous communist,” waved to the crowd. The 4 were immediately rescued but Jacaré, indeed him, died. The voodoo curse was accomplished.

"...sure, one can live without having had certain experiences, but honestly... I'd advise against it." Orson Welles.