It's All True (film)

It's All True (film). An unfinished documentary film project directed by Orson Welles, initially conceived in 1942 during his tenure at RKO Pictures. The film was intended as a Good Neighbor-inspired anthology celebrating Latin American culture but was abruptly canceled, leaving extensive footage unedited. Decades later, a partially restored version was assembled, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival and offering a glimpse into Welles's ambitious, thwarted vision.

Production history

The project originated following the commercial difficulties of Welles's previous film, The Magnificent Ambersons. Under pressure from Nelson Rockefeller and the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, Welles agreed to produce a pro-Allied film to bolster Pan-American unity. Shooting commenced in 1942, with segments filmed in Mexico and Brazil, the latter during the famed Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Key episodes included "My Friend Bonito," shot in Mexico with cinematographer George Fanto, and "Four Men on a Raft," based on the true journey of jangadeiros from Fortaleza to Rio de Janeiro. However, after a management shake-up at RKO Pictures led by Charles Koerner, the studio withdrew support, citing cost overruns and the controversial samba sequence. Welles financed completion of the Brazilian footage independently but could not secure further backing from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer or other Hollywood studios, leaving the project in limbo.

Rediscovery and restoration

In the late 1970s, researchers including Richard Wilson and Catherine Benamou began locating approximately 50,000 feet of original nitrate footage stored in disparate archives like the UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Museu da Imagem e do Som in São Paulo. This rediscovery led to a major restoration effort in the early 1990s, spearheaded by Wilson, Benamou, and editor John Link, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and The Film Foundation. The restored documentary, weaving together surviving footage with narration and interviews, premiered in 1993 at the Cannes Film Festival and was later broadcast on PBS as part of the American Experience series, introducing the lost work to a new generation.

Content and structure

The film was conceived as a triptych of stories illustrating the dignity of everyday life across the Americas. The completed "Four Men on a Raft" segment follows the epic voyage of poor fishermen to petition President Getúlio Vargas, blending documentary realism with dramatic reenactment. The "Carnival" section captures the vibrant, racially integrated celebrations at the Praça Onze and Pracinha in Rio de Janeiro, featuring legendary musicians like Grande Otelo and Herivelto Martins. The Mexican episode, "My Friend Bonito," directed by Norman Foster from a script by John Fante, tells a fictional story of a boy and a bull, drawing from Welles's earlier work for the Mercury Theatre. The restored version uses Welles's memos, storyboards, and a script fragment titled "The Story of Samba" to contextualize the fragments.

Critical reception and legacy

Upon its 1993 release, the restored film received respectful, often elegiac reviews, with critics in The New York Times and Variety praising its historical value and poignant glimpse of an abandoned masterpiece. Scholars note its significance as a radical experiment in ethnofiction and a critique of North American perspectives, anticipating later works like Black Orpheus. The project is central to academic studies of Orson Welles, unfinished films, and World War II propaganda cinema. Its legacy is preserved through subsequent documentaries like The Battle Over Citizen Kane and extensive analysis in biographies by authors such as Simon Callow and David Thomson.

Influence on Welles's career

The collapse of It's All True marked a decisive turning point, effectively ending Welles's autonomy within the Hollywood studio system. His subsequent difficulties securing financing for projects like The Lady from Shanghai and Othello are often traced to this professional rupture. The experience deeply informed his later, more fragmented and internationally co-produced works, such as Mr. Arkadin and Chimes at Midnight, which share the earlier project's interest in marginalized perspectives. Furthermore, his innovative, location-based methods and collaborative work with local artists in Brazil prefigured aspects of the French New Wave and modern documentary filmmaking.

Category:American documentary films Category:Unfinished films Category:Films directed by Orson Welles