It’s All True

Orson Welles’s Pan-American Odyssey

Catherine L. Benamou

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN: 9780520242470
• eBook ISBN: 9780520938144
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Variously described as a work of genius, a pretentious wreck, a crucially important film, and a victim of its director's ego, among other things, It's All True, shot in Mexico and Brazil between 1941 and 1942, is the legendary movie that Orson Welles never got to finish. In this book, the most comprehensive and authoritative assessment of It's All True available, Catherine Benamou synthesizes a wealth of new and little-known source material gathered on two continents, including interviews with key participants, to present a compelling original view of the film and its historical significance. Her book challenges much received wisdom about Orson Welles and illuminates the unique place he occupies in American culture, broadly defined.

Table of contents

• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Locating Orson Welles's Its All True
• In Production, 1941--1942
• 2. Toward the Text of It’s All True, Based on the Work in Progress
• 3. Postproduction: The Trajectory of the Film Object, and That of Critical Discourse
• 4. Almofala: A Wellesian Text
• 5. Labirinto: The Politics and Poetics of a Text-in-the-Making
• 6. Zoom, Pan, and Rack Focus: The Film’s Suspension Examined
• 7. The Legacy of a Phantom Film, 1945--2003
• Conclusion: It’s All True, Orson Welles, and Hemispheric History
• Appendix 1: Pages From A Research Scrapbook: Jacaré’s Family Remembers
• Appendix 2: Fact Sheets For Filmed Episodes of It’s All True, 1941–1942
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index