It's All True Movie Review

For Orson Welles fans, his aborted documentary It's All True has become a curious footnote in his rollercoaster career. Commissioned by Nelson Rockerfeller to make a documentary about Brazil, Kane loaded up a crew and headed to Rio with the notion to film three stories about the country, including a carefully-negotiated piece about voodoo rituals.

Cut to months later; the studio president is ousted, and the new pres wants nothing to do with It's All True, killing the film and accusing Welles of wasting money and shooting without a script. The episode would cost Welles a number of jobs down the road and send him out of the States for decades.

It's All True was never finished -- most of the footage was lost for years. In 1993, it was unearthed and fashioned into a documentary of sorts, with Welles's raw footage from the original shoot strung together into a trio of short films, interspersed with modern footage of those who were with Welles during the original shoot. The film is actually at its best in the first five minutes, when archival Welles discusses exactly what happened when the plug was pulled -- culminating with a voodoo chieftain visiting his location offices upset about the promised money that's never to arrive. Was the production cursed from the start? You be the judge.

As for the documentary footage that's been recovered, it's nothing you haven't seen before: Lots of shots of Carnaval and natives building a raft out of logs. In the 1940s this might have been fascinating stuff. Today -- edited together and given a rough soundtrack -- it's definitely all true, but it's not all that interesting.