On Friday, a startup called Fable announced An ambitious, if they scrape your head, plan to recreate the 43 lost minutes of Orson Welles’s classic movie “The Magnificent Amersons.”
Why is a startup that is invoiced as the “Netflix of AI”, and that recently He raised money from the Alexa de Amazon FundSpeaking of remaking a film that was released for the first time in 1942?
Well, the company has created a platform that allows users to create cartoons with artificial intelligence indications: Fable is starting with its own intellectual property, but it has Ambitions to sacrifice similar abilities with Hollywood IP. In fact, it has already been used to create Unauthorized episodes of “South Park”.
Now Fable is launching a new AI model that can supposedly generate long and complex narratives. Around the next two years, the filmmaker Brian Rose, who has already I spent five years Working to digitally rebuild Welles’s original vision: he plans to use that model to rebuild the lost images of “the magnificent environments.”
Notable, Fable has not obtained the rights of the film, which makes this a possible technology that will probably never be launched to the general public.
Why “Ambersons”? If you are not a welles love cynphyl, I suppose it sounds like a dark choice for digital resurrection.
Even among classic cinema fans, Welles’s second film is eclipsed by his older and most famous brother. While “Citizen Kane” is called the best movie ever made, “Ambersons” is Remembered as a lost masterpiece That the study took out of the director’s hands, dramatically cutting it and attaching a little convincing happy ending.
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The reputation of the film, the feeling of loss and what could have been, is presumably what interested fable and pink. But he is emphasizing that the only resuscit that matters to us “the magnificent environments” today is due to Welles, due to how his career in Hollywood was placed and how only in its diminished form, he still reveals genius.
That makes it even more surprising that Fable Equipment has not been able to communicate with Welles’ heritage. David Reeder, who handles the farm for Welles’ daughter, Beatrice, Described the project to the variety As an “attempt to generate thorough advertising of Welles creative genius” and said it would not be equivalent to anything but “a purely mechanical exercise without any of the innovative thoughts. [of] A creative force like Welles. “
Despite the criticisms of Reeder, it seems less annoyed by the idea of trying to recreate “Embersons” and more because of the fact that the heritage was not given “the courtesy of a notice.” After all, he said: “The farm has adopted AI technology to create a voice model destined to be used for VO work with brands.”
I am not so open. Likewise Yeah Welles’s heirs were consulted and compensated, I will have zero interest in this new “Ambersons”, as well as I have zero interest in listening to a digital drill or the legendary voice of Welles that is used to sell new products.
Now, Welles fans know that this is not the first time that other filmmakers have tried Fix posthumously ORPÍN finish His films. But at least those attempts used images that Welles had shot himself. Meanwhile, Fable describes its planned approach as a traditional hybrid and traditional cinema; Teams, some scenes are reuit with contemporary actors whose faces will be changed for digital recreations of the original cast.
Despite the absurdity of announcing a project like this without cinematographic rights or the blessing of Welles’ daughter, at least Rose seems motivated by a genuine desire to honor Welles’s vision. For example, in A statement about why Hey wants to recreate the filmRose cried the destruction of “a four -minute long -sized moving camera taking whose loss is a tragedy”, with only 50 seconds of the remaining shot in the Recut movie.
I share its sense of loss, but I also believe that this is a tragedy that the AI cannot undo.
It doesn’t matter how convincingly fable and Rose can join their own version of that tracking, it will be wheat Shot, no Welles’, full of Frankenstened replicas by Joseph Cotten and Agnes Moorehead, not the actors themselves. His final product will not be the version of Welles of “The Magnificent Ambersons” that RKO destroyed more than 80 years ago. Except a Miraculous rediscovery or lost footageThat version has gone forever.
