a creative force like Welles.”
Despite Reeder’s criticism, he seems less upset by the idea of attempting to recreate “Ambersons” and more by the fact that the estate was not “even given the courtesy of a heads up.” After all, he noted, “the estate has embraced AI technology to create a voice model intended to be used for VO work with brands.”
I’m not so open-minded. Even if Welles’ heirs were being consulted and compensated, I’d have zero interest in this new “Ambersons,” just as I have zero interest in hearing a digital simulacrum of Welles’s legendary voice being used to hawk new products.
Now, Welles fans know this isn’t the first time other filmmakers have tried to posthumously fix or finish his movies. But at least those attempts used footage that Welles had shot himself. Fable, meanwhile, describes its planned approach as a hybrid of AI and traditional filmmaking — apparently some scenes will be reshot with contemporary actors whose faces will be then swapped for digital recreations of the original cast.
Despite the absurdity of announcing a project like this without the film rights or the blessing of Welles’ daughter, at least Rose seems motivated by a genuine desire to honor Welles’ vision. For example, in a statement about why he wants to recreate the film, Rose mourned the destruction of “a four-minute-long, unbroken moving camera shot whose loss is a tragedy,” with only 50 seconds of the shot remaining in the recut film.
I share his sense of loss — but I also believe this is a tragedy that AI cannot undo.
No matter how convincingly Fable and Rose may be able to stitch together their own version of that tracking shot, it will be their shot, not Welles’, filled with Frankensteined replicas of Joseph Cotten and Agnes Moorehead, not the actors themselves. Their final product will not be Welles’ version of “The Magnificent Ambersons” that RKO destroyed more than 80 years ago. Barring a miraculous rediscovery of lost footage, that version is gone forever.
