After working with the novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville for about ten years, after making a radio play, composing and directing a stage play (“Moby Dick Rehearsed”), participating in the cinematographic adaptation by John Huston and performing the Achab monologue on a television show, in 1971 Welles began shooting a shortened version of his theatrical play, at his home in Orvilliers near Paris, where he played all the parts. Through the use of only his voice and lighting effects on the backdrop with different colors, he carried out  “stage acting”, intensified by shot/reverse shot editing. The film includes the filmed scenes of the play, so missing passages were reconstructed by using the theatrical shooting script. The backgrounds for the titles are shots of a model ship that were found on one of the reels of material. The lavander 16mm was duped and blown up to 35mm, the magnetic was mixed and re-recorded in optical sound.

Stefan Droessler