Hong Kong as seen by Orson Welles (1959)
5Hong Kong vu par Orson Welles / Hong Kong as seen by Orson Welles (1959)
From https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/caf89026628/hong-kong-vu-par-orson-welles
Report composed of images shot by Orson WELLES showing the Hong Kong of refugees. The sequences follow one another showing the misery on the roofs, in the streets, in the mountains, on the sampans where thousands of Chinese refugees congregate for whom water and food are rare and diseases, such as tuberculosis, frequent. Other sequences show the consumption of narcotics (opium, marijuana), the forbidden city where no law is applied, the consumption of snake soup and finally, images of Hong Kong by night living in opulence and luxury.
Director: Orson Welles
Commentator: Francis Lara
Journalists: Georges Penchenier , Pierre Cardinal
More information on the background of this film from https://www.liberation.fr/food/2017/08/07/christian-millau-dans-les-bouges-de-hongkong-avec-orson-welles_1588697/
We know less about a very small part of the rich existence of Christian Millau, but which is worth its weight of destiny. In 1957, he was an assistant director for Orson Welles in Hong Kong for three weeks, as he told Romain Jubert in the last issue of Jesus , the magazine devoted to “the great adventure of food” . The meeting begins at the bar of a Hong Kong hotel where they drink a few cups. Orson Welles is completely bored filming Ferry to Hong Kong , a turnip with Curd Jürgens. He wants to shoot images for himself, looks for unusual places and asks Christian Millau to guide him even though he has only known the city for three days...
For three weeks, the two men wandered between Hong Kong and Macao, from clandestine smokehouses to brothels and poverty-stricken neighborhoods. In Macau, Angolan and Mozambican soldiers from the Portuguese army put on a show in a shabby hotel to make money. “And the show was a mess. They were putting on each other. There were century-old prostitutes and incredible women. In short, everything Orson could love.”
When the director of Citizen Kane left the famous Asian bay, he asked Christian Millau to collect the developed reels, i.e. 20 kilometers of film, from a laboratory. Christian Millau recounts in Jesus : “I am about to courteously leave the store, when the little man hands me the note. A fortune. Orson Welles had not paid.”
Christian Millau repatriated the films to France and offered them to the famous TV show Cinq Colonnes à la une , which agreed to make a documentary from them, on the condition that Orson Welles put his voice on the images. The two men finally meet at Maxim's in Paris, where Christian Millau recounts their dialogue:
“Say, my handsome bastard, you played me.” “Oh well, what did I do?” replies Orson Welles.
– You let me pay for 20,000 meters of film.
– Oh, Christian, don’t say that. You know very well that I would deprive myself of my shirt for you!” he replies with a laugh.
“Yes, Orson, you can. Except you know perfectly well that it’s too big for me.”