Okay, I’m a little less upset about that ‘Magnificent Ambersons’ AI project.

When a startup announced last fall its plans to use generative AI to recreate lost scenes from Orson Welles’ classic film “The Magnificent Ambersons,” I was skeptical. Moreover, I was baffled as to why anyone would spend time and money on something that seemed to enrage cinephiles while offering minimal commercial value.

This week, an in-depth profile by Michael Schulman of the New Yorker provides more details on the project. If nothing else, this helps explain why startup Fable and its founder Edward Saatchi are pursuing it. This seems to stem from a genuine love for Welles and his work.

Saatchi, whose father was the founder of the advertising company Saatchi & Saatchi, recalled her childhood watching movies in a private screening room with her “movie-mad” parents. He said he first saw ‘The Ambersons’ when he was twelve years old.

The profile also explains why “The Ambersons,” although less famous than Welles’ first film, “Citizen Kane,” is still so exciting. Welles himself claimed it was a “much better picture” than “Kane,” but after disastrous preview screenings, the studio cut 43 minutes from the film, added an abrupt and unconvincing happy ending, and eventually scrapped the cut footage to make room in the archives.

“For me, this is the lost holy grail of cinema,” Saatchi said. “Intuitively, it seemed like there might be a way to undo what happened.”

Saatchi is Welles’ latest devotee who dreams of recreating lost footage. In fact, Fable is collaborating with filmmaker Brian Rose, who has already spent years trying to achieve the same result with the film’s script and photos, as well as animated scenes based on Welles’ notes. (Rose said that after reviewing the results among friends and family, “a lot of people were scratching their heads.”)

So while Fable is using advanced technology, including shooting live-action scenes and then finally digitally recreating the original actors and voices, this project is best understood as a slicker, better-funded version of Rose’s work. This is a fan’s attempt to get a glimpse into Welles’ vision.

Notably, the New Yorker article includes a few animated clips of Rose and images of Fable’s AI actors, but no footage showing the results of Fable’s live-action-AI hybrid.

By the company’s own admission, there are significant challenges ahead, whether it’s fixing obvious mistakes, such as actor Joseph Cotten’s two-headed version, or the more subjective task of recreating the complex beauty of cinematography. (Saatchi also described a “happiness” problem, where AI tends to make women in movies look inappropriately happy.)

As for whether the footage will be released to the public, Saatchi admitted it was a “complete mistake” not to talk to Wells’ estate before the announcement. Afterwards, he reportedly made efforts to acquire both Warner Bros., which owns real estate and movie rights. Welles’ daughter, Beatrice, told Schulman that she was still “sceptical” but now believed that “they are coming into this project with tremendous respect for my father and this beautiful film.”

Actor and biographer Simon Callow, who is currently writing the fourth volume of his multi-volume Welles biography, also agreed to advise on the project, which he described as a “brilliant idea”. (Callow is a family friend of the Saatchis.)

But not everyone was convinced. Melissa Galt said her mother, actress Anne Baxter, “would not have agreed with that at all.”

“That’s not true,” Galt said. “It was someone else’s creation of truth, but it wasn’t the original, and she was a purist.”

I have become more sympathetic to Saatchi’s goals, but I still agree with Galt. At its best, this project only breeds novelty, a dream of what the movie could have been like.

In fact, Galt’s explanation of his mother’s position that “when the movie is over, it’s over” is similar to what author Aaron Bady said about AI. <죄인>It reminded me of a recent essay comparing it to a vampire. Bady argued that both vampires and AI will always fall short when it comes to art. For “what makes art possible” is the knowledge of death and limitations.

“There is no work of art without an end. If there is no ending point for the work (even if the world goes on), there is no death, there is no loss, there is no space between my body and yours, there is no separation between my memory and your memory, we cannot create art, we cannot create desire or feeling,” he added.

In that respect, Saatchi’s argument is as follows. ~ have to The idea that there is a “way to undo what happened” feels, if not downright vampiric, at least a little childish in its unwillingness to accept that some losses are permanent. Perhaps this is not so different from a startup founder who claims that sadness can be made obsolete or a studio executive who claims that “The Magnificent Ambersons” needs a happy ending.