Orson Welles Narrates an Animated Parable About How Xenophobia & Greed Will Put America Into Decline (1971)

More than 50 years and 10 pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tions have passed since Orson Welles nar­rat­ed Free­dom Riv­er (1971). And while it shows signs of age, the ani­mat­ed film, a para­ble about the role of immi­gra­tion, race, and wealth in Amer­i­ca, still res­onates today. Actu­al­ly, giv­en the cyn­i­cal exploita­tion of xeno­pho­bia dur­ing this most unpres­i­den­tial of pres­i­den­tial cam­paigns, you could say that Free­dom River strikes a big­ger chord than it has in years. That’s why we’re fea­tur­ing the ani­ma­tion once again on Open Cul­ture.

The back­sto­ry behind the film deserves a lit­tle men­tion. Accord­ing to Joseph Cavel­la, a writer for the film, it took a lit­tle cajol­ing and per­se­ver­ance to get Orson Welles involved in the film.

For sev­er­al years, Bosus­tow Pro­duc­tions had asked Orson Welles, then liv­ing in Paris, to nar­rate one of their films. He nev­er respond­ed. When I fin­ished the Free­dom Riv­er script, we sent it to him togeth­er with a portable reel to reel tape recorder and a siz­able check and crossed our fin­gers. He was either des­per­ate for mon­ey or (I would rather believe) some­thing in it touched him because two weeks lat­er we got the reel back with the nar­ra­tion word for word and we were on our way.

Indeed, they were.

Direct­ed by Sam Weiss, Free­dom Riv­er tells the sto­ry of decline–of a once-great nation laps­ing into ugli­ness. Despite the com­fort­ing myths we like to tell our­selves here in Amer­i­ca, that ugli­ness has always been there. Xeno­pho­bia, greed, racism (you could add a few more traits to the list) are noth­ing new. They just tend to sur­face when dem­a­gogues make it per­mis­si­ble, which is pre­cise­ly what we’re see­ing right now. For­tu­nate­ly, Welles’s nar­ra­tion leaves us with room to hope, with room to believe that our cit­i­zens will rise above what our worst lead­ers have to offer.

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