When a startup revealed its intention last autumn to use generative AI in reconstructing missing scenes from Orson Welles' acclaimed film "The Magnificent Ambersons," my initial reaction was one of doubt. Beyond skepticism, I found it puzzling that resources would be directed toward an endeavor likely to provoke film enthusiasts while holding little apparent commercial promise. This week, a detailed profile by Michael Schulman offers further insight into the undertaking. At the very least, it clarifies the motivation behind startup Fable and its founder Edward Saatchi: a deep and authentic admiration for Welles and his legacy.

Saatchi, whose father co-founded the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, reminisced about growing up in a household passionate about cinema, watching movies in a private screening room with his parents. He first viewed "Ambersons" at age twelve. The profile also sheds light on why this film, though less renowned than Welles' debut "Citizen Kane," continues to captivate. Welles personally considered it "a much better picture" than "Kane." However, following a poorly received preview, the studio removed 43 minutes, tacked on a rushed and unconvincing happy ending, and later destroyed the deleted scenes to clear storage space. "To me, this is the holy grail of lost cinema," Saatchi remarked. "It just seemed intuitively that there would be some way to undo what had happened."

Saatchi is merely the latest in a line of Welles admirers aspiring to restore the lost material. In fact, Fable is collaborating with filmmaker Brian Rose, who has already dedicated years to a similar goal, producing animated sequences based on the script, photographs, and Welles' annotations. Rose noted that after sharing his results with friends and family, "a lot of them were scratching their heads."

Thus, while Fable employs more advanced technology—shooting scenes in live action before integrating digital recreations of the original actors and their voices—the project is essentially a more refined and better-funded iteration of Rose's efforts. It represents a fan's pursuit to catch a glimpse of Welles' original vision. Notably, while the profile includes clips of Rose's animations and images of Fable's AI-generated actors, it presents no footage of Fable's combined live-action and AI approach. The company acknowledges significant hurdles, from correcting glaring errors like a two-headed version of actor Joseph Cotten to the more nuanced challenge of replicating the distinctive lighting and shadows characteristic of Welles' work. Saatchi even cited a "happiness" issue, where AI tends to render female characters with inappropriately cheerful expressions.

Regarding public release, Saatchi conceded it was "a total mistake" not to consult Welles' estate before the announcement. He has since been striving to gain support from both the estate and Warner Bros., which holds the film's rights. Welles' daughter Beatrice expressed to Schulman that while she remains "skeptical," she now believes "they are going into this project with enormous respect toward my father and this beautiful movie."

Actor and biographer Simon Callow, currently writing the fourth volume of his comprehensive Welles biography, has also agreed to advise the project, calling it a "great idea." Callow is a family friend of the Saatchis.

However, not everyone is persuaded. Melissa Galt stated that her mother, actress Anne Baxter, would "not have agreed with that at all." "It's not the truth," Galt explained. "It's a creation of someone else's truth. But it's not the original, and she was a purist."

While I have grown more understanding of Saatchi's objectives, I was reminded of a recent essay in which writer Aaron Bady likened AI to vampires, suggesting that both ultimately fall short in art because awareness of mortality and limitations is "what makes art possible." Bady wrote, "Without death, without loss, and without the space between my body and yours, separating my memories from yours, we cannot make art or desire or feeling." From this perspective, Saatchi's belief that "it just seemed intuitive that there would be some way to undo what had happened" comes across, if not vampiric, then somewhat naive in its refusal to accept that certain losses are irreversible. It may not be so different from a startup founder promising to eliminate grief or a studio executive insisting that "The Magnificent Ambersons" needed a happy ending.