Orson Welles

[Jonathan S]

Welles' Macbeth also showing on BBC Two at 1.50am on Sunday 20 Dec.

[Dr. Mabuse]

Welles and his brief love for Betamax
http://gizmodo.com/5429390/orson-welles ... ove-affair

[ellipsis7]

Betamax=Sony's home video cassette format

Betacam=Sony's all in one professional camcorder

Welles' flirtation is with the Betacam...

[Lwilliams]

The Master! Thanks for sharing all these great links and information.

_____________________________
crystal awards

[tojoed]

Orson Welles - Paris Interview(1960) is being released on DVD in April.

[Awesome Welles]

Orson Welles - Paris Interview(1960) is being released on DVD in April.

From Kultur Video's Website:

A vintage interview captures the artist reflecting on Citizen Kane and expounding on directing, acting and writing and his desire to bestow a valuable legacy upon his profession. The scene is a hotel room in Paris. The year 1960. The star, Orson Welles. This is a pearl of cinematic memorabilia. Directed by Allan King. ... 53 minutes.

Has anyone comment on the quality of this interview and the quality of Kultur releases?

[Murdoch]

Has anyone comment on the quality of this interview...?

Here's a clip from the interview. I didn't think it a particularly endearing interview, I thought the interviewer rather dull.

[Jack Phillips]

Has anyone comment on the quality of this interview...?

Here's a clip from the interview. I didn't think it a particularly endearing interview, I thought the interviewer rather dull.

Welles is more than endearing. The interviewer is a stiff--but I couldn't give a rat's ass about him. It's Welles I pay to see.

[ando]

Been on a Welles kick lately and beginning to appreciate him more. One of the greatest aspects of his style (imo, of course) is the relentless pace and rhythm in his films. On the other hand, there aren't great moments of stillness. (I haven't seen Chimes, though, so I may be premature in this assessment.) For certain, there are sequences of melodrama involving extended single-takes but little in the way of actual depth, which is not to be confused with the technical term; deep-focus. He's like Balzac in that he's incredibly wide-ranging in his chronicling of humanity but not terribly profound, which he'd probably be the first to admit. Great fun to watch, though. I just finished three of four viewings of Touch of Evil and I could watch certain segments over and over again still, but the Janet Leigh narrative is just lurid enough to keep me from becoming truly obsessed.

[Roger Ryan]

Been on a Welles kick lately and beginning to appreciate him more. One of the greatest aspects of his style (imo, of course) is the relentless pace and rhythm in his films. On the other hand, there aren't great moments of stillness. (I haven't seen Chimes, though, so I may be premature in this assessment.) For certain, there are sequences of melodrama involving extended single-takes but little in the way of actual depth, which is not to be confused with the technical term; deep-focus. He's like Balzac in that he's incredibly wide-ranging in his chronicling of humanity but not terribly profound, which he'd probably be the first to admit. Great fun to watch, though. I just finished three of four viewings of Touch of Evil and I could watch certain segments over and over again still, but the Janet Leigh narrative is just lurid enough to keep me from becoming truly obsessed.

I'm not sure I agree completely. I find quite a few examples of extended single-takes that contain the kind of emotional depth you're referring to: Bernstein's anecdote about the girl with the white parasol in KANE to start off with. AMBERSONS is filled with single-take scenes that are as profound as anything captured in cinema (the train station farewell, Major Amberson's ruminations, Isabel's deathbed scene). Once you see CHIMES, I think you'll find a beautifully choreographed single-take scene where Falstaff learns of the king's death. True, while they are very technically accomplished, I don't think the long takes in TOUCH OF EVIL have a great deal of emotional depth, but how brilliant is the fact that the time-bomb at the beginning is set for the exact length of the shot itself or that Welles has the empty shoebox fall in the bathroom at the exact moment Quinlan refers to dynamite in the next room?

[ando]

Oh, he's a master of timing, which you have to be as a magician. Frankly, I think he was more in tune with that profession (or trickster) than what we would consider a film auteur - someone whose concern (among others) is cinematic art above all else. A film like Ambersons is nostalgic but devoid of the kind of resonance that appeals to a truly wide audience. I think you have to be a little in love with that period of American history and Victoriana, frankly, in order to truly enjoy the picture. It feels like a time capsule each time I sit down to view it. The film gets lost in the trappings of the period. I don't think Wells was able to transcend that. To be fair, much of the story involves the material loss of that world but I don't think there's any question that essentially it's a period melodrama.

[Roger Ryan]

Well, then we are on opposite sides of the fence. For me, AMBERSONS is as emotionally devastating as any film I've seen and transcends its Victorian trappings. The unraveling of the character of Aunt Fanny alone is a stunning precursor to what Bergman would do so well twenty years later.

Of course, I don't forgive the extreme melodramatic aspects largely imposed by the studio re-shoots/re-editing, but I won't let that get in the way of what Welles was going for.

[ando]

Welles, a precursor to Bergman? Ok. I don't see it but perhaps I need to rewatch Ambersons - it has been several years. I have read quite a bit about Begman, including interviews where he mentions influences and I don't ever recall him bringing up Welles or any of his films. Ambersons isn't the chamber piece that Cries & Whispers, Pasion of Anna or Persona resemble. It's a bit more sprawling, more epic; encompasses more of a time period and the transformation of a certain class of people than those Bergman examples. But I feel like I'm missing something vital that you've caught.

What exactly do you think Welles was "going for" with The Magnificent Ambersons that Bergman picked up on twenty years later?

Here's a bit of Welles on his approach to directing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6ooQs0fUxs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Trial, a seldom discussed film, is next on my Welles list.

[Peacock]

I think Roger is referring to Agnes Moorehead's raw hysteria. After the initial previews the audience were shocked at seeing brutally real emotion, and most of the moments were reshot more subdued, but there is the odd one which was left in and wow... what a performer.

[karmajuice]

He's like Balzac in that he's incredibly wide-ranging in his chronicling of humanity but not terribly profound. . .

I've heard this said of Welles before (most famously from Kael's "Raising Kane" article, where she fails to see any emotional depth in Citizen Kane and admires it solely for its formal qualities), but I just don't understand it. First off, almost all of Welles' films have moments of quiet, melancholy, and lyricism. I find his films (even his pulpy ones like The Lady from Shanghai and Mr. Arkadin) full of not only emotional depth, but emotional complexity as well. Perhaps you're perturbed by the fact that Welles seldom lingers on one thing. He crafts brilliant shots and gives them only a few seconds of screen time, where another director might revel in his own handiwork. Likewise, great emotional weight may be carried in only a gesture or a glance and it may only last very briefly. This brevity strengthens these moments in my eyes, because genuine emotion is only permitted a few seconds to rise to the surface, if that.
Still, I cannot fathom how a person might overlook the "profundity" (a slippery word if ever there was one) of Welles' work. What about the end of Touch of Evil? What about the Chartres sequence in F for Fake, or Welles' fleeting reminiscence about his summer in Ireland? The instances of emotional vulnerability in Citizen Kane, when Kane's bravado and self-confidence falter? How can a person remain unmoved when they see Kane stagger past the mirrors, holding the snowglobe?
(Because, while Welles both gave and directed an array of remarkable performances, I refuse to endorse the notion that emotional truth can only be conveyed through performance. In his rebuttal to Kael's "Raising Kane" article, Rosenbaum describes how Welles can convey emotions and ideas through camera movement alone, and the same is true of the impact of imagery. Aside from having aesthetic or metaphorical dimensions, many of Welles' images have a visceral, emotional effect on me, like the mise-en-abyme in Kane. The sheer cinematic presence of his films has resonance enough -- the performances are icing on the cake, far as I'm concerned).

A film like Ambersons is nostalgic but devoid of the kind of resonance that appeals to a truly wide audience.

I don't even know what to say to this. How can a nostalgic film fail to resonate with a "truly wide audience" when nostalgia is a universal emotion? Nostalgia's beside the point, though. I could give a shit less about Victoriana, but I adore the film. In fact, I don't even think of it as a period film: while utterly important to the film, its setting feels transparent when paired with the unfolding drama of the Amberson family. The film is about being lost in the trapping of a period, but I fail to see that as a hindrance. On the contrary, it's precisely this which gives the trajectory of the film such power.

I don't mean to pick a fight, of course. I just despair every time I happen upon someone who doesn't see the immense richness in Welles' films that I do. He's one of my favorite filmmakers. I guess I'm trying to explain what I see in them, though I don't suppose it does much good. All I can really say is keep revisiting these films. Watch them over and over and remain as open to their nuances as you can. The first time I saw Citizen Kane, I loved it. The second time I watched Citizen Kane, my love grew so much it put my initial love to shame. And after four times, it only continues to grow.

Definitely watch The Trial. It's his most frantic, nightmarish film, and so baroque it verges on stylistic collapse, but it's all the better for it. And it's a film filled to the brim with humanity -- elusive, implied, and sorely tested humanity, but it's there. I hope you see it.

[ando]

I just despair every time I happen upon someone who doesn't see the immense richness in Welles' films that I do.

Forget despair, if I may be so bold as to tell you what to do. If you're despairing for my sake, really, forget it.

Welles is one of my favorite directors as well; he's simply not a filmmaker of emotional depth. And if your using Charles Foster Kane as an example of a figure from a Welles' film who displays depth of character (emotional or otherwise), your yardstick is about an inch deep. One of the main points that Welles makes with Citizen Kane is that this man of immense resources and power is essentially, emotionally, an eight year old child. Because it's at this age that he leaves his childhood and all it represented for a kind of emotional wasteland that many American success stories often inhabit. Throughout the film he continually searches for a kind of love that he, unfortunately, associates with his childhood (his mother, ROSEBUD, being loved, a warm home, etc.), all the while ignoring, underappreciating and even destroying those around him. His emotional releases are the fits of child. He's one of the most gargantuan pre-adolescents (since so many are fond of using the worn out phrase) "in all of film". There's is more self pity in those moments of (how did you phrase it?) confidence faultering than in hardly any other cinematic figure I can bring to mind. Kane is a colossal BORE. And I don't like the film because of him.

Now, when you talk about how the manner of framing a shot or capturing a moment can amplify or provide nuance in a particular scene I am in full agreement. Welles is just not the man who provides emotional nuance in this way for me. He's a marvelous entertainer, endessly fascinating to watch, but closer to Falstaff than he is to Lear - and I know he played both. But Falstaff is the clever improviser and Lear should probably leave electrical equipment alone.

[knives]

Different stroke, different folks.
That said I have top strongly disagree with you on Kane, I assume you mean the character though this also applies to the movie, being a bore. The character is absolutely fascinating in that Shakespearean way that Welles does so well. Emotion may not be the first thing to come to mind, but there is a deliberate emotional core to the actions that at least some can appreciate. Oddly enough I find The Stranger, easily Welles weakest movie, to have the strongest dramatic core (I find the emotions in Chimes and The Trial more powerful if less conventional) with the wife's relation to Welles.

[karmajuice]

One of the main points that Welles makes with Citizen Kane is that this man of immense resources and power is essentially, emotionally, an eight year old child.

The ever-popular and tragically reductive reading of Citizen Kane. It completely misses the point. Welles himself said that Rosebud was a "cheap Freudian gag" and that the film might have been better off with the name left unexplained. Hell, it's written into the script when the journalist says "I don't think there's one word that can describe a man's life." Kane was not merely a man in arrested development -- although he certainly threw tantrums and certainly was selfish and certainly contradicted himself, just like anyone else might. To dismiss him as such is to ignore half the film. You have to ignore his glorious, ambitious enthusiasm when he first starts the paper. You have to ignore Bernstein's admiration of him. You have to ignore the fact that he finishes the negative review for Jed, and you have to refuse to wonder why he might have done this -- Jed dismisses it but I cannot. And what of the fact that the entire story is told from the varying perspectives of those who knew him? What of the fact that we do not, except for the moment of his death, experience an unbiased view of Charles Foster Kane? Your dismissive, one-dimensional view of the character simply isn't supported by the film. You can be like Jed and reject him on the basis that his character does not appeal to you, but that only makes you someone who chooses to ignore half the man. The rest of him is there, whether you're willing to acknowledge it or not.

And how can I not despair when I read that paragraph you wrote? Next thing I know you'll be watching Chimes at Midnight and all you'll have to say is, "Well what's the big deal about Falstaff anyway? He's only a big kid who's drunk all the time."
And despair is a big word. Don't worry. I won't be losing any sleep over this.

Out of curiosity, what films or filmmakers would you associate with emotional depth? I'm not even sure I know what you mean when you say it. I need some example to go by.

[ando]

The ever-popular and tragically reductive reading of Citizen Kane.

My reading of Kane, the character, is neither tragic nor reductive and it's irrelevant whether or not other people agree. The story of Kane, however, is tragic.

Out of curiosity, what films or filmmakers would you associate with emotional depth? I'm not even sure I know what you mean when you say it.

Apparently. But this is a sidetrack (unintentional though it may be) and really a topic for another discussion.

Michael did bring up Ingmar Bergman, who really does explore the emotional and pyschological terrain of men and women and their relationship with each other. To me, Welles is not in the same category. Welles admitted to being an "adventurer" - and an adventurer is not someone whose intention is to mine the deeper recesses of the human psyche the way Bergman or Tarkovsky do, for instance. When Welles had something of a blueprint, like passages from Shakespeare's Macbeth (his excellent one shot take of the Duncan murder scene, for example) he's most inventive at conveying mood, particularly the horror of the scene, but fails in displaying the pathos that occurs later in the play. I've always been turned off by his decision to turn Macbeth into a drunkard, for instance, during the second half of the film. To have the character intoxicated during the banquet scene is one thing but to have Macbeth drunk for another twenty minutes is an indication that Welles was avoiding the deeper implications of Macbeth's murders on his own psyche. The film looses intensity and focus as a result. In Welles' version Macbeth is drunk with the blood of his own murders, barely comprehending what he's doing - and that is not the character that Shakespeare wrote (I've certainly never seen him played on stage or film in this manner). So we stumble along with Macbeth waiting until Burnham Wood comes to Dunsinane and and the beheading of Macbeth before we get to the next and final climax. It's a major flaw in the film and the reason why I shut it off after the banquet scene. But it's is a prime example of what I mean when I say Welles' approach, in general, often lacks emotional and pyschological depth.

Now, you don't have to agree or disagree with this assessment. I'm merely relating what the experience of watching a Welles film is like for me. Please don't lump me into to some amorphous category of critics who come with preconceived notions of Welles or film or, worse, makes banal generalities about well known filmmakers. I really do look at his films and repeatedly find a particular take that makes Welles... Welles.

[karmajuice]

My reading of Kane, the character, is neither tragic nor reductive and it's irrelevant whether or not other people agree.

I can't really argue with such a stubborn statement so I'll just say that I fervently disagree, even if my opinion is irrelevant.

Ah, Bergman. I won't get into him because that is off-topic but it's funny that you choose him, because I basically feel the same way toward him as you do toward Welles -- admiration mixed with a curious lack. Bergman is certainly a director who is concerned with emotional depth. On my part, I'd say the difference is that Welles' films suggest emotional depth, whereas Bergman's films spell out emotional depth in morse code with a hammer against the back of your head. Not that either approach is invalid, or inherently superior, but I find Welles' approach less grating.

It's been a while since I've seen his Macbeth and I don't remember it very well so I can't comment much about your reading. Of all his films, it impressed me least the first time I saw it. Your take on the film post-banquet seems reasonable enough, though. Maybe the drunkenness is a cop-out. Personally, I would wonder why he got drunk. Maybe this choice has some significant implications. Lots of directors choose to take liberties and explore new interpretations of Shakespeare's material. Welles was notorious for diverging from traditional interpretations of Shakespeare; after all, this is the man who made a composite of five different plays for Chimes at Midnight, and let's not forget his all-black, Caribbean stage version of Macbeth. The cheap, primordial setting of the entire film is pretty nontraditional. So maybe Welles thought that this particular avenue (Macbeth being drunk) was exploring at least once, that it might yield interesting results. Maybe it didn't succeed. Its implications are quite different from a traditional interpretation, but the choice is still rooted in Macbeth's emotions as depicted by the play. Alcohol is a common antidote for fear and self-doubt, and while we may not see this as a definitive performance (something I don't believe in anyway), it's at least a thoughtful alternative to the traditional reading.

[zedz]

One of the main points that Welles makes with Citizen Kane is that this man of immense resources and power is essentially, emotionally, an eight year old child.

The ever-popular and tragically reductive reading of Citizen Kane. It completely misses the point. Welles himself said that Rosebud was a "cheap Freudian gag" and that the film might have been better off with the name left unexplained.

Unfortunately for this position, it isn't. Welles was a master of deflective self-criticism, and he was also a master of soaking up any available praise by playing coy about his intentions.

'Rosebud' may be a gimmick and may be reductive, but it's integral to the script. The sled, and the scene which it represents, is carefully buried as the common denominator in all of the refracted recollections of Kane's - even for those who have no idea of the significance of either (e.g. he's on his way to 'visit' it when he first meets Susan).

And it locks in with the other common denominator of all of the flashbacks: the tragedy of a man who wants to be loved but has never learnt how to love back, and can only deal in proxies for love. Everybody offers some kind of observation that circles around this idea. (And then there's the central irony of the Rosebud scene, which Kane sees as the great betrayal of maternal love when it's actually intended to be an expression of it - his mother protecting him from his father.) 'Rosebud' is anything but arbitrary: it really does provide the key to the character and the film in specific psychological and structural ways.

These ideas aren't particularly cool and post-modern, but they are very elegantly and subtly worked into the script and film, regardless of how Welles might have wanted to downplay them in later years for any number of reasons - one of which might well have been mortification at how so many viewers failed to read the film as it was intended.

[tenia]

Anyway, for Rosebud, nobody heard that in the movie, since emotionally 8-yr-old or not, you know, he died alone...
It's not a cheap gag from me, but, as someone who discovered the movie quite late (only a couple of years ago, when I was already 20), it's a goof that just struck me, and I'm still surprise that not so many people have noticed it.

Anyway.

[karmajuice]

Zedz, I don't mean to dismiss the importance of 'Rosebud'. Obviously it's central to the structure of the film. It functions simultaneously in practical and symbolic capacities. It bears associations with childhood 'before the fall'. It represents the unattainable (both for Kane and for the newsreel crew seeking its meaning). It's a brilliant way of configuring the film because it implies centrality of character while persistently avoiding it, because all the interviewees discuss aspects of Kane but not that aspect, since none of them understand his final word. The revelation at the end suggests an explanation but really it's only another dimension of his character and not some decoder ring for understanding him wholly.

You can read the 'Rosebud' revelation any number of ways, but I tend to think of it in these terms: Kane, at the end of his life, longs for a moment of uncorrupted happiness. I think the 'Rosebud' memory appeals to Kane precisely because he can blame someone else for what his life has become: it is just about the only decision in the entire film which is forced upon Kane, rather than forced upon others by Kane. It's very much a "Where did this all go wrong?" thought, and he chooses to hide in the past rather than admit that his own faults made him who he is. At the same time, it's also a gesture of genuine sympathy. I think most people associate their childhood with happiness and it's natural for Kane to do the same. Perhaps Kane was just feeling nostalgic when he happened to pass. In any case, I don't think 'Rosebud' provides any definitive answer; rather, it adds to an array of impressions from which we must derive our own answers.

Even if 'Rosebud' is a gimmick, I don't think it's reductive or arbitrary. I think it enriches the film immensely. It may be the most excellently crafted film gimmick ever devised. It is not 'Rosebud' that I objected to, but ando's reading, which I feel is reductive. It seems to me that this reading not only ignores the complexity of the 'Rosebud' device, it also reduces the character of Kane to a one-dimensional man-child which one can conveniently dismiss. If I quoted Welles' self-deprecating comments, it was to divert attention from 'Rosebud' (which seems central to that flawed reading) and focus instead on other qualities. I hoped to highlight instances of emotional depth and complexity which might combat that perspective.

In other words, I agree wholeheartedly, zedz.

[zedz]

Okay, looks like we're all on the same page. I've seen the film way too many times for it to retain its mystique, but I do feel the need to defend it (of all films!) when it gets reduced to a mere technical showreel or the film's uncommonly detailed psychology and structure gets dismissed as glib gimmickry or corsetted into ill-fitting post-modern drag.

[ando]

Alcohol is a common antidote for fear and self-doubt, and while we may not see this as a definitive performance (something I don't believe in anyway), it's at least a thoughtful alternative to the traditional reading.

Alcoholism is an escape mechanism (among other things). People in real life use it to avoid the deeper issues in their psyche. Now, it may not be that Welles employs it (in the film) to avoid dealing with creative solutions to Macbeth's internal chaos. He may not offer a slution at all (though I think the overtly Christian ritualistic elements and iconography may provide a kind of moral alternative or thematic juxtaposition). But, how is getting drunk a thoughtful alternative to dealing with the fact that you have to continually murder people in order to have peace of mind? And why does your peace of mind hang on some witches' prophecy? And why is a witches' prophecy necessary in order for you to see yourself? These are questions you have to deal with as a director of this material. Central to Shakespeare's play is Macbeth's refusal to come up with solutions for dealing with his inner drives or demons, if you will. So he projects witches and fog and the like - outward representations of what is really going on within himself. And, lets' face it, we all do this to a certain extent. The problem is that the projections become reality for Macbeth because he involves other people in them; first his wife, then King Duncan and on down the line.

Now, initially, Macbeth refuses to admit this for just after he murders Duncan he says: I'm afraid of what I've done, look on it I dare not. And he goes on refusing to acknowledge himself as the source of evil despite the fact that he has to continue murdering in order to secure his seat on the throne. By the time Birnum Wood does come to Dunsinane it's literally a case of Macbeth not seeing the forest for the trees. Now, how does Welles deal with this (for it is the absolute crux of the play)? Let's get him drunk?