Except he made scores of films better than Kane, such as F for Fake, Chimes at Midnight, The Trial, and Touch of Evil. Unproduced scripts like The Big Brass Ring are amazing
The connection between Welles and Dostoyevsky is more central than critics usually note (in spite of The Stranger). The core principle in Dostoyevsky is the dialogic, also a form of structure that refuses a single answer or blueprint or method. This drives the monologic world of executive hollywood crazy, and was one good reason why Welles could never really get support. Citizen Kane is a good model: there is no one answer to who he was (and the sled is not exactly an answer).
I warn everyone that being a screenwriter is more about writing great works that nobody wants and making money writing stuff even you don’t want to write let alone see!
You think those are failures? The Third Man was a huge commercial success. The Lady from Shanghai is a beloved film—I plan to write about it at a future date. In this article I was exploring the Welles projects that didn't work out.
I have a hard time getting past Welles' Irish "accent" in "Lady". It's worth watching (for me, at least) for Everett Sloane, who also had my favorite speech in "Kane" (about the girl in white).
The Third Man was a film directed by Carol Reed from Graham Greene's novel and script. Welles steals the movie with 15 minutes of screen time, but as an actor. It wasn't a Welles film, as far as I know.
I'm not a movie man. The last one I liked was "Ghost Writer". It does not favorably depict the American CIA, and I didn't know until credits at the end that Roman Polanski was the director.
I'm not a music man either. But am old enough to have seen Louis Armstrong and get his autograph; and saw Duke Ellington and his orchestra at a hotel in Portland OR. (The hotel men's room had an open urinal about 15' across with a small statue of Fidel Castro in the bottom with his mouth open.)
I broaden my outlook to your idea of examining hits and misses in any occupation. And I like your idea. My own history is that of hits and misses. Probably more misses but offset by enough hits to say at age 87, it has been a good life.
Ted: "Just making the attempt—being the “man in the arena,” as Teddy Roosevelt called it—is a far grander thing than earning a steady paycheck by settling for less."
When I was talking to Hugh Le Caine, the great designer of electronic musical instruments and instrumentation in Canada, I asked him what he hoped his "legacy" would be.
He said "I would like to be remembered only as a worker in the vineyard."
Story of my life! Have worked for years trying to alert people to the necessity of preserving the culture and historical artifacts of electronic musical instruments and instrumentation, largely to no avail.
But I reckon it's OK to be a "worker in the vineyard."
Up there with Fellini as one of my favourite filmmakers.
Simon Callow has written his as@ off putting together an incredibly detailed, incredibly compelling, so far three book, biography of Welles. The fourth - covering his life from the late sixities until his death - is eagerly awaited by me and, no doubt, tens of thousands of others.
Ted, you could even compare Welles' 'War of the Worlds' radio broadcast as the 1938 version of the recent YouTube success of 'Backrooms,' and 'Obsession.' Afterall, radio was a newish medium in 1938 - barely, what 15 years old. That 'War of the Worlds' broadcast caught Hollywood's attention and the rest is history.
As Callow writes it, Welles' creative force was too strong, too messy, too interesting and sometimes too controversial for Hollywood, movie auduences and, yes the Brazilian government. Once Welles caught Samba fever, in 1942, he started going to the Favelas and that was not what the U.S. or Brazilian governments, of the time, wanted.
'Citizen Kane' and the dark, stunningly photographed and directed 'Touch of Evil' are a must for anyone serious about familarizing themselves with the best of what the history of cinema has to offer. Viva Welles!
Great article. I think Touch of Evil is often overlooked by critics. It has a remarkable "feel" to the movie that goes well beyond the basic script. Ditto The Lady for Shanghai with the remarkable Funhouse\mirror ending. It's interesting to note that most of his failures or disappointments early came from studio heads meddling and seemingly for no reason. Superegos on full display. Modern box-office failures seem to come from the egos of directors and\or producers. Who then blame the failures on the audience for not seeing their genius.
There was a Japanese physicist Yochiro Nambu who was noted for being theoretically far ahead of everyone. I read one article on him which was largely of the form, he developed a theory for a class of quantum mechanical particles now known for having Bose-Einstein statistics. Basically, he was so far ahead of everyone that people had almost forgotten his work when others finally put it into context. Orson Wells was like that in a way. He wanted to do things, but he was ahead of his time. (I also gather he could be a pain to work with.)
I was reading a recent novel, Seascaper, where an Orson Wells like character plays an important role. I wouldn't mention it here save for the story's reliance on the power of music and elements of the supernatural. Others here might enjoy it.
Also, while looking up Nambu to check the spelling, I came across a June 1975 article in Scientific American explaining that Galileo likely timed his various experiments involving pendulums and falling balls using music. People are very sensitive to variations in musical rhythm - not me, but most others - and that would allow him to make more precise measurements than one might expect given time keeping mechanism of his era.
Loved reading this -- didn't know of several projects unrealized -- but how great his ouevre is anyway -- no Lear, but what an Othello! No Quixote, but big thanks to Bogdanovich for The Other Side of the Wind!. The Immortal Story, playing opposite Eddie G in The Stranger. I want to see Journey Into Fear again. Welles out-Kaned himself.
The how-it-was-made story for "Othello" is fascinating and funny. It took years, with many starts and stops (mostly because Welles didn't have the money to continue). it's remarkable that he got through it at all.
Welles is such a tragedy of what might have been. I've seen most of his films, and great as "Kane" was, "Ambersons" would probably have surpassed it if he had been able to finish it himself. For instance, this brief scene, still raising potent and pertinent questions 8 decades later:
His career calls to mind that of Stanley Kubrick, another onetime "young genius" with a very different career arc. He and Welles had a lot in common, and a lot not in common. One came from the theater, one from still photography. One will be remembered for "Kane," the other for "2001." Both about as different from the usual Hollywood fare as could be.
Sometimes the world does the artist in. And sometimes the artist does themselves in.
But they are real artists if they convey the truth we haven't seen with our own eyes.
There are so many great film makers...Satyajit Ray is another one.
And I keep recommending Philip Gröning's "Into Great Silence," but nobody seems to have even heard of it. What a pity. Bring a supply of patience...you will get a reward:
As much as I revere "Citizen Kane" - I feel "The Magnificent Ambersons." Even flawed, 'Kane" and 'Ambersons' is an amazing 1-2 punch as a directorial debut.
Walter Murch, in his book Suddenly Something Clicked, tells a fascinating story of his and a colleague's attempt to resurrect the lost footage and more importantly Welles' handwritten notes on how to fix the studio's botched assemblage of Touch of Evil, which was done while Welles was in Brazil*. Welles was mortified by what the studio did, but could do nothing under the circumstances. Murch thought it would be worthwhile taking a stab at restoring the film to Welles' original vision. It is a wonderful tale about the tests of will between directors and studio execs, not to mention the sheer luck involved in performing the task Murch took on.
*The fiasco in Brazil was horrendous. People died.
"I started at the top and worked my way down."
Except he made scores of films better than Kane, such as F for Fake, Chimes at Midnight, The Trial, and Touch of Evil. Unproduced scripts like The Big Brass Ring are amazing
I'll second that about Chimes at Midnight.
The connection between Welles and Dostoyevsky is more central than critics usually note (in spite of The Stranger). The core principle in Dostoyevsky is the dialogic, also a form of structure that refuses a single answer or blueprint or method. This drives the monologic world of executive hollywood crazy, and was one good reason why Welles could never really get support. Citizen Kane is a good model: there is no one answer to who he was (and the sled is not exactly an answer).
I warn everyone that being a screenwriter is more about writing great works that nobody wants and making money writing stuff even you don’t want to write let alone see!
This was such a great article!
R we forgetting “Lady from Shanghai” and “The Third Man” and “The Stranger”?
You think those are failures? The Third Man was a huge commercial success. The Lady from Shanghai is a beloved film—I plan to write about it at a future date. In this article I was exploring the Welles projects that didn't work out.
I have a hard time getting past Welles' Irish "accent" in "Lady". It's worth watching (for me, at least) for Everett Sloane, who also had my favorite speech in "Kane" (about the girl in white).
No, sorry, I meant the opposite! I’ve always taught them as counter-examples of the idea that Welles was a failure.
The Third Man was a film directed by Carol Reed from Graham Greene's novel and script. Welles steals the movie with 15 minutes of screen time, but as an actor. It wasn't a Welles film, as far as I know.
Legend has it that Welles and "Around The World..." were the inspiration for Jeffrey Cordova, the character Jack Buchanan played in "The Band Wagon".
I'm not a movie man. The last one I liked was "Ghost Writer". It does not favorably depict the American CIA, and I didn't know until credits at the end that Roman Polanski was the director.
I'm not a music man either. But am old enough to have seen Louis Armstrong and get his autograph; and saw Duke Ellington and his orchestra at a hotel in Portland OR. (The hotel men's room had an open urinal about 15' across with a small statue of Fidel Castro in the bottom with his mouth open.)
I broaden my outlook to your idea of examining hits and misses in any occupation. And I like your idea. My own history is that of hits and misses. Probably more misses but offset by enough hits to say at age 87, it has been a good life.
Thanks Ted.
Ted: "Just making the attempt—being the “man in the arena,” as Teddy Roosevelt called it—is a far grander thing than earning a steady paycheck by settling for less."
When I was talking to Hugh Le Caine, the great designer of electronic musical instruments and instrumentation in Canada, I asked him what he hoped his "legacy" would be.
He said "I would like to be remembered only as a worker in the vineyard."
Story of my life! Have worked for years trying to alert people to the necessity of preserving the culture and historical artifacts of electronic musical instruments and instrumentation, largely to no avail.
But I reckon it's OK to be a "worker in the vineyard."
Best, Tom Rhea.
Up there with Fellini as one of my favourite filmmakers.
Simon Callow has written his as@ off putting together an incredibly detailed, incredibly compelling, so far three book, biography of Welles. The fourth - covering his life from the late sixities until his death - is eagerly awaited by me and, no doubt, tens of thousands of others.
Ted, you could even compare Welles' 'War of the Worlds' radio broadcast as the 1938 version of the recent YouTube success of 'Backrooms,' and 'Obsession.' Afterall, radio was a newish medium in 1938 - barely, what 15 years old. That 'War of the Worlds' broadcast caught Hollywood's attention and the rest is history.
As Callow writes it, Welles' creative force was too strong, too messy, too interesting and sometimes too controversial for Hollywood, movie auduences and, yes the Brazilian government. Once Welles caught Samba fever, in 1942, he started going to the Favelas and that was not what the U.S. or Brazilian governments, of the time, wanted.
'Citizen Kane' and the dark, stunningly photographed and directed 'Touch of Evil' are a must for anyone serious about familarizing themselves with the best of what the history of cinema has to offer. Viva Welles!
Great article. I think Touch of Evil is often overlooked by critics. It has a remarkable "feel" to the movie that goes well beyond the basic script. Ditto The Lady for Shanghai with the remarkable Funhouse\mirror ending. It's interesting to note that most of his failures or disappointments early came from studio heads meddling and seemingly for no reason. Superegos on full display. Modern box-office failures seem to come from the egos of directors and\or producers. Who then blame the failures on the audience for not seeing their genius.
There was a Japanese physicist Yochiro Nambu who was noted for being theoretically far ahead of everyone. I read one article on him which was largely of the form, he developed a theory for a class of quantum mechanical particles now known for having Bose-Einstein statistics. Basically, he was so far ahead of everyone that people had almost forgotten his work when others finally put it into context. Orson Wells was like that in a way. He wanted to do things, but he was ahead of his time. (I also gather he could be a pain to work with.)
I was reading a recent novel, Seascaper, where an Orson Wells like character plays an important role. I wouldn't mention it here save for the story's reliance on the power of music and elements of the supernatural. Others here might enjoy it.
Also, while looking up Nambu to check the spelling, I came across a June 1975 article in Scientific American explaining that Galileo likely timed his various experiments involving pendulums and falling balls using music. People are very sensitive to variations in musical rhythm - not me, but most others - and that would allow him to make more precise measurements than one might expect given time keeping mechanism of his era.
Loved reading this -- didn't know of several projects unrealized -- but how great his ouevre is anyway -- no Lear, but what an Othello! No Quixote, but big thanks to Bogdanovich for The Other Side of the Wind!. The Immortal Story, playing opposite Eddie G in The Stranger. I want to see Journey Into Fear again. Welles out-Kaned himself.
The how-it-was-made story for "Othello" is fascinating and funny. It took years, with many starts and stops (mostly because Welles didn't have the money to continue). it's remarkable that he got through it at all.
Welles is such a tragedy of what might have been. I've seen most of his films, and great as "Kane" was, "Ambersons" would probably have surpassed it if he had been able to finish it himself. For instance, this brief scene, still raising potent and pertinent questions 8 decades later:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA1fVHBWuBU
His career calls to mind that of Stanley Kubrick, another onetime "young genius" with a very different career arc. He and Welles had a lot in common, and a lot not in common. One came from the theater, one from still photography. One will be remembered for "Kane," the other for "2001." Both about as different from the usual Hollywood fare as could be.
Sometimes the world does the artist in. And sometimes the artist does themselves in.
But they are real artists if they convey the truth we haven't seen with our own eyes.
There are so many great film makers...Satyajit Ray is another one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPMFgF-R0Yg
And I keep recommending Philip Gröning's "Into Great Silence," but nobody seems to have even heard of it. What a pity. Bring a supply of patience...you will get a reward:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eoF3ntg87A
As much as I revere "Citizen Kane" - I feel "The Magnificent Ambersons." Even flawed, 'Kane" and 'Ambersons' is an amazing 1-2 punch as a directorial debut.
Fascinating! I love learning about people this way. Thank you!
Walter Murch, in his book Suddenly Something Clicked, tells a fascinating story of his and a colleague's attempt to resurrect the lost footage and more importantly Welles' handwritten notes on how to fix the studio's botched assemblage of Touch of Evil, which was done while Welles was in Brazil*. Welles was mortified by what the studio did, but could do nothing under the circumstances. Murch thought it would be worthwhile taking a stab at restoring the film to Welles' original vision. It is a wonderful tale about the tests of will between directors and studio execs, not to mention the sheer luck involved in performing the task Murch took on.
*The fiasco in Brazil was horrendous. People died.