|
Post by Sneelock on Apr 16, 2020 20:06:58 GMT
the Cavett thread has some great Orson stuff in it. I figured he needs his own thread. Even if you hate him or have no regard for him at all it would be nice to hear from you. I was going to call the thread "Orson & YOU" but thought better of it. He's dead. he's been dead a while. His reputation comes and goes. I'm a big fan. So, enough about Orson, let's talk about me.
I grew up watching movies. I was "an Eisenhower baby" - born late 50's so you can imagine how much television meant to me when I was growing up. well, there were certain times of the day when the best thing on to watch was a movie. we had something called "Dialing for Dollars" where some local Yahoo would show a movie. in-between station breaks he would make random phone calls and give away money. My caregivers liked money so "Dialing for Dollars" was usually on during the day. I learned pretty quick that Local Yahoo probably wasn't going to be giving us a call so I began paying more attention to the movies. As I grew up movies were on TV most of the time. If I had some time to kill or something I didn't want to be doing then I could plop in front of a movie. if I was up later than I should have been - I was probably watching a late movie. Liking movies worked out well for me since, in those days, parents could buy you a movie ticket and leave you at the movie theater all day long. By the time I was in Jr. High school in the early 70's I had a lot of movies under my belt. Get to the point, Sneelock! I had an English teacher I really loved who told me she was giving a "Film Appreciation" class as an elective. I signed up. She was taking a film course at UCLA and had access to 16 millimeter prints which she would show us then encourage us to talk about. Since I liked movies this class was a lot of fun for me. then things got serious. she showed us "Citizen Kane" I seriously doubt this was the first time I'd seen Kane - maybe the first time I watched it all the way through. But, it was the first time "watching a movie" became something more than a pastime. after the movie we talked about it. She asked us what we thought about it - no wrong answers. Not everybody liked it.He wasn't very likable. it had a bummer ending. why was it a bummer ending? the movie and the talking about the movie opened up a membrane in my head. movies were great to put in my head like so much chewing gum but this wasn't chewing gum this was chewing tobacco. I don't really like chewing tobacco but it's something for grown ups. "Citizen Kane" hit me like no movie had since "the wizard of oz". it took me somewhere and showed me some things I didn't know I wanted to see. Good Old Charlie Kane was an asshole but I knew WHY he was an asshole. He died with nobody and he deserved nobody. was I sad for him?
THEN my seventh grade English teacher explained to us what she saw as inspirations for Welles. She told us about William Randolph Hearst. She told us about Greg Toland. She told us about John Ford, John Ford and John Ford. I went from watching movies like flipping through a magazine to watching them like I was trying to ace a test. Welles stood on the shoulders of Giants. I hadn't thought much about the shoulders or the giants. I started in seventh grade and Orson Welles was the guy that got me there.
|
|
|
Post by Charlie O. on Apr 16, 2020 20:31:04 GMT
My introduction to Orson was the 1975 TV movie The Night That Panicked America, a dramatization of the infamous 1938 Mercury Theatre radio broadcast Invasion From Mars and how it "played out" across America on the night. Welles himself had nothing to do with the TV movie, of course, but I found the story a fascinating one (I soon bought a book about it, The Panic Broadcast by Howard Koch, the radio play's author who was later credited with the Casablanca screenplay), and it planted Orson's name and rep in my brain. My memory is considerably foggier about when I started seeing his actual movies. I can't believe that I don't remember just when and where I first saw Kane - but I don't. I know it was in a cinema rather than on television, and that I was at least college-aged, but that's about it. I have a memory of watching The Third Man on Turner Classic Movies in the early '90s... but I'm not at all sure that that was the first time, I might have seen it in college, and I'm not sure if I saw that or Kane first. Weird. Nonetheless, I loved those movies the first time I saw them, and the last time I saw them, as well as all of his other movies I've seen. I'm not calling it my favorite, but Touch Of Evil might be the most fun. Then again, F For Fake is really fun too, in an entirely different way. Umm, that's all I got.
|
|
|
Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Apr 16, 2020 20:35:59 GMT
Great post, Snee!
Orson Welles is my hero, but mainly because of how he was as a character, as a raconteur, as a 'rebel'. I can listen to him for hours just talking. I'm not sure how he attained such gravitas - I think it's partly to do with the pace and the volume at which he spoke (if you speak too fast, people don't take you seriously, and if you speak too slowly, you bore people). He boomed and he took his time but there were no pauses. And everything he said was interesting and entertaining.
I remember seeing Citizen Kane and Touch Of Evil when I was a teenager. I loved the latter film immediately, Kane impressed me more with individual scenes. I recall seeing the big library reading room with all its marble and those shadows on our TV late one night, and that famous shot where the camera pulls back from Kane's wife's awful opera singing to the pinched noses in the rafters. This was on a higher level than anything I'd seen before. It's indelible, it never leaves you. (I think both films might have been shown as part of Alex Cox's fantastic, life-changing Moviedrome shows on BBC2)
I don't think I've seen any other of his films (ah - I saw The Third Man too, Charlie just reminded me). But none of it's going anywhere, and I think I've got a couple of years left. I want to see The Lady From Shanghai soon. There's a Criterion edition of F For Fake I'm keen to see too. And the travel shows he did. And the BBC's definitive Arena doc from 1985 (I think).
He was a one-man phenomenon, an absolute giant, the talents and ideas of a good half-dozen 'geniuses' together in one frame.
|
|
rayge
Administrator
Invisible
Posts: 8,776
|
Post by rayge on Apr 16, 2020 21:31:31 GMT
I don't think I've seen any other of his films (ah - I saw The Third Man too, Charlie just reminded me). But none of it's going anywhere, and I think I've got a couple of years left. I want to see The Lady From Shanghai soon. There's a Criterion edition of F For Fake I'm keen to see too. And the travel shows he did. And the BBC's definitive Arena doc from 1985 (I think). He was a one-man phenomenon, an absolute giant, the talents and ideas of a good half-dozen 'geniuses' together in one frame. The Immortal Story, The Magnificecnt Ambersons (even the butchered studio version), The Chimes at Midnight, Macbeth, Othello (actually made me enjoy Shakespeare, some going) and The Trial are all very much worth a watch. I haven't seen Mr Arkadin or Don Quixote, but can't imagine they are anything less than wonderful. I read an excellent biography many years ago, and may even still have a copy - all my books are still boxed after the move – but I can't remember who wrote it. I did think Simon Callow's four volume bio might be worth a punt when it came out in the 90s, but I never got it. He was several geniuses rolled up in one indeed. A story. A young woman I knew at University came from an artistic family - one of her brothers was a ballet dancer, the other an operatic tenor, her mother a concert quality pianist who ran a literary salon in Tangiers in the 1950s, and she was a novelist. Anywaye, through one connection or another, and for a reason I can't recall, some time in the early to mid Sixties she was given a letter of introduction to Welles, and went to the apartments where he was living at the time, somewhere in Europe. She got into the lift and there was a call to hold it, and in swept Welles himself. She found herself so utterly in awe of his sheer presence that when he got out at his floor, she stayed on, went up to the top, down again, and never saw him again.
|
|
|
Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Apr 16, 2020 21:47:11 GMT
That's awful!
The Bogdanovich book is supposed to be good - basically transcribed interviews.
|
|
|
Post by Sneelock on Apr 16, 2020 22:09:22 GMT
I have mixed feelings about it. I'm a fan of the both of them. I think PB's "Who the Devil Made it" might be the single best one volume appreciation of American Movie Directors from "Hollywood's Golden Age". His features all have something to recommend them - all the way up to "Mask" IMO. it's funny that (according to PB) Orson called Hitchock/Truffaut "a two man circle jerk". well, if it was then so is "This is Orson Welles". For one thing, I think he takes an awful lot of what Orson says at face value - just accepts it and prints it as fact. I consider myself a HUGE Orson Welles fan and yet I am of the opinion that he was often full of shit.
I've read a few books about him ranging from hagiographies to hatchet jobs. I think by the time they did these interviews that Orson pretty much had PB's number. he knew how to flatter him and bait him. the book is interesting for the way the authors see the subject and see themselves. I don't think it holds a candle to "Hitchcock/Truffaut" which is clearly a labor of love & craft. I think PB's Orson book was written to please Orson.
|
|
|
Post by Sneelock on Apr 16, 2020 22:14:24 GMT
Truffaut clearly meant to please Hitchock as well. Maybe I just like the way he went about it better. it seemed more 'craft based' or something to me.
TIOW seems more like 'score settling' and 'horn tooting' to me. I think OW was weirdly insecure for such a talented mofo.
|
|
~ / % ? *
god
disambiguating goat herder
Posts: 5,532
|
Post by ~ / % ? * on Apr 16, 2020 22:26:15 GMT
Northern Exposure Season 5, Episode 7 Rosebud (with Peter Bogdanovich)
|
|
|
Post by Sneelock on Apr 21, 2020 18:47:20 GMT
one thing about the Orson mentions in the Cavett thread really got my interest. that's the whole question of "what happened?" For Orson fans the career arc from chipmunk faced Enfant Terrible to fat drunk TV pitchman is hard to make your peace with.
I had a lot of fun in the seventies and I guess I didn't mind this side of Orson. (I don't think the drunk part was really too widely known til after he kicked the bucket.) He'd appear on Dean Martin Roasts and shit like that laughing way too hard. it's a living, you know?
Still, if you were one of those that thought the guy was one of the movies great artists then it couldn't help but strike you as sad. I saw him on Merv & Mike Douglas talk shows a lot. One time he made the pronouncement that there has NEVER been a great movie performance in color - only in black and white. well, this could have been an interesting discussion but it wasn't. Merv or Mike invited the audience to mention what they thought was a great performance in a color film. Orson would puff on his cigar and then knock the performance. "Third Rate Saturday Evening post!!!!"
Seeing Orson Welles trying not to spit out Paul Mason's modest table wine was FAR preferable to me. Seeing him become this Don Rickles character was pathetic to me. I mean, for starters, Don Rickles was funny. Orson acted like he had scores to settle and you know what? I suppose he did.
|
|
|
Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Apr 21, 2020 18:55:38 GMT
I meant to post this
it's pretty great
|
|
|
Post by Sneelock on Apr 22, 2020 15:50:45 GMT
Chuck Workman! He used to do the themed opening montages of the Oscar broadcast every year. I think it's way better than his Warhol doc.
I like how they can celebrate Orson while also admitting how full of shit he was. He had a lot of people snowed that he completed many of those films that he never completed. Actually, I guess being full of shit is part of what's marvelous about him - maybe part of his storytelling skill.
one thing I really like about that doc is how it assesses his contribution to the art of film making. his youthful enthusiasm for theater led to his being an accomplished and artistic journeyman of the theater. His achievements in theatre informed his work in radio. both things inform his work in film. Orson didn't invent wipes or two shots or deep focus but he used them unsparingly and effectively.
another thing I like about the doc is that I agree with Julie Taymor. his films are successful because he made them. so often the bulk of his actual work is dismissed out of hand. hearing Costa Garvas give "the Trial" it's due is long overdue. There's a Tony Perkins interview where he said Orson and he attended a screening where Orson instisted on belly-laughing from beginning to end. people thought he was being a nuisance. I wonder if maybe he was. I think it's a hell of a film but I don't see a lot of belly laughs. what a character.
|
|
|
Post by daveythefatboy on Apr 24, 2020 16:46:02 GMT
Great thread. I’d kind of given up on checking the film section of Preludin - but this conversation was a great read this morning.
I was born in the mid-60s, so the first iteration of Welles that I knew was the tv pitchman. He was just another holdover celebrity from my parent’s time - indistinguishable from Nipsey Russell, Zsa Zsa Gabor or Hermoine Gingold. You knew he was famous, but didn’t really know what he was famous for.
Living in LA, you’d actually see people like that around. Their signed pictures were hung in restaurants and dry cleaners. You knew they were around. We saw Welles around a lot. More than most of those people. He was a pretty ubiquitous Los Angeles figure. Most vividly, I recall seeing him at Pinks hot dog stand a lot. He’d be sitting alone at a table, with all of the signed pictures around him (including his own) - always with more than one hot dog in front of him. So my biggest impression of him was , “fat guy.” I never bothered him or even thought to talk to him. He was just another celebrity curio.
But I was ALSO a movie-obsessed kid. I’d see him in some things. Usually the latter day acting cameos he did for money. Catch 22. The Muppet Movie. The Deep. Casino Royale. At some point his biography began to fill in for me. I remember the TV movie about War of the Worlds for sure. I also began reading more about film, and listening to interviews, and the film Citizen Kane kept coming up.
So my evolved understanding of him became, ‘he was a guy who made a big splash on the radio, then made THE GREATEST FILM EVER, then attempted to make another (The Maginificent Ambersons), but couldn’t finish it.’ Then became the grade C celebrity I knew. That was what I thought about him for a LONG time.
Somewhere in my 20s, I started to see Henry Jaglom’s films - and boy did he like to play the “Orson Welles testimonial” card. He did it so much, and portrayed Welles as ‘the grand old man whose opinions matter deeply’ so often that I began to feel like I actually needed to wrestle with Citizen Kane.
Whenever I saw it first, I wasn’t impressed. Someone had led me to believe that it’s greatness was all about one shot, where the camera appears to go through a neon sign. That seemed cool enough, but it didn’t move me.
Over the years, I’d see parts of Kane when it was on tv. I warmed to it a bit - thinking that the ending was meaningful (even if the rest was less interesting). I even saw The Magnificent Ambersons, amazed-enough that it felt like a pretty complete film that I didn’t consider it any further.
But sometime in my early 30s, something clicked. I went to see a revival screening of Kane and it somehow landed in a way that it never had before. The deep tragedy of it all was suddenly obvious and impossible to ignore. I finally got interested enough in Welles to find out about his whole body of work. I saw everything. I began to realize what a towering artist he was.
I really do think he was “the one.” There are other genius filmmakers, but nobody commanded the language of the visual on his level. Watch any random two minutes of any of his films, There’s a visual richness that nobody else comes close to. I could go on and on about individual moments and shots. But I’ll stop here.
He was a titan, and I should have shaken his hand when I could have.
|
|
|
Post by Sneelock on Apr 24, 2020 17:30:40 GMT
great post!
Jaglom and Bogdonovich seem to be in some sort of a race to see who can name-check Orson the most before they die. I think Peter is winning.
|
|
|
Post by Sneelock on May 6, 2020 18:03:45 GMT
Orson Welles would have been 105 years old today. Who am I kidding? 105? he's lucky he lasted as long as he did. Anyway, I've been wanting to add some stuff to this thread.
I have Criterion Channel for another week or so and they've got lots of good Orson stuff that's off the beaten path - "the immortal story" he made for TV, several different cuts of Mr. Arkadin, Chimes, lots of good stuff. so, it'll seem weird that I want to mention his birthday in the same post that I've been wanting to make. I really want to get at that "genius" albatross. Don't get me wrong. I'm a big fan and think nearly all his work is worth regarding. But, this is Orson Welles we are talking about. "genius" was a word that was used to describe him often and it wasn't always used kindly. I do think Orson was aware of this and certainly brought a lot of this on himself. But, I do think he had a sense of humor about it - or that he wanted to appear to, anyway. Like his weight his genius became an important part of his celebrity. To his credit, he seemed perfectly happy to present himself as "magician" and he was a decent magician or could give the impression that he was. "magician" wasn't enough of a word to describe him. in USO shows and I Love Lucy and elsewhere, he presented himself as a sort of Orson the Great. He was more or less accepted as such but it wasn't magic that was the source of his greatness.
|
|
|
Post by Sneelock on May 6, 2020 18:26:50 GMT
please keep in mind - this is just a fan-boy talking. If anybody reads this at all I hope you'll think of it like a Star Wars fan telling you which movies he liked and why. this is all opinion. I'm no scholar or historian - I'm just a schlub.
Anyway, so, as I say, I think "genius", early on was a description that Orson may have been comfortable with. it opened a lot of doors for him. His careers in theater and radio were certainly rooted in this reputation and the stories he told about himself make me think that he may have relished this up to a point.
By the time he was in South America and Robert Wise was cutting "Ambersons" is when I think the trouble began. No matter which version of events you are inclined to believe "genius" wasn't a word that was being used kindly. maybe it was Orson's patriotic duty and maybe he was enjoying a world of poon-tang. we will never know. when I was a younger man I'd believe one could do both & Orson was a younger man in those days. so, he took a hit and his "genius" took a hit. he showed himself willing to play ball. he made a modestly budgeted pretty good B-movie and made a pretty damned good movie star in some A-movies. so what happened? I think Pauline Kael happened.
for some reason Pauline Kael decided that one acknowldged masterpiece was too much for Orson. She wrote that "Rasing Kane" essay and told anyone who would listen that Herman J. Mankiewicz was the true genius behind Citizen Kane. While HJM's contribution was considerable and not widely known this really stuck. Movie Reviewers held a lot of sway in those days and PK was the Big Kahuna. Her charges against Orson seemed heated and mean spirited. I don't think Orson ever really recovered from that.
|
|