Orson Welles

[hearthesilence]

Jesus, that's sad.

Anyway, there's only one screening at 11:30 a.m. on a Sunday (May 12) so if you are definitely going to see it, buy your tix early.

[Iamhere]

Well, I'm new here and Orson Welles is my all time favorite filmmaker so I had to post on him.

There just aren't too many filmmakers that can have such sophisticated camera movements along with amazing character blocking. I think blocking is an art form that is lost nowadays with quick shooting cameras.

Anyone know of any books worth recommending about his crafting of a film besides the ones andre bazin has written?

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

Anyone know of any books worth recommending about his crafting of a film besides the ones andre bazin has written?

As coffee table editions go this is worth a flip through -a translation of the Cahiers du Cinema edition.

[cinemartin]

I second that and also recommend Naremore's The Magic World of Orson Welles.

[Iamhere]

Found this site that talks about some of this stuff I'm interested in.

http://jeremyizzo.webs.com/touch-of-noir" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What he talks about is how Orson Welles style is similar to film noir, and how genre theory can't apply to his film noirs. At least that's what I got out of it.

Below is how he explains the complex story structure and how it flows seamlessly.


Here is the piece:


"In Touch of Evil, Welles uses the cross cutting of action masterfully as a craftsmen. He shows our first focal point of action in the foreground and then a continuing action approaches through the background before cutting to that background action reestablishing our focal point. This is seen as Vargas (Charlton Heston) is making a phone call to his wife across the street of the integration. “Uncle Joe” Grandi is being pushed to the building of the integration, Welles cuts to that building, continuing the story from their as Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles) meets his new “partner.” Welles as a director continues the cross cutting of action and characters in a different way to leap further from location to location; sound (which plays a large role in the film). When Grandi is convincing Quinlan with drink to become “partners” Welles shoots it with few cuts. Opening on an extreme close up of the drinks pouring, re-framing into a wider shot getting Quinlan in the foreground as Grandi talks over him and then taking a phone call, keeping everything in focus so we understand the depth of space. When Quinlan takes his drink Welles cranes up making him smaller in his first step of defeat as Grandi hits the juke-box. Welles crosses to the hotel across the border to a crane down as Rockabilly now playing (every character seems to get their own themes song); providing a match cut on movement and sound, making the jump of action seem seamless. These two instances of cutting (more occur along the lines of match on action or sound) is important to the framework of the film. Welles sets us up with this way of watching and understanding the direction of his work in his famous opening shot (which has been talked enough about). What the shot does is open on a close up, pulling back getting the entire space and allowing the action of characters to move in and out of the frame as they will do throughout the story all while the mix of different sounds of the town lap over each other to draw your attention to the needed subject. This allows the complex story structure to become easier on the audience with its motif of border leaping and character overlapping. When the Americans talk with Vargas on the night of the explosion and Quinlan teases Vargas about his wife being “picked up” both Quinlan and Pete walk off. We then see their shadows moving across, the camera pans, we expect to reveal the physical bodies creating the shadows as we follow the shadow, but instead it reveals Vargas standing still as the shadow passes. Welles tricks us into believing we will see big Hank Quinlan, we don't, instead the dark looming shadow enters Vargas."

[Drucker]

I'd love to talk more about this (while not at work and posting somewhat quickly), but w/r/t Welles and Film Noir, I've personally concluded that his work has a lot more in common with itself than with Noir in general.

Right in the beginning, Izzo mentions that Kane has noir-ish attributes: "the stylistics, story structure and characters along with themes of a film noir."
Of course, the story structure (non-linear, told with flashbacks), can likely be drawn all the way back to the mid-1930s where the idea originated with either Herman Mank (according to some) or Welles, or both! Unfortunately, in the next paragraph, Izzo doesn't seem to provide for why the characters in Citizen Kane make for noir-types (unless Susan is a femme fatale?), and stylistically, the film's sets are more of a piece with Griffith's Intolerance and the style is pretty indicative of a certain realism that Toland was trying to achieve.

I associate Welles with larger-than-life, classical film-making. Welles, to me, is a big, flamboyant personality. If his first love is truly the theater and Shakespeare, his films reflect that. This combination of a grand vision and making films on a budget and with whatever means he could scrounge up is what lends such a uniqueness to his films. While I do see Izzo linking elements of all his films back to noir, it feels like a bit of a projection to me. Welles films don't feel at all like the gritty, real, dark exercises such as Scarlet Street, or Kiss Me Deadly. Shadows, deep focus, and an air of mystery...I guess the question is: do they inherently make something "Film Noir" if produced in the 40s and 50s? I'd say no, not necessarily.

I love Welles and would love further discussion. Just my two cents.

[warren oates]

Like you say, any genius of Welles' stature is bound to make work that has more in common with itself than anything else. But aren't you raising the same questions about Welles and noir that someone like Paul Schrader does more generally in his "Notes on Film Noir"? Schrader's conclusion is that noir is a style, rather than a genre, which is part of why it's so open to interpretation.

Welles most visually noirish films for me are, obviously, Touch of Evil -- a film that's plenty gritty and dark and which many regard as the end of classical Hollywood noir -- and to a lesser extent Mr. Arkadin and The Trial. The "shadows, deep focus, and an air of mystery" in his other work seem more related to the influence of noir's primary visual antecedent, German Expressionism.

[Iamhere]

I agree. But I think the article was suggesting that film noir as a genre doesn't work, using Welles as an example. I could be wrong. Clearly Welles is never thinking of a genre or someones stylistics. I think with that it goes to show that genre theory doesn't work well when looking at auteur theory. And my favorite auteur is Welles.

[Gregory]

Welles most visually noirish films for me are, obviously, Touch of Evil -- a film that's plenty gritty and dark and which many regard as the end of classical Hollywood noir -- and to a lesser extent Mr. Arkadin and The Trial.

I can't understand any definition of film noir that doesn't include The Lady from Shanghai. It's noir not only in terms of many of the striking things in its mise-en-scène but also in the mood of the film and in its core story elements, adapted from the hard-boiled noir novel If I Die Before I Wake.

The "shadows, deep focus, and an air of mystery" in his other work seem more related to the influence of noir's primary visual antecedent, German Expressionism.

I don't understand: if those qualities in his other films are related to the influence of Expressionism, and we agree that noir bears a strong Expressionist influence, then what is it that you're saying sets the other Welles films apart from noir?

[warren oates]

Gregory, you're totally right about The Lady From Shanghai, which just slipped my mind. What sets the other films apart for me visually is what I think Drucker was getting at -- that the qualities of the images themselves feel somehow more theatrical and less grimy/gritty.

[Iamhere]

"This brings Welles protagonist close to those of Shakespearian tragedy, characters that are fitted in noir. Welles believes that characters act solely on their nature and not on the specific situation, which breeds tragedy. He explains this further in Mr. Arkadin as he tells the fable of the scorpion and the frog, where stinging is his nature even if it will make him drown."

-So it explains that Welles characters are more inclined to be tragic Shakespearean heroes, but if we were to look at his films as noirs (which he explains they could be) they are that of a emasculated man.


To go off of the Lady from Shanghai debate... it is no more different as proven from his other film, except like Touch of Evil was based of a hard broiled detective book, but like that book... he changed the whole story along with title. I never read the books my self to know how much he changed, I'm only going off of interviews I've read.

I think it's safe to assume that Welles isn't interested in genre films as he is interested in his own style and themes close to him along with characters inspired by the theater...this causes problems (as mentioned in the last paragraph) with the genre theory..mostly with noir as it is hard to define.

[Gregory]

What sets the other films apart for me visually is what I think Drucker was getting at -- that the qualities of the images themselves feel somehow more theatrical and less grimy/gritty.

I'd agree with that as regards Kane and most of his other work. Still, I think a few of his films combine very many qualities generally associated with Welles and with film noir. In other words, the opening of Touch of Evil is very atypical of noir but there's still more than enough in there to allow it to belong in the noir category. The Stranger may be another example of this, but I'd have to give it a fresh viewing before saying just how "noir" it seems.

[Roger Ryan]

Whether one views THE STRANGER as film noir or not, it features the same kind of folksy humor found in KANE and AMBERSONS. Some of this humor stays around in THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, but a new kind of humor begins to take its place: a darker, edgier humor that is more Kafka-like in its satire. This darker approach to humor is found in most of Welles' subsequent work (MR. ARKADIN, TOUCH OF EVIL and THE TRIAL, naturally).

[Drucker]

I agree the Stranger and Shanghai, more than any others besides Touch of Evil, could pass for film noir. With that said, the idea of blocking, camera trickery and deep shadows in, say, his Shakespeare films does not lead me to read them even close to being film noir. I think it's a coincidence that much of Welles aesthetic matches some of the tendencies of noir, but not much more.

I've seen it written that The Third Man gets mistaken as a Welles film for several reasons, but now that I'm so familiar with Welles work and have read up so much on him, I honestly don't see many similarities at all between that film and any of Welles (perhaps besides a foreigner coming into a new land, and not knowing what he's getting into). That said, The Third Man, to me, really does not feel like a Welles film, but does feel like a noir.

[Matt]

Though it's being tut-tutted by some people who take the cinemah and its heroes very seriously, the new book, My Lunches with Orson, that transcribes recorded conversations between Welles and Henry Jaglom that took place between 1983 and 1985 is an excellent read. It's absolutely worthless as a piece of scholarship (which should be readily apparent, given that it was edited by Peter Biskind), yet nevertheless it's akin to a screamingly funny series of visits with your favorite angry, drunken, racist, sexist elderly yet beloved uncle. It's like Hollywood Babylon filtered through Grey Gardens. There's a constant quality of "I can't believe he said that," and "what will he say next?"

It is a little disturbing to read some of the things he does say because there is a questions of whether he authorized Jaglom to tape their conversations or if he was even aware that they were being taped. He certainly comes across as uninhibited and uncensored, and it's obvious the book could not be published until everyone mentioned in it was dead. If you know anything about Welles, it seems there can be no doubt that he actually said these things, but then again, if you know anything about Welles, it's difficult to put any stock in what he says as truly representative of his own opinions. The man was a born bullshitter and never hesitated to embellish a story if it made him look better or someone else look worse. You can't take the book seriously at all, and that's much of what makes it so interesting and amusing.

Here's just a couple of little snippets of the first conversation that already had me chuckling over my own lunch:

Waiter: Going to have a little lunch today? We have scallops, if you want, Mr. Welles. Plain, or we have them prepared with a petite legume.

Welles: No, it would have to be plain. Let’s see what other choices I have.

Waiter: Just in case, no more crab salad.

Welles: No more crab salad. Wish you hadn’t mentioned it. I wouldn’t have known what I wasn’t gonna get!

Waiter: Would you wish the salad with grapefruit and orange?

Welles: That’s a terrible idea. A weird mixture. It’s awful—typically German. We’re having the chicken salad without . . . without capers.

Jaglom: They ruined the chicken salad when they started using that mustard. It’s a whole different chicken salad.

Welles: They have a new chef.

Waiter: And roast pork?

Welles: Oh, my God. On a hot day, roast pork? I can’t eat pork. My diet. But I’ll order it, just to smell pork. Bassanio says to Shylock: “If it please you to dine with us.” And Shylock says: “Yes, to smell pork; to eat of the habitation which your prophet the Nazarite conjured the devil into. I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following, but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you.”

Jaglom: I love Woody [Allen]'s movies. That we disagree on. We disagree on actors too. I can never get over what you said about Brando.

Welles: It's that neck. Which is like a huge sausage, a shoe made of flesh.

Jaglom: People say Brando isn't very bright.

Welles: Well, most great actors aren't. Larry [Olivier] is very—I mean, seriously—stupid.

...

Jaglom: How can those people have such charm without any intelligence. I've never understood that.

Welles: Well, it's like talent without intelligence. It happens.

Jaglom: If [Spencer] Tracy was hateful, none of that comes across in the work.

Welles: To me it does. I hate him so. Because he's one of those bitchy Irishmen.

Jaglom: One of those what?

Welles: One of those bitchy Irishmen.

Jaglom: I can't believe you said that.

Welles: I'm a racist, you know. Here's the Hungarian recipe for making an omelet. First, steal two eggs. [Alexander] Korda told me that.

Jaglom: But you liked Korda.

Welles: I love Hungarians to the point of sex! I almost get a hard-on when I hear a Hungarian accent, I'm so crazy about them.

...

Welles: Look, I love Ireland, I love Irish literature, I love everything they do, you know. But the Irish-Americans have invented an imitation Ireland which is unspeakable. The wearin' o' the green. Oh, my God, to vomit!

Jaglom: That's boring and silly, and—

Welles: No, it's to vomit. Not boring and silly. Don't argue with me. You're such a liberal! Of course there's no proof. It's the way I feel! You don't want me to feel that, but I do! I think everybody should be bigoted. I don't think you're human if you don't acknowledge some prejudice.

[Drucker]

I can't imagine Orson would've wanted that published. In This is Orson Welles there is the part where he tells Bogdanovich about directors he despises, but then calls Peter up the next day to strike that passage from the text. He notes that as much as he may pretend it doesn't, those insults hurt, no matter who lobs them. Surely if he feels that way about directors and gave that a second thought, it doesn't seem likely he'd want his bad-mouthing of actors readily published like that.

[A man stayed-put]

There seems little doubt that he would want any of that published. In This is Orson Welles there is the part where he tells Bogdanovich about directors he despises, but then calls Peter up the next day to strike that passage from the text. He notes that as much as he may pretend it doesn't, those insults hurt, no matter who lobs them. Surely if he feels that way about directors and gave that a second thought, it doesn't seem likely he'd want his bad-mouthing of actors readily published like that.

He badmouths quite a few directors in My Lunches with Orson too.
Apparently Jaglom has claimed he has Welles referencing the tape recorder, kept in Jaglom's bag, on one of the recordings, but there's been no evidence of this as yet. It is a highly entertaining read and I doubt it's going to hurt the reputation of Welles, but the uncertainty over his consent leaves some unease.

[Matt]

Glenn Kenny has a reaction to the book on his blog, and the comments include a valuable contribution from Jonathan Rosenbaum.

[Black Hat]

It is a little disturbing to read some of the things he does say because there is a questions of whether he authorized Jaglom to tape their conversations or if he was even aware that they were being taped.

The NYT Book Review podcast had Jaglom on where he said Orson insisted they be taped.

[ando]

Thanks for that Biskind clip, Matt. Inspired me to download the ebook. A friend alerted me to a review by Peter Aspden of The Financial Times. Aspden compares it with the new Nicolas Roeg and Roman Polanski books out this year.

[tavernier]

Early Welles film rediscovered

[knives]

Well I'm excited for this. Hopefully it doesn't take five years for this one to get a more accessible release.

[albucat]

That's huge news! Although I don't have particularly high hopes for its quality, it's long been one of the lost films I've most wished existed. Now maybe if we all clap our hands and believe the work print for Magnificent Ambersons will reappear.

[Roger Ryan]

This is a pretty extraordinary find; thanks for alerting us to it. I, too, hope this becomes available to the general public sooner than later.

[dadaistnun]

More info at the Eastman House site, including stills.

Looks like the premiere is only open to GEH members, though I'd be shocked if there's not another screening soon thereafter.