Amazon.com
Now in paperback, Callow's vastly entertaining chronicle of Welles's first 26 years seems even finer than it did in 1995. The author's ability to skewer his subject's evasions and lies while retaining critical affection for him is perhaps explained by the fact that Callow, an actor himself, understands the need to mythologize. Welles's innovative theatrical work in the 1930s has never been better described or analyzed. Even such oft-told sagas as the War of the Worlds broadcast and the filming of Citizen Kane gain new dimension from Callow's intelligent treatment.
Book Description
In this first installment of his masterful biography, Simon Callow captures the chameleonic genius of Orson Welles as only an actor/director deeply rooted in the entertainment industry could. Here is Welles's prodigious childhood; his youth in New York, with its fraught partnership with John Houseman and the groundbreaking triumph of his all-black Macbeth; the pioneering radio work that culminated in the notorious 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds; and finally, his work in Hollywood, including an authoritative account of the making of Citizen Kane. Rich in detail and insight, this is far and away the definitive look at Orson Welles—a figure even more extraordinary than the myths that have surrounded him.
Customer Reviews:
George Orson Welles.......2004-02-14
This is a fantastic, very detailed and rather objective biography of the boy genius of the theatre world. 600 pages about Welles for only the first 26 years of his life is a lot, but definitly worth all the details.
The author basically tells Orson's early life around the plays he directed and that were his life at the time. It is amazing to me how a 14 year old kid was able to succesfully direct Shakespeare plays and even write a book on how to understand Shakerpeare's work.
The book gives great details on every single play he directed, radio shows he produced, the making of citizen Kane and on a broader scale gives a great insight on what broadway was like during the 30s. The account of the war of the world radio broadcast that terrorised the northern US on halloween night 1938 will make you relive the moment as if you were there.
I highly recommend this biography to any fan of Orson Welles or anyone who is interested in the history of broadway or the theatre in general.
The American.......2003-02-04
Simon Callow's thick and detailed biography of Orson Welles is a staggeringly thorough account of the actor/director's life, from his birth up until the release of his most famous picture, CITIZEN KANE. Callow goes to great lengths to separate the man from his inhumanly grandiose reputation. Armed with years of research, his personal interviews, and a keen sense of humor, Callow sets off to discover the real early life of Orson Welles. He finds a man smaller than his gargantuan myth, yet fascinating and brilliant all the same.
Orson Welles is a notoriously difficult man to write about with any great degree of accuracy. This is attributable to the fact that Welles seems to have spent almost as much time publicizing his work as he spent creating. The difficulty arises when one realizes that the majority of what he said wasn't strictly accurate, and yet it's that publicity which has been accepted for many years. Not to say that Welles was lying, or making up facts (at least, not all the time). It would be closer to the truth to say that Welles was prone to exaggerations, sometimes wild ones when it concerned himself. For the sake of his image, and for the sake of his career, he would embellish and overstate what he was doing and what he had done. Some of the more hysterical (and insightful) portions of the book are those where we see Welles describing something that had occurred several chapters previous. The story that gets told later can be almost totally at odds to what the actuality of the situation was. The further on one goes into the book, the farther away from reality these descriptions become. Welles was obsessed with constantly reinventing himself, creating a gigantic legend that became increasingly difficult for any mortal man to live up to.
This is not to say that Simon Callow is merely running down Orson Welles, or making his achievements seem unworthy. Indeed, Callow appears genuinely impressed by what Welles achieved in such a short amount of time. While Welles apparently preferred his fantasy image of himself, the truth was quite remarkable by itself; Welles packed more living into his first twenty-five years than most people do in a lifetime. The respect that he commanded as an actor/director was unprecedented for someone of his young age. But Callow emphasizes with how Welles thought of himself. He sees Welles' drive to continually achieve more. As a fellow actor, Callow understands and relates to the need for constantly promoting oneself for the benefit of one's career. He compares events in Welles' later life to the man's childhood, looking for the reasons for the overriding desire to drive farther and faster.
The book does tend to take slight detours on its road to CITIZEN KANE's Xanadu. Many of the subjects tangentially related to the main feature are given adequate descriptions. Welles' parents, his hometown of Kenosha, Wisconsin, the state of the American theatre in the 1930s and other assorted topics all benefit from Callow's in-depth research and his wonderful attention to detail. These asides and tangents are vital to understanding Welles in his context, and this biography is much the richer for these additions.
As for the portions of Welles' early life that Callow chooses to focus on, it is Welles' theatre work that receives the lion's share of attention. These sections are remarkably detailed, and I simply cannot imagine the book containing any more information. All of his productions are covered, the bulk of the spotlight being aimed towards those plays that Welles approached as both director and actor. Numerous memorable stories are contained in these sections, one of my favorites being the description of Welles directing a collapsing production by punctuating his screams at the cast with intermittent swigs straight from his omnipresent bottle of bourbon.
Descriptions of Orson Welles' other endeavors can only pale by comparison, though they themselves are also covered meticulously. The portions dealing with his radio career aren't given nearly the same attention, and the chapter involved with his WAR OF THE WORLDS broadcast seems remarkably brief given how big a place it holds in the Welles Legend. On the other hand, Callow is quick to point out how little input Welles had in the writing side of that radio play, so in retrospect it shouldn't really be all that surprising to see it neglected here. Still, even Welles' work as The Shadow is only briefly mentioned; again, probably based on Welles' lack of creative input on that series. However, it would have been interesting to see the same flurry of facts, and anecdotes directed towards the radio and film work as it was towards the stage.
For anyone who is slightly curious as to actor Simon Callow's ability to write, let me put your mind at ease. Not only is Callow a competent writer, but he's a very engaging one. The subject of Orson Welles is not a simple one for any biographer to attempt, yet Callow has put together a superbly researched and diabolically entertaining portrait of a man who surrounded himself with so much misinformation that sorting through it all must have been an exhausting task. Callow himself is never far from his descriptions, injecting his wry sense of humor into numerous observations. His style of writing makes it very clear when he's talking about verifiable facts, or when he is basing something on conjuncture. Further to this, there are twenty-five pages of references, as well as two and a half pages of bibliography. This is both a lively read and a superbly researched book --a rarity, but an extremely welcome one. In the preface, Simon Callow states that this is merely the first book of two and the second will deal with Welles' descent from the peak of his career. That second book has yet to be published, but based on the extraordinary achievement of this volume, it should be well worth the wait.
Requiem for a Huckster.......2002-09-02
In his later years, Welles often complained that he spent more time trying to find money to make films than he did actually making films. And seeing Welles still scrambling for cash in his last days as a commercial pitchman for such products as Dark Tower and Paul Masson Wines ("Where we will sell no wine before it's time"), you know he was right.
This entertaining and exhaustive book by Simon Callow doesn't deal with most of his film career - only covering up to 1941. (We're still waiting on part two to cover the rest. Simon? Simon?). However, what it does do is clear up much of Welles' confusing past (he often told conflicting stories in interviews) and delve into the two main works that set Welles up for stardom...and the fall...in Hollywood - The War of the Worlds radio broadcast and Citizen Kane. And no wonder they were sharpening knives for the boy wonder when Welles publicly put down the Hollywood community, his Kane script bit the hand that feeds him by taking obvious shots at newspaper mogul Randolph Hearst and he was given the kind of directorial freedom veteran directors could only dream of.
Some people may tire of reading about Welles' theatre days with Houseman, anxiously waiting to get to the meat of his film career. But to understand why Welles became a "has-been" at 26 and the long slide to come, this is required reading.
The World Was His Xanadu..........2002-02-10
.... "He wandered it's corridors, looking for money." Simon Callow gifts us with the deep portrait of Orson Welles from a gay man, an actor, and, like Welles, a virtuoso of many fields of endeavor. Like Shakespeare, Orson was comfortable, and indeed dependent upon, those of us who lean toward the familiar in the search for love. (Because, perhaps, of his own stoney heterosexuality). Be that as it may, Mr. Callow's own insights are what add volumes to this biography beyond what all else has already been written. His chronicle of America's Depression-era Federal Theater Project, and Orson's impact upon it, invites us in to the exiting era of the 1930's.
Orson's Road to Xanadu is sad, and it's glorious -- amazing. Read Simon Callow's biography of America's Great Voice -- Orson Welles.
A good trip from Kenosha to Kane.......2000-11-06
Mr. Callow (best known as the funeral in 'Four Wedding and a Funeral') does a fine job detailing Welles' early life, especially his time at the Todd School, and how it formulated his later character. That later character, however, spends an inordinate amount of time in the theatre. It is here that Callow lost me. Although I understand the need for these scenes (and some of them are rip-roaring good yarns), they sometimes come across as addendums to a larger book on the history of theatre that Callow is writing, rather than have any relevance to Orson's life. He tends to get over excited, going into too much detail about the most minor productions of Welles' career. Yes, his modern dress 'Julius Caesar' and the rest of the Mercury Theatre's first season were groundbreaking, but do we really need a whole chapter devoted to 'Shoemaker's Holiday' and 'Heartbreak House'? Those of you with passion for the theatre, its history, and various theories of acting will eat up these sections (comprising a good two thirds of the book), but for those of us anxious to get to the 'Kane' scenes, they are merely delaying the inevitable.
As for those 'Kane' scenes, Callow does yeomen's work debunking the myths that went into the production of that particular masterpiece. Mankiewicz, Toland, Schaefer, and Hearst are all heard from (in one way or another) in a way that makes Welles' contributions to that picture much clearer. My one complaint is that this section didn't dominate the book the way I hoped it would have. I suspect that in the title of his book, Mr. Callow wanted to emphasize "The Road" over "Xanadu"; that is his prerogative, but not my preference.
Overall, Welles comes off as a man whose talents justified the hype surrounding them. Also, he appears to be guided by fate. For as Callow points out time after time, just when things could have stagnated, a figure appears in Welles' life at just the right time to propel him along a fruitful path. From Skipper Hill, to John Houseman, to Gregg Toland, the pattern holds true. Someone, or something, appears to have wanted the prodigy to grow up to direct the world's greatest motion picture. And he did. Callow promises that a second volume is in the works, presumable one that will chronicle Welles' decline into artistic irrelevance and obesity. I am looking forward to it.
P.S. I've debated with myself if this is worth mentioning (which probably means it is), but Callow sometimes throws in out-of-the-blue references to an individual's homosexuality. With regards to Houseman, I can understand these allusions, for Callow infers that he was at once Welles' father figure/lover/brother/advisor/friend/enemy (if not in practice, than at least metaphorically). But there are other such allusions that make little or no sense. In describing Edna Thomas (a player in Welles so-called "Harlem MacBeth"), Callow refers to the actress as "a discreet and rather statuesque lesbian..." Marc Blitzstein, author/composer of 'The Cradle Will Rock', is described as having a "sexual orientation [that] was homosexual with occasional heterosexual lapses..." These are just two examples. I don't understand the necessity in their inclusion, for they are never referenced again, and have little or no bearing on their relationship to Orson. Just a curiosity, I guess.
Book Description
Simon Callow's celebrated first volume of Orson Welles's life concluded with the brash young director unveiling what would prove to be his—and arguably American cinema's—greatest achievement: Citizen Kane. But instead of embarking on an illustrious career in Hollywood, as Callow vividly details in Hello Americans, Welles became increasingly unable to function within the structure of the moviemaking industry.
Hello Americans offers readers a critical look at the years after Citizen Kane up to Macbeth (1947), from his difficult and self-defeating temperament to some of the monstrous personalities with whom he was involved. Callow fully illustrates each film of the period—The Magnificent Ambersons, Journey into Fear, The Stranger, The Lady from Shanghai—as well as Welles's off-screen activities—his dedicated but ill-fated attempts to be a radio comedian and stage magician; his fervent desire to revive spectacular theater single- handedly; his newspaper columns; and his political interests, which he pursued passionately. The result is an expertly researched and elegantly written portrait that will remain the final word on this larger than life genius for generations to come.
Customer Reviews:
A brilliant book that I appreciated.......2006-10-24
For me, this was as much an introduction to a witty author as a way of tracing the fall of Orson Welles' career. I had never read any of Simon Callow's previous books, I was more familiar with his work as an actor, but only sightly.
I've missed something. His voice in prose is bright, and the light he throws on Welles here (and presumably in the first volume, which I intend reading) doesn't allow his subject to hide.
He's clearly sympathetic to Welles, but he doesn't let that sympathy overwhelm his perceptions. His observations on acting and directing have the added weight of someone who has, shall we say, dipped a toe or two in that pool...
AN ACTOR REVIEWS AN ACTOR/DIRECTOR.......2006-10-13
HURRAH FOR CALLOW! A long and rewarding read with actor/author Callow in fine form as he reviews Welles from within the man himself, while weighing every scene and line-reading of Welles's works from The Magnificent Ambersons to Macbeth. This includes a close survey of all of Welles' radio and theatre works as well, which are weighed from within the art of acting. This is a book Welles himself would enjoy though it often takes him vastly to task. If the book has a problem it's that Callow spent ten years writing it and, now at age 78, I fear I may not be around to read the concluding volume(s)--and I'm sure two volumes will emerge from Callow's fine sifting of research materials at the Lilly Library's Welles Collection at Indiana University. As an aside, while reading this bio, I happened upon Callow's brief but inspired appearance in Howard's End as the pompous lecturer on Music & Meaning at the picture's opening where Boham Carter "steals" an umbrella, and caught him bouncing about bareassed at a country swimming hole in A Room with a View. Finally, Callow's work on stage and film sets (and his fine earlier biography of Charles Laughton) gives him special insight into each of the Welles works he studies: lighting, editing, makeup and so forth. Hey, he writes well too, no academese. Now if only Criterion would bring out Chimes at Midnight.
The singer not the song.......2006-09-27
Appropriately for a book on Welles, there is some nifty sleight-of-hand here. Simon Callow's excellent writing and meticulous marshaling of facts distract us from seeing what should become plainer and plainer with each chapter: Welles is really not worth this kind of extended treatment. One great film, a handful of interesting clips thereafter, and a personal life not especially to be differentiated from that of many a spoiled, "infante terrible" hardly justifies 1200 pages...and counting. With ten years between volumes, the pushing-60 Mr.Callow will readily be exonerated if he abandons the project, and taxes his finite resources no further therein.
Really Good Follow-Up To A Great Biography.......2006-09-12
Well, I just finished reading HELLO AMERICANS, Callow's second volume in his Orson Welles bio series, and I have to say, it's a good read.
Thanks to a vast amount of research, Callow really details what happened to Welles after CITIZEN KANE. Particularly good is the section on THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS and IT'S ALL TRUE. Up until now, I've read a lot about this time period in Welles' life, but never has it ever quite made sense; Callow finally manages to do that. He also has cogent things to say about THE STRANGER, THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, MACBETH, Welles' political aspirations (which were all-consuming from about 1942 to 1947), and the various theatrical presentations Welles attempted (including AROUND THE WORLD).
Callow doesn't flinch from describing Welles the man, either, a figure capable of inspiring both devotion (Korda, Wilson, Wallace) and hatred (McDowell, Koerner, Fier). And Callow is the most insightful biographer in that he sees both the Wellescentric point of view and that of the studios (paticularly good passages can be found on p. 364 of the 1st edition).
My only complaint is that some of the quotes Callow uses from Welles' films are inaccurate (is he writing from memory?), and, once or twice, he describes things in the films that I don't remember ever happening (but maybe that's me). However, in summarizing Welles ("Confinement, whether personal or professional, was unbearable to Orson Welles"), I feel he has hit the nail on the head, and such insights more than make up for any small errors that may be present.
In short, this is worth reading, and I look forward to Volume III.
The Beginning of the End...a Vivid Portrayal of Welles in the Throes of "Citizen Kane".......2006-09-02
Calling Orson Welles a Falstaffian figure seems like an understatement when reading Simon Callow's second of what he envisions to be a trilogy of books he is authoring on the life of the wildly eccentric, painfully brilliant filmmaker. That Welles is a subject worthy of a trilogy is almost beside the point as his epic fall from grace after the artistic summit of "Citizen Kane" has been fodder for a number of biographers and film historians. Published almost a decade after his first book, the fascinating "The Road to Xanadu". Callow's treatment in his second book is significant is that he portrays the film auteur as the victim of neither insensitive Hollywood studio moguls nor Welles' own megalomania. Rather, in a balanced, professionally-oriented book, Callow shows both factors coming into play time and again throughout his subject's career. What is particularly enlightening about Callow's research is how he concludes it was Welles' political preoccupations that took his attention away from his creative energy.
The author paints an intriguing portrait of a young New Deal liberal strictly anti-Fascist and very pro-Roosevelt. In fact, his political causes were so engulfing that they it would make his film productions often interminable and obviously uneconomical. The book covers the period between 1941, the year "Citizen Kane" was released, and his self-imposed exile to Europe in 1947. In that relatively fruitful period, Welles produced five films, three stage shows and worked consistently in radio. He was also a prolific journalist, a much sought-after public speaker and an enthusiastic political activist constantly supporting Roosevelt's issues. The most interesting part of the book is that first year when the 26-year old Welles made the much-maligned "The Magnificent Ambersons"; produced and acted in the dark mystery, "Journey into Fear"; and traveled to Brazil to scout locations for two months before coming up with the story for his soon-to-be-aborted film, "It's All True". The key turning point occurred when his patron and protector, George Schaefer, was ousted as production chief of RKO and Welles' legendary Mercury Theatre started to fall apart.
Callow vividly describes how RKO cut "The Magnificent Ambersons" by over a third, eliminated Bernard Herrmann's music score and inserted a ludicrous happy ending. The result was a film no one liked no matter how brilliant individual sequences were, and unsurprisingly, it failed miserably at the box office. While the RKO studio executives had an excuse to minimize Welles after this fiasco, it remains that the filmmaker had a degree of accountability in letting these lapses occur while having moved on to his next film in Brazil. This pattern would repeat himself throughout the filmmaker's career with an almost necessary inevitability. Callow, however, falls short in accusing Welles of allowing his genius overwhelm him in such a destructive manner, and that seems appropriate given the textured portrait the author provides here. A fascinating read even if Callow carefully avoids much of Welles' colorful personal life.
Amazon.com
In 1992, the first publication of This Is Orson Welles brought a priceless document to light. In the late '60s and early '70s, filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich had conducted extensive interviews with Welles, but a number of circumstances--including the director's decision to compose an autobiography that he never got around to writing--kept the interviews out of the public eye. Edited and annotated by Jonathan Rosenbaum, these conversations give wonderful insights into Welles's craft and personality. He discusses his forays into acting, producing, and writing as well as directing, his confidences and insecurities, and his plans for film projects that were either never made or only partially completed. He also offers insights into the triumph of Citizen Kane and later masterpieces like The Lady from Shanghai, Touch of Evil, Othello, and Chimes at Midnight. His defense of his controversial adaptation of Kafka's The Trial is so fascinating that readers might want to rush out and rent the film.
While the book is worth owning just for this 322-page interview, it is also full of other material that is equally revealing. Rosenbaum presents a meticulous chronology of Welles's life, closely following his day-to-day activities from his birth in 1915 to his death in 1985. Anyone who thinks that Welles was an essentially lazy and profligate artist will be astonished at how hard he worked and how much he accomplished, even after the completion of Citizen Kane. Another treat found in the book is a detailed description--complete with rare photographic stills--of the original Magnificent Ambersons, Welles's impressive follow-up to Kane, which can now be seen only in a tragically truncated version.
This 1998 reissue of the volume contains a fond new introduction by Bogdanovich and another crucial piece of Welles minutia, excerpts from his 58-page memo to Universal Pictures about the editing of Touch of Evil. Forty years after its composition, the material in this memo has been used to create a restored "director's cut" of the film. With such grand material between two covers, This Is Orson Welles is the most informative and entertaining book available on one of the 20th century's greatest artists. --Raphael Shargel
Book Description
Spanning over ten years ofrevealing conversations between Orson Welles and his friend and fellow directorPeter Bogdanovich, these discussions offer an intimate, autobiographicalportrait of the life and opinions of one of our century's greatest storytellers,Orson Welles. This is a rare look into the mind of an enigmatic genius whoseaccomplishments continue to dazzle audiences.
Contents •Tape One: Citizen Kane and other projects •Tape Two: The Magnificent Ambersons, Chimes at Midnight,and The Other Side of the Wind •Tape Three: Othello, Touch of Evil, The Lady FromShanghai, and The Trial •Tape Four: Radio, Televison, Comics and more
Customer Reviews:
Words 10, Pictures 3.......2007-07-20
I enjoyed this book very much. It's a good read, informative and entertaining. Fans of Welles will feel that they are sitting in on a conversation between him and Bogdanovich (who asks insightful and pertinent questions, not noticeably obseqious), and that's lots of fun. You learn things about movies and about Welles, and even his evasive responses are interesting.
What nobody has mentioned so far is the photographs. There seems to have been some problem with the printing, and they look, in my copy at least, like 12th-generation photocopies: washed-out, grainy and almost indecipherable. Too bad, because there are a lot of them, some of them historic, and they are just really hard to look at. I don't understand it.
The man, the plan, the life........2004-10-21
As the cover quip suggests, this IS a treasure trove of insights.
I have been totally inspired by this man's conviction and boundless enthusiasm. His conception of theatre is unique and phenomenal, I dont think we will ever see his like again, not with the dumbing down of the world and aesthetics, etc.
I understand the rawness and points of many a play thanks to this man. His voice is hypnotising and authoritive.
Can genius like this ever see the light of day again?
Oh, Orson... you glorious self-promoter..........2004-02-22
has a very distinct voice. It has the voice of Orson himself.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the book was the voyeuristic personal insight I was able to get from Welles and-despite his relatively passive role of interviewer-Bogdonovich as well. In this sense,
is quite unlike the other required texts, and I do not read too much into the title of "author" that is loftily bestowed upon Bogdonovich and Welles. Through a brief surface comparison between this book and several other texts on Welles, it's clear that there is a great difference between a removed, historical opinion and a defensive individual discussing his own life. Although much could be said about Welles' misleading-albeit thoroughly entertaining-statements, I cannot fault a man for being unable to have sound perspective on his own affairs. I can only read the book as a historical text, but Welles was being asked questions about his life, and I cannot fault him for his oft-grandiose replies. The sheer nature of an interview such as this places an enormous amount of attention on Welles, so I can only smile pleasantly at his recurring ego, wondering if I could be any more impartial or less boastful in his place.
Back to the question of authorship though.
While I readily disregard comparisons between
and, say, Thomson's
due to their drastic differences in intent, tone and content, the strong yet shadowy hand of the omnipotent editor is ever present in all forms of biographical text. Cut this, change that, add this, move that. A book like Thomson's may greatly benefit from such professional revision, but in the cases of
I felt as though the authorship accreditation was misplaced. "Edited by Jonathan Rosenbaum" should have graced the cover, replacing the names of Welles and Bogdonovich. Much like any documentary invariably guides an audience along a certain path, Rosenbaum has reconstructed the interviews amidst other such historical documentation in a very calculated and meticulous fashion. In this sense then there is no author at all, and I find it very difficult to discuss the book as a biography written by anyone.
In truth, this may be one of the worst biography's one could possibly pick up if they wanted to learn more about Welles and his life, and I doubt I would call it a biography at all. As required course reading, I am wholly appreciative that I was given the chance to "hear" the words of Orson Welles as he spoke of his own creations, idly gossiping about other actors and filmmakers. Is it all truth? No, it is laughably biased, but it is the bias of Orson Welles, and definitely a very unique variation on accepted truth. If I can trust that Rosenbaum left the integrity intact, then Welles' half-truths are just as important to understanding the man than commonly accepted "whole-truths" by some biographer.
Whereas
can never stand on its own as an investigative biography of the filmmaker's life, it remains as the text that helped me to understand the man behind the myth above all others.
Rosebud Reigns Supreme in Filmdom.......2003-09-15
As one who had just completed a viewing of Ciitzen Kane on DVD
(featuring the excellent audio commentary on the film by Roger Ebert & Rudy Behlmer) I turned to Frank Brady's excellent biography.This is Orson Welles completes my examination of this giant of film directorship. Over several years and in many locals the Falstaffian Welles shares his thoughts on film, his own movies and life with his devoted student Peter Bogdonovich
(himself a talented director best known for "The Last Picture Show'). If you want to know what Welles really thinks and believes this book is the Rosetta Stone for your investigation!
As Truffaut was able to discuss his life and films with Sir Alfred Hitchcock so does Peter B. do the same thing for Welles.
After all the reading and studying of Welles the man emerges as a titanic force of nature whose undisciplined genius is a wonder to behold. Any fan of Welles or Cinema should add this excellent book to your library. Well Recommended!
Orson Welles: The Man and his Movies, Larger Than Life.......2002-08-28
I commend to the book above, an interview with Peter Bogdanovich.
Although I'm not a huge fan of the latter's movies (with the exception of "Paper Moon," which I loved ever since it came out when I was eight, and fell in love with tomboy Tatum O'Neill forthrightly), I have begun reading about half of this book over the past few days, and find it better than my previous favourite, the Hitchcock/Truffaut book. Of course, much favoured above Wilder/Crowe, namely because of Crowe's incessant name dropping of "Jerry Maguire" and "Tom Cruise" every other irritating sentence, which prevented the reader from finding out what
Wilder had on *his* mind.
What impresses me about the Welles/Bogdanovich volume is the raucous sense of humour Welles brings to the conversation, always as lively and as larger-than-life as Welles was. Also, Bogdanovich has laced the book with pertinent interviews, articles, anecdotes that elucidate certain points of the text, as well as Welles' lines cut from "Magnificent Ambersons" and the long memorandum he wrote to Universal studio chiefs and cc'd to Chuck Heston, trying to save what I consider his masterwork,
"Touch of Evil" from falling prey to overzealous editing by indifferent studio hacks.
But most of all, I am touched that when all the world was dumping on Welles, when he was being derided as a has-been and a spendthrift, that up-and-coming director Bogdanovich gave him his friendship and accorded him the respect he was so shamefully denied. Even Pauline Kael couldn't resist savaging Welles, and she wrote a particularly nasty and libelous article that Welles didn't write any of the screenplay to "Citizen Kane."
Of all Hollywood's sins (and I retain in memory a cross-indexed catalogue of them), the fact that even when Welles started getting "lifetime achievement" accolades, he still couldn't get any financing for his movie projects, on which he worked until his last days, leaves the bitterest taste in my mouth. There must be certain people destined to the lowest rungs of hell -- or at least purgatory -- for creating a world in which Orson Welles' last paid acting role was as the voice of the evil planet in a "Transformers" movie.
Book Description
Variously described as a work of genius, a pretentious wreck, a crucially important film, and a victim of its director's ego, among other things, It's All True, shot in Mexico and Brazil between 1941 and 1942, is the legendary movie that Orson Welles never got to finish. In this book, the most comprehensive and authoritative assessment of It's All True available, Catherine Benamou synthesizes a wealth of new and little-known source material gathered on two continents, including interviews with key participants, to present a compelling original view of the film and its historical significance. Her book challenges much received wisdom about Orson Welles and illuminates the unique place he occupies in American culture, broadly defined.
Customer Reviews:
important subject smothered in grotesque prose.......2007-09-23
"Textophagy"--better like the word, because you'll encounter dozens of such coinages "imbricated" (more fashionable terminology of this ilk) in the author's impenetrable prose: "Just as donning false noses and epidermises allowed Welles to take on significantly different personae while remaining easily recognizable to the public--thereby disclosing the fact of the prothesis to any viewer who had seen him in other performances--his recuperation of the lost work in progress does not involve erasure and forgetting, achieved through the decontextualization and compositional simulation (by way of suturing) of dismembered elements. Instead, it speaks to the reclamation and remembrance by way of bricolage of the text he had originally envisioned." It's the quaint, now antiquated thereobabble (to insert a coinage of my own) of humanities graduate schools in the late 1980s and 1990s. NYU (and the others) can't be entirely blamed for this--Benamou had adequate time to outgrow it in the decade between her 1997 dissertation and the publication of this book. (Also badly needed: a refresher course in the real-life economics of the film industry.) There's deep research behind this effort, and it yields up a wealth of invaluable new information on this pivotal project in Welles' career; let us hope that someone extracts it and blogs it in comprehensible form and that Benamou assents to the process (she holds the copyright): that, plus the reconstruction project of surviving footage she's heading in conjunction with UCLA Film/Television Archive, might turn out to be her most important contributions to Welles scholarship.
Average customer rating:
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Orson Welles: A Biography
Barbara Leaming
Manufacturer: Limelight Editions
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ASIN: 0879101997 |
Amazon.com
While it is a shame that Orson Welles, great filmmaker and master raconteur, never wrote a full account of his life, this book is the next best thing to a Welles autobiography. Barbara Leaming's main sources are the hundreds of hours of interviews she conducted with Welles in the three years before his death. Though clearly biased toward its subject, this book benefits considerably from Welles's wit and charm, which can be felt in Leaming's summaries of the director's experiences and in the generous number of quotations from Welles himself. At Leaming's urging, and to the reader's great pleasure, Welles recounts the whole of his fascinating life, discussing his relationship with his parents and guardians; his early promise as a musical and artistic prodigy; his brilliant successes in the theater while still a teenager; his foundation--with John Houseman--of the Mercury theater; the legendary radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds; the triumph of Citizen Kane; the successful efforts of RKO studios to alter and crush the films he made after Kane; his friendship with Franklin Roosevelt; his marriage to Rita Hayworth and countless other affairs (including a rhapsody on Dolores del Rio's custom-made underwear, if that's your cup of tea); his relationship with Oja Kodar; and his later film career in America and Europe. An entertaining read that unfolds like a good novel, Orson Welles offers a perspective on the maestro's life that deserves to be compared to more recent biographies of Welles by Frank Brady, Simon Callow, and David Thomson, all of which have prejudices of their own. --Raphael Shargel
Book Description
"...[A] beautifully researched, valuable study of one of America's most influential and mysterious artists. ...[What] makes this book remarkable is Welles's own contribution. His comments, opinions, interviews cut in and out of the narrative with an almost cinematic force." -Patricia Bosworth
Customer Reviews:
Orson Welles and Magic.......2007-07-01
I have always been a fan of Orson Welles on radio and television. Having collected a ton of radio broadcasts on CD and audio cassette and having watched most of his movies, I appreciate the genius of his work. I picked up a copy of this book recently and am amazed at the amount of research put into it. An aspect of Welles rarely discussed is his magic career. At the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention this September in Aberdeen, Maryland, I plan to attend the presentation about Orson Welles and his magic career so I can watch rare footage and films with Welles, and get an even deeper insight to his trickery. Book comes recommended.
The Only Biography from Welles's Perspective.......2007-01-22
There are many biographies of Orson Welles but only one was written with his cooperation. Welles never wrote his autobiography past his childhood, so along with This Is Orson Welles, this is all we have to judge his life from, using his words. Despite the book's many flaws, most glaringly without details about many of Welles's most important films and with only bar and the fact that Leaming does seem to be very obsequious toward her subject, it still captures much of his personal life, especially with Rita Hayward. Overall, the book is intoxicating and a very compelling read considering the many other biographies about Welles, most of which are full of hyperbole and outright lies about the man, his life and his work.
To get the best idea of Welles, read this book along with This Is Orson Welles, to get an idea about Welles's ideas about his movie and stage careers, Citizen Welles which is a fair overview of his life without hyperbole and Whatever Happened to Orson Welles, which focuses on Welles's career from the 1960s to his death. All of which add up to get a real picture of this man who created some of the greatest films of the 20th century and wanted to be a mystery above all other things.
Mediocre, Irritating and Incomplete.......2005-12-16
Sifting through hundreds of hours of personal interviews with the enigmatic Orson Welles in the years before his death, Barbara Leaming presents an uneven and obsequious biography. She is entirely dependent on her interviews of Welles for the bulk of her work and seems to have spent little time in developing differing views on Welles. Perhaps Welles, who always wanted to dominate his surroundings, found Miss Leaming compliant and ready to write the biography Welles desired.
The author succeeds best in painting a picture of the rise of Orson Welles. His mother, Beatrice, not only introduced young Welles to Chicago's artsy society, but to her friend Da Da Bernstein, who considered Welles to be a prodigy at an early age. Bernstein was Welles' first mentor. As a teen, Welles was sent to the artsy Todd School and acquired another mentor, the drama teacher Roger "Skipper" Hill. Soon, Welles' career on stage rocketed and he landed on Broadway at 18 acting and producing. He was a wonder. On top of this, his powerful, distinctive voice landed him on radio, where he made his money, leading to the radio caper of "The War of the Worlds". Hollywood called and "Citizen Kane" and "The Magnificent Ambersons" soon followed.
But Welles' career stumbled afterwards. Very few of his movies made money. His directorships of movies were erratic and his relationships with the studio bosses were desultory. Thus, Welles became a vagabond director and actor and often had to use his acting salary to supplement production costs of HIS movies. Always scambling for production money, what he did produce after World War Two were generally fly-by-night, patchwork movies, most of which were unmarketable. His career had peaked by his mid-twenties. By the end of his life, he was reduced to audio voiceovers and a three year stint endorsing Paul Masson wines of which he was fired for his arrogant meddling in the production of the spots. Welles always had to be in charge and bridled when under the authority of others.
Miss Leaming leaves out details of Welles' career that he seems not to have wanted to discuss with her. For instance, Welles' acting in "Jane Eyre", "The Third Man" and "The Long, Hot Summer" receive less space in this book than Welles' poodle, KiKi. To a very annoying degree, the author interjects herself often in this book and in great depth. This biography is a case of a self-absorbed woman writing about a man who is even more self-absorbed.
Weak........2002-06-11
June 10, 2002
The first problem with Barbara Leaming's biography
of Orson Welles is that it principally relies on
the absolute worst source imaginable: Orson Welles
himself. Anyone who knows the details of Welles's
life, career and character even a little knows that
the man was a liar. Not a malicious one, to be
sure--his was more of a child's capacity for
prevarication, born out of equal parts insecurity
and need for attention--but a liar nonetheless.
The second problem is that while Leaming is a
serviceable writer, she is not particularly worldly.
She's certainly not objective. She seems to belong
to that cosmetically clever but ultimately narrow
breed of communicators: the gossip monger. She
loves anecdotes, and swallows Orson's whole.
All the requisite facts are in this book, but other
Welles biographies have served the man and his art
better. The single greatest irony about this book
is how smarmy, superficial and childish its subject
comes off in this, the work of his most flattering
biographer.
It's too easy to spot Welles toying with Leaming,
and he doesn't come off very charming or impressive
by extension. He sees her coming from too far off
and feeds her lots of junk, too much of which she
printed.
Meat Loaf with Extra Gravy.......1999-03-06
On the whole an entertaining read but Leaming's gossip-column style and unabashed idolatry grate before long. Leaming saves her best prose not for Welles' legendary charm or artistic genius, but for his various appendages. "The only way to make the plane was to hitchhike," Leaming writes, "but when Orson extended the long tapered thumb of his extraordinarily beautiful hand, the only vehicle to stop was a garbage truck, into which Welles and company promptly crowded." Such flourishes, as well as the index, which is surprisingly clever--under Welles, (George) Orson there is an entry entitled "false noses used by 350, 353, 401, 424" are the gravy on this meat loaf of a book. Eat up!
Product Description
With a career spanning almost five decades, Orson Welles became--and in many ways still is--one of entertainment's biggest names. His temperamental vitality, his humor and his general theatricality contributed volumes to the American stage and movie screen. His concepts of lighting and staging brought a new era to American productions. Welles influenced an entire generation of directors. These interviews conducted between 2003 and 2005 record the reminiscences of 30 individuals who worked with Orson Welles in a professional capacity. Beginning with 1937 and his work in Mercury Theatre, it follows a selected few of many who were part of Welles's life up to his sudden death in October 1985. Including actors, editors, cinematographers, camera assistants and magicians, the work presents a rounded view of Welles's career and, to some extent, his personal life. Each interview is presented in question and answer format with occasional commentary inserted for context or clarification. Projects discussed include Welles's most notable (Citizen Kane and War of the Worlds) as well as others like Heart of Darkness and The Cradle Will Rock which never quite reached fruition.
Customer Reviews:
TOP WELLES TREASURE.......2007-08-19
I have fifty or sixty books by or about Welles, a big collection of his films, and have written my own book about him, THE WELLES REQUIEM, as yet unpublished, and now happily confess to revising what I thought I knew about him, especially about his hands-on mode of filmmaking. For me the most important part of this truly stimulating, wonderful book are the parts about Welles in the cutting room. He himself personally did not cut film! He hired people to do that and told them what he wanted and then came back a day or a week later. Most revealing is the cutter for CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT who tells how Welles did not direct the battle scenes and did not do the cutting or assemblage. I won't reveal the "secrets" about that but they alone made this book worthwhile. Aside from that, this is truly personal about Orson and he is here talking with you straight into your face and gripping your shoulder and feeding you Chinese take-out. Any lover of Welles, no matter how deeply versed in his life-story, can not help but be lifted to the Wellesian heavens by this one-on-one face-to-face meeting with Orson Welles. Congratulations to young author/editor Peter Prescott Tonquette!
Orson Welles and Magic.......2007-07-01
I have always been a fan of Orson Welles on radio and television. Having collected a ton of radio broadcasts on CD and audio cassette and having watched most of his movies, I appreciate the genius of his work. I picked up a copy of this book recently and am amazed at the amount of research put into it. An aspect of Welles rarely discussed is his magic career. At the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention this September in Aberdeen, Maryland, I plan to attend the presentation about Orson Welles and his magic career so I can watch rare footage and films with Welles, and get an even deeper insight to his trickery. Book comes recommended.
Book Description
At twenty-five, Orson Welles (1915-1985) directed, co-wrote, and starred in Citizen Kane, widely considered the best film ever made. But Welles was such a revolutionary filmmaker that he found himself at odds with the Hollywood studio system. His work was so far ahead of its time that he never regained the wide popular following he had once enjoyed as a young actor-director on the radio.
Frustrated by Hollywood and falling victim to the postwar blacklist, Welles departed for a long European exile. But he kept making films, functioning with the creative freedom of an independent filmmaker before that term became common and eventually preserving his independence by funding virtually all his own projects. Because he worked defiantly outside the system, Welles has often been maligned as an errant genius who squandered his early promise.
Film critic Joseph McBride, who acted in Welles's legendary unfinished film The Other Side of the Wind, provocatively challenges conventional wisdom about Welles's supposed creative decline. McBride is the first author to provide a comprehensive examination of the films of Welles's artistically rich yet little-known later period. During the 1970s and '80s, Welles was breaking new aesthetic ground, experimenting as adventurously as he had throughout his career.
McBride's friendship and collaboration with Welles and his interviews with those who knew and worked with the director make What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? a portrait of rare intimacy and insight. Reassessing Welles's final period in the context of his entire life and work, McBride's revealing portrait of this great film artist will change the terms of how Orson Welles is regarded.
Customer Reviews:
Orson Welles Book.......2007-07-01
I have always been a fan of Orson Welles on radio and television. Having collected a ton of radio broadcasts on CD and audio cassette and having watched most of his movies, I appreciate the genius of his work. I picked up a copy of this book recently and am amazed at the amount of research put into it. An aspect of Welles rarely discussed is his magic career. At the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention this September in Aberdeen, Maryland, I plan to attend the presentation about Orson Welles and his magic career so I can watch rare footage and films with Welles, and get an even deeper insight to his trickery. Book comes recommended.
Fascinating and informative.......2007-03-06
While I might be biased because a many parts of this book included stories about my father, Gary Graver, this is not something you want to miss out on if you have any interest in Orson Welles or the inner workings of the Hollywood movie industry. I knew Orson when I was a young boy and teenager during the time my father worked with him, but my memories are nothing compared to the vivid details and thoroughness of Joe's writings.
This book taught me a lot about a man whom I admired and feared. He was rather scary from the perspective of a ten year old, but he often took time to have me sit with him while he taught me card tricks. I am so grateful that these stories are now available for everyone to read. Thank you Joe for your commitment in documenting what no one else ever has and sharing these wonderful stories.
Its value thus is twofold: as a biography for Welles fans, and as a history of film industry operations and politics........2006-12-11
Mention the name Orson Welles and his most famous involvement - with the radio scare 'War of the Worlds' - immediately comes to mind; but for a deeper understanding of Welles' life and career you need What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career. His later projects were largely self-financed and erratically distributed, but film critic and biographer Joseph McBride has a personal familiarity with Welles from previous projects worked on with him and here shows how the Hollywood studio system forced Welles out of the industry. Its value thus is twofold: as a biography for Welles fans, and as a history of film industry operations and politics.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
A Great Director's Independent Years.......2006-11-06
Everyone knows that Orson Welles made _Citizen Kane_, possibly the most audacious and most analyzed movie to come out of Hollywood. And then what happened? He had been called a "boy genius", having made the movie (co-written, directed, and starred) when he was but twenty-five years old, but within a decade the term was used with sarcasm, and Walter Kerr wrote that Welles had become "an international joke, and possibly the youngest living has-been." Welles had been knocked down, and in the view of many, he never got up. Certainly, he never made anything like a _Kane_ again, but that isn't really fair: no one has. It is true that he never produced the sorts of films that were Hollywood-popular, but he did not at all disappear. Joseph McBride, a film historian who knew Welles, has answered the title question in his book _What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? A Portrait of an Independent Career_ (The University Press of Kentucky). The answer, quite simply, is that Welles worked and worked for decades in film, writing scripts, making movies, and (perhaps because few would bankroll him) doing things his own way. It's a sad story, in many ways. No one could doubt Welles's genius, and there are so many "if only" episodes in this book that it is often a depressing account. But Welles was not a tragic figure; he reflected years later that he might have made a mistake in staying in films (rather than, say, returning to the theater in which he had previously made his mark). But he would not have had it any other way: "I'm just in love with making movies," he said, and indeed, it was only death that stopped him.
McBride necessarily describes the problems that beset Welles immediately after _Kane_, when Welles could no longer get anything close to the full control of a film which he had practiced on his first movie. Still wanting to make movies, he left Hollywood to continue in Europe. McBride makes the case that contributing to Welles's decision for self-exile was his fear that he would be called to testify in the Communist witch-hunts. Welles loved shooting films and he especially loved editing them (as anyone who has seen _Kane_ can tell). There are plenty of pictures Welles worked on whose footage has been lost, but many others have the footage saved by fans or by creditors, and they frequently propose bringing out a finished version, hiring someone to pull the scenes together into a finished movie even so long after Welles's death in 1985. One producer mentioned she'd like to see a particular film screened not as an unfinished work by Welles, but as a film the way he might have finished it; but she says, "Finished by whom? Who can you substitute for Orson Welles?"
McBride does not go deeply into Welles's inability to finish things. Certainly it was attributable in a large part to Welles's way of skin-of-his-teeth filmmaking, whether or not it was some deep-set psychological disability. Welles could have written a magnificent autobiography, but when he got advances for such a work, he always returned them to the publishers. McBride writes, "Welles was deeply ambivalent about reminiscing, perhaps because he would have had to address issues he usually found too painful or delicate, such as his sexuality, his family life and some of his more traumatic experiences in Hollywood." Some of the stories of incompletion here, however, are extraordinary. His finished negative of _The Merchant of Venice_ was simply stolen from Welles's production office in Rome. The Iranians held funding for his meditation on filmmaking in the sixties, _The Other Side of the Wind_, and then the Shah was overthrown. "It's hard to imagine a movie career more littered with sensational catastrophes than mine," Welles admitted. He seldom admitted that he was the source of the less sensational catastrophes; a cameraman who worked with Welles late in his career said that Don Quixote was never completed because Welles "moved around too much, stuff got lost." For sensational and unsensational reasons, the losses recounted here are staggering. Nonetheless, McBride shows that they cannot be blamed, as some critics say, on Welles's being lazy or dilatory. The decades were filled with work for him, and he was pounding out a manuscript for a brand-new project on the night he died. As an independent filmmaker, Welles may have never fully lived up to his potential, but with a record of films that includes _Touch of Evil_ or the supremely weird _Lady from Shanghai_, his pattern of incompletion must be a minor sin. Much of McBride's personal account comes from his being an actor in _The Other Side of the Wind_ (of course, never finished) as were such droppable names as John Huston and Dennis Hopper. McBride's story won't re-make Welles's post-1950 career, but it isn't just a story of loss and lost opportunities; it is one of real movie history and at least some genuine artistic success.
The Real Story behind a Misunderstood Talent........2006-10-07
This book's title aptly describes its critical task in taking issue with the misleading images perpetuated by certain critics and journalists concerning the significance of Orson Welles as a major cinematic talent who developed, rather than declined, after making CITIZEN KANE. The author had the benfit several years of contact with the director before he died as well as the opportunity to appear before the camera in the still unreleased THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND.
McBride has been engaged in Welles's scholarship since his early 1970s monograph dealing with the director and is in a good position to promote the case that Welles was more of what we would describe as an independent film director rather than a Hollywood figure. This book covers similar territory to the first two volumes of Simon Callow's biographical project but has the advantage of extending beyond the final chapter of HELLO AMERICANS to document Welles work in Europe and his return to Hollywood up to his eventual death. It is also a much more balanced work than either of Callow's two volumes by avoiding tendencies towards cheap character assassination (mercifully limited in Callow's second volume but still present in certain instances) to document a person who was both a genius and a difficult person.
The key argument of this book is that the director was more sinned against than anything else. His Hollywood career was deliberately sabotaged by studion executives and he was under surveillance by the FBI for some 15 years. Despite that, Welles never gave in but directed several fascinating films and worked on others that still remain to be completed up to the very moment of his life. Welles was a fascinating character, a product of the New Deal Cultural Front, and a cinematic innovator in many ways. He left a legacy of completed American and European films as well as other works that challenged the boundaries of mainstream cinema. McBride delivers this argument in an eloquent manner and documents his sources meticulously.
This is one of the best biographies that has appeared so far on the subject. It aims to reveal the truth concerning Welles's real creative challenge to the establishment which several notorious treatments have attempted to deny. McBride writes in a very engaging manner and makes a strong case for the reassessment of the legacy of Orson Welles as one of America's major talents of the twentieth century. It is a really important work demanding wide readership and respect for its very valuable achievement.
The University of Kentucky Press also deserves congratulations for publishing this work along with the recent books on Cecil B. De Mille, Thomas Dixon and Peter Lorre which are all instrumental in rewriting film history and refuting so-called standard interpretations.
Amazon.com
An excellent introduction to Orson Welles's career and accomplishments. Newly revised by author Joseph McBride, Orson Welles now features essays on F for Fake, Welles's last theatrical film; the recently reconstructed It's All True; the still unreleased The Other Side of the Wind (which Welles completed in the late '70s and in which McBride acted); and the seldom seen television pilot The Fountain of Youth. In addition, McBride has updated his chapters on The Magnificent Ambersons, The Stranger, and Macbeth. But, as the author states in his new preface, the core of this volume is still the work written in 1972 by a young enthusiast, a Welles fanatic who viewed Citizen Kane scores of times before composing the essay that would became the book's third chapter. --Raphael Shargel
Customer Reviews:
Great.......2003-06-19
Fabulous look at Welles' career and a critial look at his work as a filmmaker. One of the best, if not THE best works on this fabulour artist.
Average customer rating:
- Welles is his own words, almost.
- Welles is his own words, almost.
|
Orson Welles: A Biography
Barbara Leaming
Manufacturer: Viking Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0670528951 |
Customer Reviews:
Welles is his own words, almost........1997-01-17
Barbara Lemmings' biography on Orson Welles is one of the most gripping accounts of the late, famous
radio, tv and screen personality. It delves deeply into his youth and life before he shocked the world
with Citizen Kane. The most fascinating aspect of this book is that it was written with the assistance of
Welles, therefore it is almost an autobiography with areas and events fleshed out by Welles' contemporaries,
business associates and friends. Hearing Welles comment on events in his life puts a different spin on the
legend and no doubt makes the reader rethink what ever opinions s/he had on Welles. One possible down side for film
buffs is that production information on Welles' films is scantly touched on, but considering this book is about
his life as whole, not just the brillinat films he intermitantly made, one shouldn't be too disappointed. One
excellent point of the book is the production detail in which Welles' final film, The Other Side of the Wind, a possible masterpiece
was put together, then unceremoniously taken away from him and lost (which is the story of his entire film directing career) to the world. After finishing the text, one will
be left with a sense of wonder, sadness and disappointment in regards to Welles' life which turns out to be tragic in nature
Welles is his own words, almost........1997-01-17
Barbara Lemmings' biography on Orson Welles is one of the most gripping accounts of the late, famous
radio, tv and screen personality. It delves deeply into his youth and life before he shocked the world
with Citizen Kane. The most fascinating aspect of this book is that it was written with the assistance of
Welles, therefore it is almost an autobiography with areas and events fleshed out by Welles' contemporaries,
business associates and friends. Hearing Welles comment on events in his life puts a different spin on the
legend and no doubt makes the reader rethink what ever opinions s/he had on Welles. One possible down side for film
buffs is that production information on Welles' films is scantly touched on, but considering this book is about
his life as whole, not just the brillinat films he intermitantly made, one shouldn't be too disappointed. One
excellent point of the book is the production detail in which Welles' final film, The Other Side of the Wind, a possible masterpiece
was put together, then unceremoniously taken away from him and lost (which is the story of his entire film directing career) to the world. After finishing the text, one will
be left with a sense of wonder, sadness and disappointment in regards to Welles' life which turns out to be tragic in nature.
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