When Matthew Asprey Gear, author of At the End of the Street in the Shadow: Orson Welles and the City, announced last fall that he would offer a 12-week online course for newbie and veteran Wellesians, we were intrigued.
Apparently, we were not alone. The course was a success on both sides of the Atlantic and prompted Gear to offer another course beginning March 7 and running through May.
The course consists of a lecture, group discussions and, of course, film watching. (The lecture portion of the session will be recorded and available for download for those unable to attend a live session and want to catch up.)
Gear will be running two identical sessions each week to accommodate different international time zones. Each group will be limited to a maximum of 12 students. The American sessions will be on Sundays, 3 p.m. PT/ 6 p.m. ET; and European sessions on Mondays, 7:30 p.m. GMT/ 8:30 p.m. CET. The price is $12o per student and registration information can be obtained by emailing matthewaspreygear@gmail.com.
We talked with Gear about the success of the fall course and what people can expect with the upcoming program.
Why did you decide to teach a course on Orson Welles in the first place?
It’s really the culmination of a decade of intense research. My Welles book was published in 2016 and since then I’ve continued to write articles based on my research in the archives. This seemed like the right time to take all that work and share it with a group of enthusiasts.
I’ve taught various film courses at university in the past, but I’ve never had the opportunity to teach a course focused exclusively on just one filmmaker. Welles is one of my great passions, so this had been a dream for years. And it has proved to be huge fun.
What are some of the challenges of teaching a course like this?
Well, it is tricky to try to squeeze his film career into twelve weeks! As it is I haven’t found space to include Macbeth and Othello (although we do look at Filming Othello).
There used to be this idea that Welles hadn’t made many movies, but that is completely false! Especially if you look at his hours of fascinating experimental television shows, as well as the countless unfinished projects that have appeared in various forms since his death – the 2018 completion of The Other Side of the Wind being the most recent example.
Welles did not leave behind a small, neat, easily digestible filmography in the manner of somebody like Stanley Kubrick or Jean-Pierre Melville. It can be a challenge define the limits of his body of work in film, and that is leaving aside his voluminous writings (published and unpublished), theatre productions, and a vast quantity of radio drama. It’s all part of a continuum, and I try to cover as much as possible without being superficial.
What countries did students come from in the first round?
The course was literally ‘Around the World with Orson Welles’ – albeit on Google Meet. I live in the UK, and I had students joining from all over the US as well as from Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and Finland. In order to accommodate different time zones, I run a Sunday afternoon class designed for the Americas, and a Monday evening class best suited for Europe/Africa.
I was impressed that everybody turned up online at exactly the right time, no matter where they were! I guess online punctuality is a new necessity in the era of Covid.
What was their level of knowledge? Of interest?
I was very impressed by the knowledge many of the students brought to the course. Some were life-long Welles fans who had already seen (nearly) everything and were eager to dive even deeper. Others had seen only a couple of Welles films and wanted an introduction to the rest of his work. The mix worked very well. Interest was high, and it seemed to increase as the course continued.
The course functions as an in-depth overview, but I try to keep even the most hard-core Welles fans engaged by sharing my discoveries from Welles archives in Italy, Germany, and the USA. By this I mean discussing material that has never been published and, in most cases, has never been written about. For example, in each class I have a special segment called ‘Unmade Screenplay of the Week’. Welles wrote dozens of screenplays that were never filmed, and this is one of my research specialities. I enjoy talking about those ‘might-have-been’ Orson Welles movies such as Don’t Catch Me, Fully Dressed and In His Right Mind, Crazy Weather and Surinam.
How will round 2 differ from earlier offering?
The structure of the 12-week spring semester will repeat the content I taught the first time around. The course fee remains US$120 and classes will still be limited to twelve participants.
The course does not move through Welles’s movie career in chronological order. It actually ends with Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. Instead we move thematically through four sections: (i) Welles’s Style and Methods; (ii) Welles’s World; (iii) Welles and Literature; and (iv) Welles and America. I’ve found that this approach helps give us a fresh perspective on his career, and emphasizes the continuities.
What do you expect future students to gain from the course?
Hopefully a new and challenging perspective, a view behind the scenes of Welles’s career, and rewarding discussions with like-minded enthusiasts.
I have gained a lot myself by teaching this course. It’s a highlight of the week to get together with enthusiastic film fans and talk about Welles in such depth.
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