Callow begins work on Vol. 4

[Wellesnet]

Simon Callow beginning work on ‘Orson Welles, Volume 4’:
http://www.wellesnet.com/simon-callow-orson-welles-4/

[jbrooks]

When I spoke to Callow briefly after a presentation he gave on "The Road to Xanadu" in Washington, D.C. back in 1996, I asked him if he could really finish his then-projected 2-volume biography of Welles without seeing "The Other Side of the Wind." Callow agreed that an assessment of "Wind" needed to be included in any full artistic assessment of Welles' later life. He also said that he was talking with Oja about getting access to the film. He said that he thought a screening would be arranged for him soon thereafter and that the opportunity to see it was "very exciting." He also indicated that there was reason to be hopeful that the film would "soon" be completed and released. It's amusing to me that it is now 22 years later and Callow is still working on that "volume 2" (which became Volumes 2, 3 and 4) and "Wind" is now in fact really going to be finished and released.

Now, if we could just find that print of "Ambersons" down in Brazil ...

[Wich2]

From your mouth to God's ears!

(Hey, that longer-cut of METROPOLIS showed up down that way...)

[Le Chiffre]

I've enjoyed all three of Callow's Welles books, so this is welcome news. I thought I had read somewhere that Volume 4 would be a novel, but according to this review of ONE MAN BAND...
https://mostlyfilm.com/2015/11/23/orson ... -man-band/
it was Volume 3 that was originally intended to be the novel:

In the preface to his new book One-Man Band, Simon Callow recalls the genesis of his attempt to survey the life and work of Orson Welles in 1989. He planned to write a biography that consisted of three volumes (the third of which, he originally suggested, should be a novel), but over the course of the subsequent quarter of a century that plan has long fallen by the wayside.

[RayKelly]

Asked on Twitter this morning about when we can expect the fourth and final volume in his Orson Welles bio series, Simon Callow responded, "2020, I fear."

[tonyw]

The only thing we would have to fear is not "Fear itself". as FDR once said ,but that Callow returns to his ROAD TO XANADU bias!

[Wich2]

Any good author brings his own humanity to his work.

Callow's work here has been a wonderful thing. Welles could ask for no better chronicler, than a smart man, who is a gifted writer, and in the same business himself.

- Craig

[nickleschichoney]

Any good author brings his own humanity to his work.

Callow's work here has been a wonderful thing. Welles could ask for no better chronicler, than a smart man, who is a gifted writer, and in the same business himself.

- Craig

Craig, people keep trying to point out how unreliable he is -- I've done so several times -- but the errors are constantly ignored. Look at the errors he made in his OTHELLO interview. You DO know about those, right?

[jbrooks]

I chatted with Callow back in 1996 after a presentation he gave on Welles in Washington D.C. around the time his first Welles volume was published. I asked him if he could finish his Welles bio (then a projected 2 volumes) without seeing "The Other Side of the Wind." He agreed that he probably could not, and he told me that he had hopes that Oja would show him the existing "Wind" footage soon. It's amusing to me that now we're 23 years later and "Wind" is (finally, amazingly) available for the whole world to see. And -- by luck or design -- Callow was true to his suggestion that he wouldn't finish his Welles bio without seeing it.

[Wich2]

Any good author brings his own humanity to his work.

Callow's work here has been a wonderful thing. Welles could ask for no better chronicler, than a smart man, who is a gifted writer, and in the same business himself.

- Craig

Craig, people keep trying to point out how unreliable he is -- I've done so several times -- but the errors are constantly ignored. Look at the errors he made in his OTHELLO interview. You DO know about those, right?

Please point out an error-free biography or history.

As as what people have pointed out in this case, the majority have pointed out the general excellence and readability of these books.

I think that somewhere, Welles himself smiles that he's being given an epic-scale life story in print, written by a talented writer and man of the arts.

And I don't think he'd want hagiography.

- Craig

[nickleschichoney]

Sigh...

Please point out an error-free biography or history.

This isn't something like Rosenbaum's work on Welles where he admits there's room for improvement as more data comes in. The errors Callow makes in his biographies and interviews are egregious -- denying Welles credit for the WotW broadcast, making misleading statements about It's All True, relying on John Houseman's unreliable memoirs, making easily-refutable comments about Filming Othello and Welles's relationship with MacLiammoir, etc. All of these can easily be checked by a sober researcher, but he goes on doing stuff like this anyway. Callow approaches Welles like a character, not an object of study, and goes out of his way to make Welles the one responsible for his downfall -- he cherry-picks data that confirms this. He is approaching writing his life story like a novelist, not a researcher, and that is what makes him such a dreadful biographer.

And don't you dare try to convince anyone that Callow's comments about the teenage Welles wanting the sexual attention of older men are things a sober researcher should include, or even statements a morally-decent human being should ever make.

As as what people have pointed out in this case, the majority have pointed out the general excellence and readability of these books.

Readability =/= accuracy. Actually, readability is poisonous in cases like this because it gives the impression that the portrait is definitive. It ain't.

I think that somewhere, Welles himself smiles that he's being given an epic-scale life story in print, written by a talented writer and man of the arts.

And I don't think he'd want hagiography.

This is such a common line from Callow's kind: "You just want me to write something nice about your hero." Craig, I'm asking for accuracy, not hagiography. Do not misrepresent me on that point.

[JMcBride]

A fellow scholar aptly describes Callow's video interview
on the current Criterion AMBERSONS edition as "spectacularly inaccurate."
I thought Callow was improving from volume to volume in
sympathy and understanding and research ability, but he has regressed. Patrick
McGilligan's YOUNG ORSON, with its diligent research, blows
Callow's sketchy treatment of Welles's youth and education and his remarkable parents out of the water. On the
plus side, I've always thought Callow's background as an actor
helps him immensely in conveying the ambience and excitement
of Welles's stage and radio work, as he does so well in volume one. He falters somewhat in the
film arena by relying on dubious sources (most egregiously Kael
and her dubious source, Houseman). Callow's handling
of Welles's film work improved once he got beyond the sour
tone and misrepresentations on KANE. But it's baffling how
much he gets factually wrong on the video interview about IT'S ALL TRUE,
AMBERSONS, and the situation with RKO. Again he seemed
to fail to do some of the basic research required. I hope the final volume captures
the richness of the late Welles period, though Callow failed
to interview Gary Graver, of all people. I highly recommend
Callow's wonderful biography of Charles Laughton. He has great
sympathy and affection and understanding of his fellow actor
and writes about him brilliantly.

[Byron Stayskal]

I think Joseph McBride has identified quite exactly the special strength of Callow’s writing on Welles. “…Callow’s background as an actor helps him immensely in conveying the ambience and excitement of Welles’s stage and radio work....”

I’ve read volume 3 of Callow’s biography (with special attention to the section on The Trial) and sampled volumes 1 and 2, and the passages I most enjoyed are his vivid descriptions of Welles’s stage works, such as Julius Caesar, Dr. Faustus, and Moby Dick Rehearsed. It’s as if Callow is actually giving us a taste of what these plays were like, and that is most welcome.

Other qualities, however, of his biography are not nearly so attractive, such as convincingly expressed but factually wrong statements. Wellesnet members have already pointed out a number of specific examples, and I’d like to add one more that I find especially puzzling. In One Man Band (p 365), Callow describes Welles’s first meeting with Oja Kodar and writes: “It was on the set of The Trial in Paris, in the Gare d’Orsay, that he met a sensationally beautiful, sexually provocative young art student called Olga Palinkas….”

The two did meet in connection with The Trial, but it was not in Paris at all but in Zagreb. Only later when Kodar had finished her studies in Zagreb and come to Paris to study art, did the two met again (after Welles hired a private detective to help find her!). Callow seems to have collapsed the two incidents, muddled the story, and effaced the important implications that are embedded in the actual sequence of events.

This doesn't seem such a hard point to get right. There are easily accessible written sources for the facts as well as a filmed interview of Kodar herself telling the story (see the documentary Searching for Orson (2006) from minute mark 7:14 through minute 13:36). The problem is not that a biographer has made a mistake in describing a very complicated life; the problem is the carelessness of the error. If Callow has been so careless about a straightforward fact, that hardly inspires confidence in his care and fairness when it comes to making evaluations or drawing conclusions.

I feel deeply ambivalent about Callow’s work on Welles (that includes interviews and talks as well as his Welles biography). I’m grateful for his tremendous labor in finding and bringing together so much valuable information. On the other hand, the factual errors are quite disturbing as are Callow’s sometimes unfair and unsupported pronouncements about Welles’s person and his work. (Perhaps more on the latter in a post that’s already rather long.)

[MickOrd]

I can't wait for Callow's Vol 4 come out ---hopefully this year.
Wonderful writer.

[Wellesnet]

Simon Callow busy at work on fourth Orson Welles bio:
https://www.wellesnet.com/simon-callow-welles-4/