The Print Media's Commentary on Kane Fiasco

[Le Chiffre]

I will say it's a really good autobiography, though.

That's kind of the way I saw it too. ROSEBUD seems to tell us less about Welles then about Thomson's contempuous and bitter disillusionment with Welles, and his desire to paint him as both pathetic and overrated.

I happen to be an only child, and I think that helps me understand both Welles and Thomson from the psychological standpoint.

But Welles was NOT an only child, Glenn, even though he may have felt like one. But I wouldn't pretend to know whether he did or not. Maybe Thomson would, though. It's possible I may give the book another chance someday, but his last line that you quoted seems to sum it up pretty well. He feels Welles wasted his life.

[Glenn Anders]

Thank you, mteal, for the correction.

Of course, the unacknowledged presence of Richard Welles in the shadows of Welles' life is the most unexplored area of his motivations as an artist. From his first play, Bright Lucifer, to The Big Brass Ring, he makes allusions to an almost overriding guilt, fear and shame that, in the person of his brother, haunted his life.

I should have said that, indeed, Welles was made to feel like an only child because both his mother and father, Beatrice and Dick Welles, tried to pretend that Richard did not exist. Or that he was like a crazy Aunt Fanny locked in the attic (actually an asylum). It was Welles who took over the responsibility for his brother when he was able. But evidently, after a few attempts at redress, his efforts were spotty.

Imagine Welles' chagrin and bewilderment when his older brother came out of an institution in the late 1930's, and began to claim credit for some of Orson Welles' accomplishments.

Talk about a jolt!

Anyway, thanks for the correction.

My take on the end of Thomson's book is that he is saying that neither he nor Welles should have sacrificed so much of their personal lives for "The Movies." You are correct that it is a flight of egotism for Thomson to make the comparison. And his conceit on TOUCH OF EVIL.

Glenn

[Tony]

I think if one looks closely, one can discover that most of the recent "psudo-psycho-biographies" which pretend to knowledge of Welles's inner mind, engage in moral censure and are written by those who didn't know him are in actuality autobiographies- but sorry, I'm just not interested in the autobiography of a Thomson or a Callow or a Conrad.

How many masterpieces have they created?
???

[Glenn Anders]

Tony: There you go shooting the messengers again.

William Faulkner once said, in effect, that he would murder his grandmother in order to write a great novel. And he did put his family through a lot, occasionally having to be carried strapped to a stretcher out of the house to a rehab hospital. But that did not make him less an artist, nor did it detract from his masterpieces.

The same might be said of Welles -- not that his problems were nearly so acute as Faulkner's.

We all have problems, and it's what we accomplish despite them which counts. Would you not agree?

Anyone my age knows how much "Freudianism" was over-hyped (as "the war on terror" is today), but there was a core truth in it, too.

I would suggest we find such truth, wherever possible, and stay with it, if we can.

I suggest, getting back to Richard Welles, that you plunge into that wonderful book, The Director by Chris Welles Feder, you, Larry French or someone got hold of. Particularly, "Brother Leo" on pp 39-40, or say, "Unanswered Questions" on p 59. Ms. Feder is careful to stipulate that the man she writes about is not necessarily Orson Welles, but it is hard to imagine that she did not know at some deep level her own father.

Glenn

[Tony]

Speculate all you want, cos that's all you'll ever be able to do: empty speculation about possible connections between Welles's inner life (that unfortunately for you he had the only access to) and the art he created, written by individuals who never even met him. None of it ever provable, all of it endlessly hypothetical; if that turns your crank, go for it.

:;):

[Glenn Anders]

Fair enough, tony. Then, let's just deal with the works themselves.

Do you really imagine that any documented material tells a complete story? The primary souces, the records, the documents, the letters, the footage, the recorded interviews are all we have. And all of that is open to interpretation . . . speculation.

Gadfry, tony, that fact was Welles' greatest major theme, was it not?

Will you not at least allow us to agree on the ironic ambiguity that "no single piece of a puzzle can explain a man's life"?!!

You seem to insist that everything be cut and dried, evidently sweetness and light.

Glenn

[ToddBaesen]

Glenn & Tony:

The above discussion just crystalized for me the connection between Mr. Welles first masterpiece and his last unfinished one, "The Other SIde of the Wind."

Glenn says, "The primary souces, the records, the documents, the letters, the footage, the recorded interviews are all we have. And all of that is open to interpretation . . . speculation."

How curious that this should mirror the opening narration by OW about his main fictional character and possible alter-ego, the film director Jake Hannaford... and of course it can also easily be applied to what Welles was attempting to show us about Charles Foster Kane, as well... Telling that story as Welles did, from four different POV's. And it also relates to the ending words of Thompson the reporter in KANE about trying to sum up a man's life...

So Welles own work, shows to a degree how futile that can be...

So maybe, to take a clue from these two films, both of which are autobiographical to some degree, we can get back to why that other Thomson, David, is painting such a poor picture of Welles with his own bizarre and fanciful theories in his "disraceful biography." I suggest that for any true Wellesian this kind of biography just won't and does not work, for the simple reason that it distorts the verified facts in Welles life.

Although the book may be well written and very entertaining, it seems to me, that someone who does no research on his subject, and gets so many basic facts about the person he is writing about wrong, cannot be taken seriously.

[Tony]

Todd:
What you've just pointed out is incredibly interesting and obvious, and I totally missed it! Welles's work itself debunks this whole notion of "psycho-bio": that's why, for instance, he always dismissed "Rosebud" as dollar-book Freud, and wrote that passage at the end of Kane for Thompson to say, about how one word could never provide the meaning of a man's life, that a life is too complicated for this kind of reductionism.

How supremely ironic that Thomson not only named his book Rosebud, but also shares the name of the reporter who delivers that debunking speech.

Welles is kinda spooky sometimes...
:blues:

[Glenn Anders]

Tony . . . Todd . . . . Well . . . ROSEBUD!

Are you guys putting us on?

Part of what makes CITIZEN KANE such a magnificent movie, the rosebud part, is that it looks at "an important man's life" from so many angles and reduces them down to at least one we can all share. I'm amazed that you are maundering about this.

I'm amazed, too, that you have singled out David Thomson to crucify for meditating on this aspect!

I say, that you are wasting too much of our valuable time attacking Thomson for fouly revealing his love and disillusionment concerning Orson Welles and his works. There must be something yet for you to do.

Ah! Let's concern ourselves with really fun distortions of Welles and his works by sponsoring juvenile parodies made from out-takes of his wine commercials.

A slippery slope there, gentlemen, no doubt.

Not to worry. We can blame it all on David Thomson or Peter Conrad or . . . Orson Welles!

I'm off to the Ha-Ra Club to see if I can find Larry French to stop all this.

Glenn

[ToddBaesen]

Glenn:

I can see why you might be amazed by the interesting connections between KANE and OSOTW, although not why you'd be amazed by our discussing it here.

Perhaps you've had one glass too many of that "terrible" Paul Masson wine down at that film noir bar you frequent in San Francisco's tenderloin. I suggest you head over to John's Grill, Sam Spade's hangout, instead.

[Tony]

I dunno Glenn: that Pinky and the Brain pea commercial is pretty amazing- it's a spot-on parody: the Brain has him cold!

[Glenn Anders]

Tony: Do you realize how many score of those are already on U-Tube?

Todd: I think you may be Karl Rove incognito.

I'm one of the guys who brought up the obvious connection between CITIZEN KANE and THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND. That's one of the meanings, seems to me, of the latter title.

So you were the guy I met at the Geary Club that damp summer night! I couldn't figure out what Diane -- she of the silver chain handbag -- was doing with you. You told me that Larry French is known as "The Maltese Falcon" at John's Grill. The place is a little expensive and touristy now, but if you're buying, Larry and I will meet you there, I'm sure.

Bring Diane.

They serve a drink upstairs, I believe, made with frozen peas, cranberry juice and pureed blueberries . . . .

Glenn

[Tony]

Glenn: What's a "U-Tube"? Is it part of a "U-Boat"?
:p

[Glenn Anders]

Good zinger, Tony.

You're very good at that.

Actually, I do regard YouTube as an alien U-Boat sinking much of what used to be known as Cinema. You can pretty much forget copyright laws and painstaking film restoration, when these guys really get going.

About thirty years ago, after reading an article in Esquire on the subject, I predicted to my old friend, BAMBO-BAMBO Christianson, that one day soon, the old stars, the classic movies, would be tricked out in new clothes, in new situations, by the use of stereotypical editing. It took longer than I thought -- not that thirty years is a long time -- but that process, using the computer rather than film, is here, and YouTube is the U-Boat which will be more destructive to the culture than even the latest murder suspect or new "Islamo-Fascist threat," short of an atom bomb.

Cultural torpedoes ready when you are, skipper!

Glenn

[Tony]

I like YouTube: it's just little bits and pieces, commercials, trailers, scenes, home videos, etc., it seems to me: I searched Orson Welles, the Beatles, and others and found it fascinating. I found an uncut Beatles press conference from 1966- really great. Glenn, don't be so serious: the end of civilzation isn't coming- yet! :;):