Me and Orson Welles / Christian McKay

[the scotsman]

How in God´s name did McKays performance get passed over at the just announced Golden Globe nominations ? Unbelievable , especially when we see what was nominated.Obviously the studio behind the film did not bother pushing it.
Hopefully the Academy Award nominations with put this matter right.
I alway thought that Welles would be impossible to portray, and I did not change my mind when I saw the movie "The Cradle that rocked". However Mr Mckay is an ernormously accomplished actor to have brought together all the various facets of Welles character into his performance. The best praise that I can give is that while watching the movie,I forgot that it was an actor - to me it was Welles.

[Bri]

I think that's part of the problem - that the studio isn't really backing it. Or, from the interviews on the main site tell me, at least not pushing it correctly. Still being an optimist, I will say that the Golden Globe nominations are released a lot earlier than the Academy's, and even moreso, the voting process for it which I suspect was too early before the buzz on "Me & Orson Welles" really caught on. I mean, a lot of us have known about this movie for over a year (two years?) but the general public has only known about it for about a month (even if they can't see it - they know of it). Hopefully this will shake up the voting process.

The only pitfall I can see (outside of people not being able to see the movie or being overshadowed by "celebrity") is that outside of McKay's performance, I don't see it as a strong film. I was surprised by Efron on how well he did, but ultimately, I don't see him with any confidence or presence - for a movie about the stage, this is crucial to have. But then again, in my eyes, McKay carried this movie on his shoulders, almost by himself - and to do that with an otherwise dull movie takes a great actor indeed. Hopefully that will get him the nod.

[the scotsman]

I totally agree with you Bri. Thankfully the history of the academy awards shows that now and again a great performance stands out from an ordinary or even a weak movie,and is rewarded.That is the case here. It reminds me of another mediocre melodramatic movie that was turned on it´s head into a mini classic just by the entrance of a certain Orson Welles in the last 25 minutes.I mean of course "Compulsion". Imagine that film with almost any other actor playing the lawyer - it would be resting in total obscurity by now.

[Harvey Chartrand]

The 1959 Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival should have gone to Bradford Dillman alone... and not been been split three ways. Dillman was brilliant, but the performances of Dean Stockwell and Orson Welles were just average. On the And You Call Yourself a Scientist! Web site, Dillman’s Artie Straus is described as “all brag and bravado, contemptuous of everything but himself, with his bridge-and-country-club parents, and his vaguely unwholesome relationship with his mother — creepily reminiscent of Robert Walker’s in Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951).” Richard Anderson (cast as Stockwell's brother in Compulsion) dismissed Welles in a TVO documentary about the film, saying he played Clarence Darrow "like Jesus Christ." I think Dillman is harshly judged for his subsequent TV-movie and B-movie career and perhaps for having stood up to Welles at his most spiteful on the set of Crack in the Mirror. As Dillman explains it in an interview for Shock Cinema:

"Orson was out to make my life miserable. Incredible, in retrospect, that a genius would have felt threatened by me. But he put me down so often -- one day, I blew my cool. He was denigrating the credibility of the scene where I murder him, scoffing to the director that no one would believe a puny man like me could bring a man his size to his knees. On take one, I used a Marine Corps move on him, bending his arm behind his neck. Orson screamed, fell to the floor, and never bothered me again. I’m not proud of the anecdote."

[the scotsman]

It is interesting that you think that Dillman´s performance is the better one. I see it differently - He has the showier of the two roles but I find his performance a bit too one dimensional - this was the type of characterisation that he would become well known for during his career - whereas Dean Stockwell ,who would go onto have a tremendous career, had the better of the two roles and he played it well He was just beginning to re-invent himself as an adult actor and his class and talent showed through even then. As for "Jesus Christ playing Clarence Darrow",that sounds like a great deal of sour grapes and envy from someone. Welles portrayal as Wilk(Darrow) was one of the most understated and subtle performances ever given by him.
As for the Dillman anecdote I can´t really comment - I don´t know the story - but there are two sides to everything and Welles´s resentment against, and antagonism towards Dillman must have been long seated and who knows why. I can only say that on the one occasion that I met Welles in 1974,he was the complete gentleman; he had just finished a long TV interview and it was late,he was tired and hungry, but he spent five minutes with me,a total stranger and nobody special, making me feel that it was important to him to listen and talk to me for a few minutes before dashing off to to a late night dinner.
However it is fine to have differing viewpoints on things - life would be pretty boring if we all agreed on everything.

[Magentarose67]

The 1959 Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival should have gone to Bradford Dillman alone... and not been been split three ways. Dillman was brilliant, but the performances of Dean Stockwell and Orson Welles were just average. On the And You Call Yourself a Scientist! Web site, Dillman’s Artie Straus is described as “all brag and bravado, contemptuous of everything but himself, with his bridge-and-country-club parents, and his vaguely unwholesome relationship with his mother — creepily reminiscent of Robert Walker’s in Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951).” Richard Anderson (cast as Stockwell's brother in Compulsion) dismissed Welles in a TVO documentary about the film, saying he played Clarence Darrow "like Jesus Christ." I think Dillman is harshly judged for his subsequent TV-movie and B-movie career and perhaps for having stood up to Welles at his most spiteful on the set of Crack in the Mirror. As Dillman explains it in an interview for Shock Cinema:

"Orson was out to make my life miserable. Incredible, in retrospect, that a genius would have felt threatened by me. But he put me down so often -- one day, I blew my cool. He was denigrating the credibility of the scene where I murder him, scoffing to the director that no one would believe a puny man like me could bring a man his size to his knees. On take one, I used a Marine Corps move on him, bending his arm behind his neck. Orson screamed, fell to the floor, and never bothered me again. I’m not proud of the anecdote."

I've never seen Crack in the mirror...but that scene sounded uncomfortable Poor Orson ....

Perhaps there is still hope for an Oscar nomination for Christian McKay. There's always a chance for surprises, no matter how unlikely .

[ToddBaesen]

It appears Christian McKay may still have an outside chance at being nominated for an Oscar, but if he isn't it will be the typical Welles story. You can blame it on a bad distributor. An idiotic decision made by Freestyle Releasing to put Christian McKay in the best actor category is the obvious reason why McKay may not be nominated as best supporting actor. But it's nice to see how many critics groups have recognized McKay's role in playing Orson Welles. Of course, as far as I can tell, McKay has not won a single "Best Actor" citation anywhere in the world, so how could the people at Freestyle possibly think they could put an unknown British actor in that category? I think everyone involved with that decision should be fired. Especially former New Line Cinema executive Russell Schwartz and the terrible job his Pandemic Marketing did in allowing this fiasco to happen in the first place.

It reminds me of how badly Peppercorn-Wormser fucked-up the release of Welles Shakespearian masterpiece, CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT in 1967. Right around the time Robert Shaye formed New Line Cinema. Of course, their was very little money to promote Falstaff, especially for an Academy Award for Orson Welles as Best Actor or director. And the awful posters they produced for the US release of FALSTAFF were so terrible, it's no wonder nobody went to see it. At least ME AND ORSON WELLES had some nice posters. But like FALSTAFF, nobody went to see it. ME AND ORSON WELLES cost between $15 & 20 million, but has just surpassed the $1 million mark in the US. Obviously it will not be a financial success. So once again, we can blame it on the distributor, in this case the incompetent people at Freestyle releasing. They had a great film and fucked-up it's release, big time. Fire them all, I say!

[Alan Brody]

ME AND ORSON WELLES cost between $15 & 20 million, but has just surpassed the $1 million mark in the US. Obviously it will not be a financial success

That's pretty discouraging.

[Magentarose67]

ME AND ORSON WELLES cost between $15 & 20 million, but has just surpassed the $1 million mark in the US.

!! Ouch! If that is accurate, Cinema NX and Freestyle have some splainin' to do!

Seriously: this was because it seemed that hardly any effort was placed in acquiring a proper distributor, IMO, and hardly anybody knew about this movie. The distribution and marketing were not handled properly.

[nextren]

Not certain, but I believe "Me & Orson Welles" did not play at a single theatre in my state of Tennessee. Currently, the nearest showing is 150 miles away from me... in a different state. Regal Cinemas has its headquarters in my town, so this isn't really the sticks. What kind of distro deal was this? Well, let's hope McKay gets an award. We know his performance has wowed a lot of knowledgeable people, deservedly, so that much is good news.

[ToddBaesen]

I believe Matt, our new moderator is also from the great state of Tennessee. As in Tennessee Williams, whose new film (TEARS OF A ROSEDROP DIAMOND) just happens to be set in Memphis, Tennessee. I really can't imagine Memphis or Nashville not having a theatre chain willing to book the film. But given the results it's shown so far, it appears future bookings at theatres in any state are not likely.

MEANWHILE...

It appears that Christian McKay's awards snub has been broken. He was nominated for a BAFTA award, and seems like he may be back in the Oscar race as well. Academy nominations close this weekend and final nominees will be announced on February 2. Let us hope Orson Welles, played by Mr. McKay is among them.

[mido505]

Glenn Beck warmly praised ME AND ORSON WELLES on his radio show this morning. He said the story was great, complimented Zac Ephron and Claire Danes by name for their performances, and said, roughly, "the guy who played Orson Welles really nailed it." Given the size of Beck's radio audience, this might add a few dollars to MAOW's bottom line. Whatever you think of Beck and his politics, let us give credit where credit is due - it was a cool thing to do.

[Glenn Anders]

Hi, Mido: ME AND ORSON WELLES can use the plug, for sure.

Glenn Beck is a study in schizophrenia. He claims the inspiration for his radio career came from listening to Golden Age of Radio tapes of The Mercury Theater on the Air, which his mother gave him as a boy. [He has had a troubled life, that may be attributed, in part, to the brutal loss of his mother and father; and that as "a radio boy wonder," he was considered "washed up" at 26; there might be a psychological connection with Welles in those facts.] Beck has identified with Orson Welles often, and leaned on "The War of the Worlds" so much that he is enjoined against attempting to recreate the latter program for radio ever again. Nevertheless, he calls his burgeoning media empire Mercury Radio Arts LLC.

[Glenn Beck's other idol is said to have been W. Cleon Skousen, the whacky ex-FBI agent who wrote "The Naked Communist" and "The Naked Capitalist." Take your pick! But Beck has never been able to chose; he's conflated the two.]

On the other hand, Beck has a conspiracy theory longer and more outrageous than any of my own. His stretches back at least to Woodrow Wilson (and extended by others, to Teddy Roosevelt). Recently, he interviewed a guest, Sheldon Richman of "The Foundation for Econ Education," among other matters, about the origins of the Mercury Dime (which came out in 1916 [a year after Welles was born], during Wilson's Administration), and Beck speculated that the use of bundled rods on the coin's reverse was a sign of the rise of American Fascism. The pair then went on warmly to speculate that this symbol indicated to them how socialism and fascism were pretty much the same thing. Beck, helped by Mr. Richman, related their intellectual construct to President Obama, the bailout of GM, and the saving of AIG.

To my mind, Glenn Beck and others are attempting to co-opt examples of our progressive and New Deal past, in order to turn them on their ear: Woodrow Wilson becomes a fascist. Socialism is Fascism. Fascism and The New Deal were really the same thing. Fascism was the same as Nazism. President Obama is a Nazi -- therefore . . . etc. You can appreciate where that illogical reasoning leads, historically, artistically, philosophically, in the hands of a charismatic like Glenn Beck.

[Incidentally, I might further note that there is now a whole string of well-financed extreme right wing political and media influence operations popping up in various cities, peopled by former operatives of the Bush Administrations (with a few Clintonites), which use "Mercury" in their title. For instance, Steve Schmidt, a staffer in the Bush and McCain campaigns, a proud member of Mercury Public Affairs LLC, recently made news by attacking Sarah Palin on National Media.]

I am happy that ME AND ORSON WELLES is receiving widely listened to support from Beck, and it may influence a few Academy Members, even many from Big Hollywood.com (another well-financed group, which hints liberal communities are really full of cowed reactionaries). It may indeed give Christian McKay some votes, but I think that the trend would have Orson Welles roaring back against this manipulation, if he were still alive.

I say again, pleasant as ME AND ORSON WELLES is, had it been less "safe," more courageous, Glenn Beck and others would not be tempted to lump it into their loopy analogies.

Orson Welles knew from the beginning what Fascism was and what it was not, and made that much clearer in his "Modern Dress Julius Caesar" than Richard Linklater does in his film.

It will be interesting to see if Beck continues to champion the picture, and if so, what use he makes of Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on his Giant Blackboard of Modern American History.

Glenn Anders

[The Night Man]

It's worth noting, I think (and not wholly inappropriate), that Welles and Houseman took the name of their company from The American Mercury, H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan's magazine of iconoclastic social commentary, satire and high-toned American literature. The magazine was decidedly left-leaning in the thirties when The Mercury Theatre was formed and continued to be so throughout the forties, but in 1950 it fell under the ownership of a series of increasingly loony arch-conservatives who soon transformed it into a platform for the viewpoints of people like George Lincoln Rockwell, Rev. Gerald B. Winrod and General Edwin A. Walker. Funny how these things go.

...I don't think this is going to lead to an Academy Award nomination: but Mr. McKay should be glad about the British award (which, alas, will go to the person playing the Nazi which is ironic in itself)

I think you are right on the money on this one, keats.

[ToddBaesen]

Now that the nomination ballots have closed, I must agree that the chances are rather slim for Christian McKay to end up with an Oscar nomination, but there is still the chance of a surprise, especially as I found McKay's work far superior to either Matt Damon or Stanley Tucci, who appear to be likely nominees.

The sad fact is after 55 days of release ME AND ORSON WELLES has made only $1,071,000. Last week it grossed only $31,000. from the 20 theatres where it is still playing. It was simply rather badly marketed and there is little doubt of the less than 180,000 people who paid to see the film, far more were fans of Orson Welles than of Zac Efron.