Who Has Played "Orson Welles"

[Oscar Christie]

Thought this list was worth reprinting:

The character 'Orson Welles' has been played by;

Vincent D'Onofrio . . . Ed Wood (1994)

Liev Schreiber . . . RKO 281 (1999) (TV)

Angus MacFayden. . . Cradle Will Rock (1999)

Edward Edwards. . . Rita Hayworth: The Love Goddess (1983) (TV)

Paul Shenar . . . Night That Panicked America, The (1975) (TV)


Others:
Eric Purcell . . . Malice in Wonderland (1985) (TV)
Jean Guérin . . . Heavenly Creatures (1994)
Jean Guérin . . . Vengeance de la femme en noir, La (1997)
Kenneth H. Hawryliw . . . All Star Comedy (1982) (TV)
Kevin Keaveney . . . Orson Welles Sells His Soul to the Devil (1999)
Maurice LaMarche . . . Ed Wood (1994)
Aaron Keeling (Young Orson Welles) . . . RKO 281 (1999) (TV)
Arrigo Barnabé . . . Nem Tudo é Verdade (1986)
Thelmo Fernandes . . . Lost Zweig (2002)
Bruno Garcia . . . That's a Lero-Lero (1994)

Source: Internet Movie Database (www.IMDb.com)

[Sir Bygber Brown]

I suppose this is a similar question to: who slightly resembles Orson, and could possibly have played him (but never actually did) - because i was just watching M, and during Peter Lorre's final speech i was struck by how much, with the extra weight he was packing when this film was made, his face resembled Orson's. Its like Vincent D'Onofrio's face - in its haggard, gaunt form on Criminal Intent you would hardly think he could ever play Orson Welles, even in Full Metal Jacket, in medium-mode, you might say there was little resemblance - but once he'd really packed on the pounds for Ed Wood, his face shape seemed to perfectly match that of a young Orson.

Slightly fatter than he was in Hollywood, Peter Lorre's face reminded me of Orson's. The eyebrows, eyes and cheeks in particular.

[Harvey Chartrand]

A telling observation. (By the way, is your name pronounced Big-ber or Bigh-ber?)
Pauline Kael observed in RAISING KANE that Welles, made up to look like an old man in CITIZEN KANE, reminded her of Peter Lorre as Dr. Gogol in MAD LOVE, filmed five years before KANE.

[Welles Fan]

Of course, Kael's remark was made in her attempt to suggest that Welles had little to do with Kane. Since Toland shot Mad Love, and since she felt Lorre resembled Welles in Kane (and he does, at least in the tent sequence at the Xanadu picnic), she was suggesting yet another example of someone other than Welles having a grweat influence on the picture.

[Sir Bygber Brown]

Mr Chartrand - my name is pronounced "big-ber."

Wellesfan - Haven't read Kael, and don't plan on. Hearing this, though, it sounds like she was driven to some far-fetched concepts to try and take Kane away from Orson. I fail to see how Lorre's merely resembling Orson could mean he had any impact on the work, but perhaps she gives some argument or other in the piece.

[Welles Fan]

Sir Bygber: The essay is a waste of time, unless you'd find it interesting to see the depths some people will stoop to in order to discredit someone in order to make big splash with a bold theory. (No one got lower IMO than Charles Higham with his "Errol Flynn: Nazi Spy" debacle).

Kael even went on to dispute Welles' claim that he had repeatedly run Stagecoach in order to "learn how movies are put together". She said (and I'm paraphrasing from memory) "Why does someone watch Stagecoach and then make a film that looks like the Cabinet of Dr Caligari?" So there you have it. Apparently, she didn't even see Kane.

I'm a big Napoleonic buff as well as a Welles fan, and I've read many accounts of Napoleon and his campaigns. I remember reading a bio which suggested that Austerlitz, (Napoleon's greatest victory), was a sheer accident, and that Napoleon brought no skill to the engagement at all! Now, few of Napoleon's battles are more methodically planned than Austerlitz. He seemed to know exactly what the enemy (with far superior numbers, BTW) would do, and he inflicted a terrible thrashing on the Russian/Austrian/Prussian forces involved (the Empreror of Russia sat on the ground and wept afterwards). It's one thing to dislike Napoleon an autocratic despot (and a French one at that), but there is no disputing his military genius (no one fought as many successful huge campaigns as Napoleon), yet this author (Corelli Barnett) let his hatred get the better of his judgement.

Same thing with Kael and Welles. In her attempt to discredit Welles, she made herself look foolish and vindictive. Sadly, some people learned all they know about Welles from Raising Kane (or that Welles/Hearst documentary on WB's Kane DVD-but that's a subject for another rant).

[Glenn Anders]

Dear Sir Bygber and Welles fan: I would certainly go along on the criticism of CITIZEN HEARST, which simply assumes that CITIZEN KANE was entirely about William Randolph Hearst, and makes a whole doumentary on that premise. But I think we should exhibit a little balance toward Pauline Kael.

Kael began her career selecting movies for a little art house, rare in those days, in Berkeley, California, during the 1940's. She used the notes she published on her programs as a basis for the essays which made her reputation, when she moved East. One of the films she had screened regularly at the Berkeley Rep was CITIZEN KANE, and she was one of its champions in print, when attempts to discredit the film had become almost as successful as those against Welles himself. So, it is foolish to say she never saw the picture.

It was Pauline Kael who made film criticism truly popular in America, and she had a lot to do, early on, in having motion pictures taken seriously as an Art Form here.

In "Raising Kane," Kael was simply correcting a bandwagon which she had helped launch. If you read her original reviews of CITIZEN KANE, she worships Orson Welles. She was, after all, an American popularizer of the French Auteur Theory. In her essay, she was attempting to give some credit where she felt it was due. For instance, she did point out a certain resemblance between the elderly Kane and Peter Lorre in MAD LOVE, and she did note that Gregg Toland had been the photographer for its director, Karl Freund, who, in turn, had created the camera work for the great German Expressionistic directors like F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang. [There's the real connection between Orson Welles and John Ford. Ford had gone to Germany to study Expressionism in the 1920's, as had Hitchcock.] Kael also discovered a fright shot of a white cockatoo in MAD LOVE, similar to the "wake-up shot" in . . . KANE.

Unfortunately, she left an impression with readers who made the essay, in book form, a best seller that Welles was a fraud, a promoter that had little to do with the picture's artistry. In fact, she is at some pains, to give praise to Welles' revisions, to his improvizations on the set, to his direction, to the cast and crew he gathered, and to his performance.

Rather typically in America, as she grew older, she went from great popularity as a critic to being deplored. She was always a rather homely woman, with a voice and personal style at odds with the keen insights of her prose. And gradually, she moved away from her original obsession with auteurs, and as a matter of fact, began to attack them, especially when some of them disappointed her. Sir David Lean, for instance, is said to have been particularly wounded by her attacks, after she had earlier praised him.

And when she was old, and suffering from a debilitating disease, she was derided, to a point that today a new reader might easily believe that she was an inconsequential hack.

Isn't that the reputation that we hear given to Welles, even around here?

Glenn

[Harvey Chartrand]

In the late sixties, Pauline Kael wrote a sympathetic article about Welles entitled THERE AIN'T NO WAY. We never hear anyone on this message board mention that one. RAISING KANE is always trotted out, which may have been wrong-headed but darned if the book isn't exceedingly well written, especially in the way it captures the essence of the times Welles lived in as a young man on the make. I'm dying to see how the once lovely Susan Strasberg interprets Kael in the endlessly awaited TOSTW. Ms. Kael was no beauty, but pleasant-featured, I thought. Certainly not an Elephant Woman.
And speaking of AUSTERLITZ, has anyone seen Welles' cameo in that awful, static period piece directed by past-his-prime Abel Gance?

[Welles Fan]

LOL, Welles as Robert Fulton, trying to sell Napoleon his new steamboat invention as a way of invading England!

Considering the dynamism of Gance's silent films, it is amazing that he made so flaccid an effort as Austerlitz.

BTW, Harvey, is the earlier Kael essay available online?

I guess the reason the Kael essays gripes my ass is I can't tell you how many times I've been talking about Kane, or some other Welles project with a friend, and some jerk overhears the conversation and interjects "You know, Welles had hardly anything to do with that movie." And I roll my eyes and sigh, and start with "Oh, you've read The Citizen Kane Book, have you?"

[Sir Bygber Brown]

I too was greatly disappointed with the Hearst documentary on the WB Kane DVD. The filmmakers admit, i think, that they were originally Hearst scholars who got interested in the debacle over Kane. The best thing about it is the footage of a young Welles talking at the press conference after War of the Worlds. A fun, rare glimpse of him without makeup (looking pretty good, i must say), with his beautiful, directorial voice, having his way with the press ("this H.G Wells classic," greatly "shocked" at the hysteria, etc).

And, not talking about her writings themselves (because i have not read them), but their reputation, and the meaning lots of people took from them, along with Charles Higham, seem to have been major contributing factors in cementing what everyone wanted to believe about Welles anyway - that he should not be trusted, and contributed to his not being able to locate a Hollywood backer for TOSOTW.

(though perhaps Kael mainly wrote of the authorship question, not the inflammatory "fear of finishing" theory, the latter of which was the main bane of Orson's in the 70's, probably).

[Harvey Chartrand]

By this juncture in his career, I doubt that any of those books had an impact on Welles' ability to obtain backing for his film projects. He was finished in Hollywood after TOUCH OF EVIL, once word got out that he left Tinseltown while the film was still being edited (according to Charlton Heston) so he could play his Big Daddy role in THE LONG HOT SUMMER. And this is the director who claimed that editing was the most satisfying aspect of making a motion picture!
Nor did the books that sang his praises result in producers lining up to finance a Welles picture. So the aging enfant terrible went off to Iran and France and sought backing from some very louche characters.

[Sir Bygber Brown]

I'm not so sure.

In the 60's, Welles had difficulty getting backing in Hollywood, sure, but in this decade he made three great films: The Trial, Chimes at Midnight and Immortal Story. In the 70's, he couldn't get backing from anyone, virtually. I love F for Fake, its one of my favourite Welles movies, but its the only feature he was able to complete in the 70's. Not a single fiction feature.