Treasure Island

[Tony]

Harvey: Are you being ironic? Have you been drinking?

"the kind of entertaining, well-crafted film one can watch dozens of times... the kind Welles was incapable of making, by his own admission."

"These guys made real movies, while being able to maintain a clear cinematic identity."


Are you serious? Welles never made a real movie while maintaining a clear cinematic identity? You can't watch his films dozens of times?

Good God: If you believe all this, why are you here?

Or are you just pulling our collective leg?

[mido505]

Hold on, let's not go after Harvey for expressing his opinion, however contrary. There are quite a few longtime members of this board who have, at one point or another, launched hyperbolic, critical, contrary, and just plain nasty jeremiades in Welles' general direction; and, if they have not done so in print, they perhaps have had these......thoughts. It sometimes happens, when one is in love, that, after one has spent a long time in the company of the beloved, that the beloved's faults and weaknesses begin to stand out like beacon fires in a fog, and the love starts to turn into...hate. In my own life, I have thrown the works of my favorite philosopher and novelist in the trash, because I just couldn't bloody stand them any more. And I went through a period where I thought Citizen Kane was a ghastly, juvenile cartoon; and that my favorite film of all time, Touch of Evil, was a bungled, amateurish piece of sh*t. All that is over now, but I understand where Harvey is coming from. So let us examine what Harvey is actually saying.

First of all, Harvey is right - The Legend of Hell House may be the best haunted house thriller of all time. It is certainly better than the bloodless, academic, deadly dull Robert Wise debacle, The Haunting, which invariably puts me to sleep (not a good quality in a haunted house flick). I am a student of genre cinema in general, and horror cinema in particular, so I have seen my share of movies; and I have NEVER understood the acclaim that The Haunting consistently receives from critics. On the other hand, I do not think The Legend of Hell House is a better film than Citizen Kane, or F for Fake, for that matter. But then, we are starting to compare apples and oranges. Which brings me to the next of Harvey's valid points.

Welles was an elitist. Worse, he was an anti-middle-class elitist, and film is the middle-class art form par excellance. Welles WAS incapable of making "the kind of entertaining, well-crafted film one can watch dozens of times"; the type of film that a Ford or a Hawks could make in their sleep, "while being able to maintain a clear cinematic identity". Welles was an aristocrat, and even his vaunted radical politics derived from an aristocratic sense of noblesse oblige towards society's have-nots that contained a great deal of contempt for the great mass in the middle. Welles, like Shakespeare, was making entertainment for the Lords and the groundlings; unfortunately, that combination does not make for a hit movie.

Finally, I think that Harvey's parody of the "Citizen Kane is the best movie of all time" mantra is spot on. Is it the BEST? Really? Why? Because of its innovation? Well, in that case, why isn't The Great Train Robbery, or The Birth of a Nation, or Intolerance, or Potemkin, or The Jazz Singer, or M.A.S.H., or Deep Throat number one? I know a lot of very intelligent, well-educated, movie-loving individuals who just don't "get" Citizen Kane. Some find it boring; others like it but don't understand why it is considered "the best film of all time". On my first post here at Wellesnet, I put Citizen Kane at number 6 on my 10 favorite Welles film list.

I think that Citizen Kane gets the number one slot on these "best films of all time" lists because it is the safe choice. It was Welles' first and only unmolested studio product, so it has that incredible studio slickness and shine that makes classic Hollywood product so wondrous. It is Welles' only Hitchcock/Hawks/Capra movie - a real movie where the director is allowed to maintain a clear cinematic identity, as Harvey puts it so astutely. Unfortunately, like Kane, Welles the aristocratic populist failed with the populace. He became an outsider, a vagabond. But instead of holing up in a fantasy gingerbread mansion, Welles pushed on. He continued to try to work within the Hollywood system, and failed. His films were mangled, abused, distorted. He fled to Europe, became the first "independent". He continued to make films, his great love, in his own fashion, becoming anti-Hollywood, losing that studio-system sheen, sometimes falling flat on his face, but more often soaring to hitherto unseen heights. The movies were sloppy, messy, imperfect; but frequently extraordinary. Above all, they are difficult. It is EASY to call Citizen Kane "the greatest film of all time" in a rote politburo fashion; it is not easy to convince your buddy that F for Fake is a remarkable cinematic achievement. When I was in college and met somebody that fancied him or herself a cutting-edge litterateur or film buff, I would make them sit down and watch The Trial. If they thought it an extraordinary viewing experience, I would take them seriously. If not, not.

Like Harvey, I sometimes get very angry at Welles. He was some kind of an ass. It is hard to come to grips with the fact that a man I consider such a great talent ended up as such a joke and a failure. And he did die, a joke and a failure, by the world's standards. But sometimes the world's standards do not matter. All I know is that, from a very young age, the films of Orson Welles touched my soul unlike anything else in this vivid, confusing, contrary world. Perhaps I am afraid that, like the man who spoke to me most clearly in my life, I too will die a joke and a failure. It is not a comforting prospect. But when all is said and done, f*ck it, I would rather raise my glass to that man than to anyone else, then, now, and hereafter...

[Harvey Chartrand]

Thank you, mido505, for your wonderful message, which came as a very pleasant surprise. I was expecting a lot of vitriol for deviating from the party line. I found your sympathetic observations instead.
A rock music critic for Rolling Stone once observed that Frank Zappa – the eccentric and unconventional musical genius of Weasels Ripped My Flesh fame – was incapable of composing a catchy little ditty like Louie Louie.
Welles was sort of like Zappa in that respect. He waded into the mainstream once as a director – when he helmed THE STRANGER in 1946 (it was the only film he ever directed that made a quick profit) – and then spent the next 39 years apologizing for it, or justifying THE STRANGER as some sort of weird experiment in dumbing himself down. Welles stated in many interviews that he only wanted to prove to the studio bosses that he could direct an assembly-line picture for a mass audience, implying that such a course of action was beneath him.
What prompted my anger was seeing Welles on TCM a few nights ago, playing a corpulent Cuban diplomat in VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED. By 1976, the man who had taken Broadway by storm in the 1930s could no longer act. Or he wasn't trying to act. He was so fat and visibly bored he went on Orson Welles autopilot. I thought – is this really a better fate than making a few commercially successful pictures now and again to keep the money men happy, so they would give him the funds he needed to complete the projects that really mattered to him (you know, those Biblical and Shakespearean epics)?
I also lost some respect for Welles when I read [on this message board] about how careless he was with his DON QUIXOTE footage, for which he had sacrificed so much. After all, Welles blew his last chance at a Hollywood directing career when he abandoned the editing of TOUCH OF EVIL to high-tail it to Mexico and shoot scenes for DQ – a film that was never completed or released in the form Welles intended.
Listen to Welles shilling for REVENGE OF THE NERDS near the end of his life and try not to weep.
He paid a very steep price for being a maverick and squandered the many gifts God gave him.

[Tony]

All I can say in response is:

Once, I saw Rod Steiger interviewed on TV by an interviewer named Brian Linehan, and Linehan was putting down Tennesse Williams saying
"But what did he write after his first 3 or 4 masterpieces?" And Steiger did a slow burn and said "Mr. Linehan: how many masterpieces have you written? Even if Tennesse wrote only one masterpiece we should, when we meet him, get down on our knees and thank him, and when we speak of him, we should thank God he existed and praise him."

Now, I've parpaphrased here, and I'll paraphrase again:

Harvey and Mido, how many masterpieces have you created?

We should be celebrating the art of Orson Welles here, not descending to the level of this thread.

I can just imagine if either of you had ever met Welles: you'd have fallen all over yourselves with platitudes.

I've wasted enough time on a pointless, senseless and, to Orson Welles, a deeply insulting thread.

I've done my slow burn.

[ToddBaesen]

As Mido points out, Harvey has every right to think John Hough is a better director than Orson Welles, without being attacked, but what I find a bit strange is getting so upset about Orson Welles supposedly wasting his talent, after seeing the bad performance Welles gave in VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED. I usually find such performances fun to watch just to see how hammy Orson could be at times!

Tony then makes the excellent point - that even David Thomson agrees with: Welles gave us enough masterpieces!

According to Mr. Thomson, we don't need to see assemblies of flawed footage, that THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND and DON QUIXOTE would invariable provide us with.

In any case, we all know Welles gave many bad performances in many terrible films, sometimes even when they were directed by such masters of the cinematic arts as John Hough and Jess Franco!

Welles also had many character flaws, which again we all know about: He let himself get overweight, made many bad decisions regarding his own career and sometimes got drunk on the wine he was supposed to be selling. My God, he even smoked those smelly cigars in public places!

In other words he was a human being.

I dare say, quite a few people posting here may also have some of those exact same character flaws. I know I do. So the point Tony makes is really quite important: How many of us mere mortals - especially those who like to criticize Welles for his character defects - can lay claim to creating anything near the level of Welles' WORST work in film, theater, radio, television, books, painting or the simple art of conversation?

(Pause for long SILENCE here)

One of my own favorite comments by Welles, which touches on this subject, comes from Welles 1967 PLAYBOY interview when Kenneth Tynan asks Welles to reconcile his own contrary views on censorship:



TYNAN: If the decision were yours, would you censor anything in films or the theater?

WELLES: I am so opposed to censorship that I must answer no--nothing. But if there were no censorship, I have a little list of the things I would prefer not to have shown. Not too often, anyway. Heavy spice isn't good for the palate; and in the theater and films, when there's too much license, what is merely raw tends to crowd out almost everything else, and our dramatic vocabulary is impoverished. If you show the act of copulation every time you do a love scene, both the producers and the public get to feel that no other kind of love scene is worth doing, and that the only variations on the theme are variations of physical position. No, artists should not be censored, but I do think they should restrain themselves, in order not to weaken the language of their art. Take the old Roman comedies: Once you bring out those great leather phalluses, you get so there isn't any other sort of joke you can do. It's the same with violence, or any theatrical extreme. If it's pushed too far, it tends to erode the middle register of human feeling. However, propaganda against any kind of loving human relationship is despicable and probably ought to be censored.

TYNAN: But how do you reconcile that with...

WELLES: For 30 years people have been asking me how I reconcile X with Y! The truthful answer is that I don't. Everything about me is a contradiction, and so is everything about everybody I know. We are made out of oppositions; we live between two poles. There's a Philistine and an aesthete in all of us, and a murderer and a saint. You don't reconcile the poles. You just recognize them.

_______

As a footnote, being a great fan of Tennessee Williams work, I think Tony makes a very interesting analogy in comparing Welles - presumably Americas greatest director in the cinema - to Tennessee Williams, who after Eugene O' Neill, many critics would agree was America's greatest playwright. But after THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA in 1961 (filmed by John Huston in Mexico in 1964), most of Tennessee Williams plays were dismissed by the theater critics in America. He certainly (just like Welles after KANE) never had another success to match his early plays after the Broadway production of IGUANA.

The great big difference is Welles never even had the early run of hits that Williams had in the theater. Yes, of course KANE got great reviews, but it never made any money!

Likewise, after NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, Tennessee Williams still turned out many wonderful plays, but none of them got good notices. Of course, Williams like Welles, still worked and wrote many interesting plays, only no one seems to have seen them.

Among Williams later plays are these gems:


KINGDOM OF EARTH (THE SEVEN DESCENTS OF MYRTLE)

SMALL CRAFT WARNINGS

VIEUX CARRÉ

A LOVELY SUNDAY FOR CREVE COEUR

SOMETHING CLOUDY, SOMETHING CLEAR

IN MASKS OUTRAGEOUS AND AUSTERE

(Peter Bogdanovich is supposedly going to direct this play, in a Broadway production with Cybill Shephard in the starring role, for the fall 2008 season.)

Reviewing this list, I also found it interesting that all of these plays, written in the late 60's through the 80's also match Orson Welles own later work, in that they all feature at least one character who is gay! Needless to say, Williams plays are more gay-centric then Welles later films were, since he was gay, but it's still strange to note they both seemed to embrace gay characters in their work, long before it became in any way "fashionable" to do so.

[Glenn Anders]

Todd Baesen has said it almost all for me, and I suspect for most of us. Welles was a man and artist who fell between two stools immensely far apart. It was not that he didn't want to entertain his public as well as produce artistic masterpieces. He wanted to do both, but he succeeded only a few times. Lesser artists and artisans might do better in terms of numbers of successes, as Harvey observes, simply because those journeymen seldom think to aim so high as Welles. Sadly, his attempts at humor, magic, vaudeville, or the mundane commonplaces of commerce, now often appear obviously contrived and corny. However, Tony has it right, that few artists of his time could touch his accomplishments, certainly few of us, who may not have even tried.

As one who has seen the redoubtable Baesen in action, I was moved by his simple humility here.

Perhaps, we should leave it to the words of another flawed critic (whom Baesen invokes), David Thomson, to sum up:

". . . [Welles] presided over the special chaos of his life as it closed, apparently seeking help and friends, yet secretly sealed against trespass. His unfinished films are now seeing the light of day -- even pieces of IT'S ALL TRUE. But so little about the life of Welles is all or anywhere near true. He inhaled legend -- and changed our air. It is the greatest career in film, the most tragic, and the one with the most warnings for all of us."

Which of us could have said it better?

Glenn

[Harvey Chartrand]

I make no claims to being special. I am just one of the teeming masses, and we little people are not all able to create masterpieces. But Orson Welles' motto should have been: "With great talent comes great responsibility."
I fully agree with Charles Higham's assessment in The Rise and Fall of an American Genius that Welles was "the brilliant architect of his own downfall" and that “some perverse streak of anti-commercialism drove him," despite his constant preoccupation with money.
So as a consequence of Welles' attitudes and behavior, we live in a world where there are only a baker's dozen of movies directed by the Great One, instead of one hundred.

[mido505]

ToddBaesen wrote, quoting Welles:

"WELLES: For 30 years people have been asking me how I reconcile X with Y! The truthful answer is that I don't. Everything about me is a contradiction, and so is everything about everybody I know. We are made out of oppositions; we live between two poles. There's a Philistine and an aesthete in all of us, and a murderer and a saint. You don't reconcile the poles. You just recognize them."

I wrote:

"Like Harvey, I sometimes get very angry at Welles. He was some kind of an ass. It is hard to come to grips with the fact that a man I consider such a great talent ended up as such a joke and a failure. And he did die, a joke and a failure, by the world's standards. But sometimes the world's standards do not matter. All I know is that, from a very young age, the films of Orson Welles touched my soul unlike anything else in this vivid, confusing, contrary world. Perhaps I am afraid that, like the man who spoke to me most clearly in my life, I too will die a joke and a failure. It is not a comforting prospect. But when all is said and done, f*ck it, I would rather raise my glass to that man than to anyone else, then, now, and hereafter..."

Thank you Todd, for giving me words from Welles that justify my own sometimes contradictory feelings about the artist that I revere more than any other.

Tony wrote:

" Harvey and Mido, how many masterpieces have you created?"

My answer, Tony, is the same number as you, Todd, Glenn, and most if not all the members of this board - none, zip, zero, nada. So what. Big deal. If you think that a question like that is going to upset me, think again. What does upset me is that one of the most contrary and contentious members of this board, whose side I have taken in many a Wellesnet knife fight, should feel the need to put on his commissar granny glasses and attempt to quash dialogue with an ad hominem attack. It's revolting and unbecoming of you. If you want to respond to my reasoned argument with a reasoned argument, please do so. Otherwise, can it. Your unfocused anger, your "slow burn" contributes exactly nothing.

I'll tell you what I am. I am a 43 year old small business owner, one of the petty bourgeoise that Welles looked down his nose at. I keep ten people gainfully employed in a difficult economic environment that sees my compatriots going out of business left and right. It's a small accomplishment, in the greater scheme of things, but one that I am proud of. I am the type of person, on a smaller scale, that Welles should have spent his time charming. In my case it would have been easy. Like many of my ilk, I have a romantic streak a mile wide that I keep a heavy lid on. Also, like many of my ilk, I admire those like Welles who allow their romanticism to run full throttle. I don't have a creative bone in my body, but have been blessed with a sensibility that knows talent when it sees it. I worship talent and creativity, and do everything I can to nourish it; all I ask is that the talent recognize the importance and validity of my own particular skills. Because neither of us can function without the other. Apollo needs Dionysus. Chaos must be harnessed by order. Yin must be balanced by Yang.

Welles was a Dionysian artist. He was a great acolyte of that great god, perhaps the greatest. He worshipped this god in his life and in his art, producing extraordinary results. But his one-sided worship had its deleterious consequences. Apollo won't be denied. In ancient Athens, the shrines of Dionysus and Apollo stood next to each other - that incredible civilization knew the importance of keeping both gods placated. Welles did not. And he, like another great Dionysian, Nietzsche, eventually paid a price for it. For Nietzsche, it was madness, and a complete cessation of creative activity at a relatively early age; for Welles, no madness, but a series of artistic and personal setbacks that left him creatively bereft for the last 15 years of his life.

Don't misunderstand me, I am not blaming Welles for this. He made his choices, and those particular choices led to the works of art that we do have, magnetic, majestic, and irrefutable. Moreover, Welles was no sniveller, no crybaby; he made his choices knowing, I think, full well what the consequences would be. He was tough, brave, a warrior. He had BALLS. Most days I think, if I had met him, I would have fallen down in front of him in supplication. On other days, I think I would have slapped him. Because he was an ass. His judgement was terrible. He put faith in people who did not have his best interests at heart, and sh*t on those who could have made his life easier. I think he went completely off the rails in the late 60's when he hooked up with Oja Kodar, hanging out with people with none of his talent and all of his indiscipline, who encouraged his worst instincts. Welles the Dionysian warrior gave us 11 incredible works before 1970; after 1970, he gave us one. He had at least a decade to produce a viable work print of Don Quixote and The Other Side of the Wind, even without access to the negatives, and did not. By the time he woke up, some time in the 80's, and decided that he needed to change course, it was too late.

David Thomson and Charles Higham produced crappy biographies of Welles because, for whatever reason, they started out loving the man and ended up producing portraits of a monster. They were wrong. Welles was anything but a monster; he was difficult, yes, and larger than life; but he was a man who maintained a remarkable coterie of loyal and lifelong friends. He seems not to have had a vindictive bone in his body. I wish I had known him. But Thomson and Higham got one thing right, however dimly - Welles was a tragic character, like Othello, like Macbeth, like Lear; great men, capable of superlative achievement, who yet contained the seeds of their own destruction. Tragedy is the Dionysian art form par excellance, and Welles knew it intimately. The definitive Welles biography has yet to be written; the surface has barely been scratched. So instead of quashing debate on this site, how about we encourage it, in the hope of reaching new insight. Here's one for you, Todd. Gore Vidal knew Tennessee Williams intimately, as a friend, as an artist, and as a fellow sexual revolutionary. Vidal was brutally critical of Williams, in interviews and in print, over what he saw as Williams failings as an artist and as a man. But I don't think anyone has ever written as sympathetically, and as touchingly, of the artist and of the man, as the notoriously cold and cynical Vidal has written of Williams. There is room for both, because both attitudes arise from the same source.

[Tony]

I don't know- I think I've contributed a lot; look how much typing I've generated from you guys just from my few sentences!

Not that I have the time or inclination to go through, for the thousandth time, any actual rebuttal in detail; it's all been said before, and usually much better, but it's just that I felt compelled to stick up for old Orson as he was suffering yet another attempt at moralistic character assassination from fellows who wouldn't have been allowed to carry his cigar box while he were alive. Interesting also to see Mido and Harvey both in bed with David Thompson and Charles Higham. Good God: has it come to this?

Anyway, I think I have the right to make my point, too.

So: please continue with your fascinating and original diatribes against Mr. Welles. Somebody somewhere awaits future installments with 'bated breath'!

But, with apologies, not me: I'll go on studying and thinking about Mr. Welles's work, and not his weight, or what projects he took on to pay for his own films, etc. etc.

[Michael]

Well, what the heck, I will chime in here too. I do not believe that Welles squandered his talent, nor was he a failure, nor did he waste his remaining years. What has always fascinated me about him was that Welles did what he wanted and loved to do (to put it simply). From an early age he was able to make decisions as to what he wished to do, what he was passionate about, and went about and did it. And fortunately for him, he was blessed with so much talent and encouragement (so important for young artists) that it came easy for him. Equally a blessing was that he achieved such recognition at an early age. What a gift for any passionate, artistic person to be able to do what you love, love what you do, and get recognized and well paid well for it! And yet, he was obviously willing to walk away from something (i.e. Ambersons, Touch, etc.), when something more interesting came his way. Call that a character flaw, sure. Call it fear of completion? I don't know if I could go along with that. But what I would say is that he loved the act of creating more than the actual creation itself. So that once that process was finished in his mind, or was becoming arduous, or there was something else that was of high interest to him, he left. Again, call it a character flaw. But, I do respect anyone that follows their passion, even though at times, it left others in the lurch (which I do not endorse).

I can certainly understand how his personality could never have lent itself to making something "for the masses" or for working for a studio. Not because he wasn't capable, simply because he didn't want to. And yes, now we get the lovely contradiction of his life - all the bad movies, commercials, etc. he did do so he could maintain the lifestyle he wanted (the maverick film/theatre maker). However, most of those commitments for those bad films/commercials/whatever were only for a couple of weeks (or even days) at most. Perhaps that was more palatable than taking 6 months plus of his life to make a "commercial" movie. It's just a life choice in the end. And I really respect the fact that Orson made his life choices based on what fed his passions.

I am a theatre artist and have been a director/producer/actor for the last 15 years. The reason I started my theatre company was to do the things that I wanted to do. Period. Yes, there was the hope of financial success and accolades, but the real driving force is that I simply love the work and I want to choose where my creative energies will go. And yes, there have been old friends who can't believe that I haven't pushed to make it as actor, or farm myself out to other theatres to direct, or to do this or that. Sure, it was fun early on (prior to my company) to act in other peoples plays. But I became bored of it and moved on. I've directed for other companies too, but didn't get to choose the material and always had a producer hovering over me. So, I became bored and moved on.

My theatre company has morphed over the last fifteen years from an artsy alternative theatre, to eclectic, to doing classics, and now what I’m primarily doing children’s theatre. And again, there are old friends that want the Michael that use to do plays by Joyce Carol Oates and Paula Vogel, or my own adaptations, or Shakespeare. But frankly, right now, that just doesn't interest me as much - though I may return to that type of theatre some day. Anyhow, coming back to Orson, I believe he was simply following his nature of what interested him in the moment.

That's my two cents. I agree, everyone has a right to express their opinions. The only thing I would add to that is that I personally find it hurtful when any great artist is judged harshly for the way they chose to live their life. It certainly saddens me that Orson didn't give us more films, more theatre, more television, and that in his later life he was starting to question some of his life choices. But, I am grateful for what he did give us and that he led the life he chose for himself. I would never call him, or any other person a failure.

All right, one last thing. Perhaps I am odd, but I do find Citizen Kane, Touch Of Evil, Chimes, and most of his other films entertaining. Not in the same way that I enjoy Legend of Hell House (love the movie too), but I still get immense enjoyment watching Welles films. Though yes, I might watch something like Hell House more often. And I’ll put in a plug now for Diary of the Dead, George Romero’s latest zombie picture. I really loved it! And yes, I can have Orson’s pictures and a zombie movie in the same paragraph!

Thanks to everyone for making this such an interesting message board!

[Alan Brody]

I can certainly understand how his personality could never have lent itself to making something "for the masses" or for working for a studio. Not because he wasn't capable, simply because he didn't want to. And yes, now we get the lovely contradiction of his life - all the bad movies, commercials, etc. he did do so he could maintain the lifestyle he wanted (the maverick film/theatre maker). However, most of those commitments for those bad films/commercials/whatever were only for a couple of weeks (or even days) at most. Perhaps that was more palatable than taking 6 months plus of his life to make a "commercial" movie.

"I would rather do an honest commercial then a dishonest movie"
"I would love to have a mass audience. You're looking at a man who's been looking for a mass audience all his life, and if I had one I'd be obliged"
Orson Welles
Of course, he wanted that mass audience on his own terms.

[tonyw]

Yes, and those "own terms" involved showing the masses the great things that existed in art, literature, theater (and later film) that were part of the cultural New Deal heritage ruthlessly destroyed by Congress in 1939. Welles would not direct a "schlocko" movie for the mass audience since he did not have contempt for them but wanted to broaden their horizons according to the spirit of the New Deal. I'd recommend ARENA (1940) by Hallie Flanagan who directed the WPA theater productions that also toured America as well as the first volume of John Houseman's autobiography RUN-THROUGH. Both capture the idealism and spirit of the time that was ruthlessly destroyed in 1939 and would face further attack by HUAC after 1947.

Like today, the media does not want people to think or want works that challenge them. To his credit Welles attempt to do so but he sadly paid the price.

[mido505]

My God, Tony! For someone who does not "have the time or inclination to go through, for the thousandth time, any actual rebuttal in detail", you've edited that little bloody post seven bloody times! I, on the other hand, have all the time in the world, so last night, while tucking into my new Hammer Icons of Adventure DVD box set (The Stranglers of Bombay is terrific, BTW!), I decided to go back and read a bunch of your posts. What terrific stuff (and I am not being ironic here, far from it)! Great insight; great writing; a highly individual and at times contrary point of view; and an admirable attempt to keep things level when argument gets heated and tempers flair. That is why I am so disappointed and befuddled by your last two posts. I am particularly befuddled when I read things like this:

“Welles could revise, but he couldn't originate a good script (see BBR!); this architectural foundation problem seems to be a key factor contributing to Welles' inability to release a feature for the last 20 years of his life, along with the fact that he had a horrible reputation as a profligate spender and as someone whose pictures always lost money. Ask yourself this question: if you were an exec in the 70s or 80s, and you knew Welles' track record, and if you were to produce a film with him which lost money you would lose your job, would you seriously consider giving him 10 million dollars for a picture? I know I wouldn't.

Shanghai: a Welles script which is completely confused and disorganized, as was the picture.

Arkadin: A disaster from beginning to end, all based on a terrible story and script by Welles, with many lines worthy of an Ed Wood picture.

Big Brass Ring: An original by Welles: read it and weep with embarrassment; it's amazing he got anybody interested in this. Lines so bad, you can't imagine any actor wanting to say them.” (Jan 12, 2003)

“…the old question remains: why didn't he make more movies? My guess is that it was a combination of many factors, some external and some integral to his personality; it certainly is one of the great mysteries of cinema;” (Jan 12, 2003)

“Just listened again to the Mercury's "Magnificent Ambersons" radio show; Welles is HORRIBLE as Georgie” (Jan 21, 2003)

“By the way, Collins is wonderful in both the Ambersons and Seventeen radio plays. Actually, Welles is the worst actor in both!” (Jan 22, 2003)

“…speculating on Welles' problem in finding an audience is a hugely entetaining (for me) and endless parlour game; what was/is it that a) made producers shy away (ok- we know: one-man-band, bad reputation, money-loser, budget over-runs, etc.) and b) made audiences shy away? I just thought of that word: "aristocratic"- Welles was an aristocratic director (albeit a liberal, modern one) in an age of ...again I can't remember- anti-aristocracy? I think it was "populist": a populist age which caters to the lowest common denominator, or something like that. I actually don't believe that Welles understood his own problem- he believed he was a populist, and perhaps he was, but in a period of very low culture.” (Jan 29, 2003)

“…try showing (most of) your friends Arkadin, The Trial, or even Kane... and the response is pretty bad. I once showed my step-mother Arkadin; she's from Austria, a well-read, intelligent, sophisticated woman who knows poetry, music, film, etc.; a real intellectual, and she said it was the worst, most ridiculous movie she had ever seen... she was actually angry! So…” (Jan 29, 2003)

“…in 1970 the Deep just stopped; no further filming was done after 69, and it was probably due to funding. The hoary old story that Harvey's death prevented the finishing of the picture is laughable, as Harvey didn't die until 1973, four years after the cessation of filming. In fact, this legend is almost as ridiculous as the one Welles used to explain The Other side of the Wind not being finished: the fall of the Shah of Iran, whose brother-in-law was financing the picture, meant the negative fell into the hands of the Ayatollah. Which is ridiculous, of course, as Orson began the film in 1970, and was still filming in 1976; around this time he did indeed lose control of the negative to Apostrophe, however they offered him a deal whereby he could come to Paris ( I think it was) and finish editing the film. For some reason, he refused. And of course it's ridiculous to complain about your backers taking away the negative after 6 years of waiting for you to complete it, but that's our boy Orson!” (May 15, 2005)

“I hate to say it, but TOSOTW reads as well as Mr. Arkadin or Big Brass Ring: i.e. very badly: stilted, arch, pretentious, cliched dialogue; I'm actually glad he didn't finish it. Welles really never recovered from the loss of John Houseman…” (June 22, 2005)

“…in this case we've seen some of "Wind" and I think it's just awful: cringe inducing. Perhaps the ugly truth is that Welles DID lose it in the 70's, and that the money wasn't there for a good reason. Would YOU finance a muti-million dollar project based on the script and shot scenes of TOSOTW, or the shot scenes of The Dreamers, or the script for Big Brass Ring? As much as I love Orson Welles, as a studio exec or film producer, I probably wouldn't…And maybe they were all doing Orson a favour.” (June 22, 2005)

“A friend and I (both who are devout liberals) once did a thought experiment: who would we rather have for a neighbour: Ronald Reagan (whose policies and values we hated) or Orson Welles (whose films and values we loved)…We both chose Reagan: There's no doubt he would always be pleasant and help you in a time of need. Neither of those could you rely on Welles for. “ (April 25, 2006)

“All in all, a devastatingly ugly portrait of a man who, while a genius film maker, was an absolute amateur human being.” (Oct 22, 2006)

“…the man was full of extreme flaws, and definitely his own worst enemy, both personally and professionally.” (Oct 22, 2006)

“Welles wasn't just his own worst enemy, he was the single most irresponsible director in the history of Hollywood.” (July 26, 2007)

I mean, jeepers Tony, you've got to admit that's some pretty rough stuff. So tell me, does that make you unworthy of carrying Orson's cigar box? Or are you, like me, an impassioned Wellesian with perfectly legitimate criticisms of Welles the man and the artist? You once wrote, after one of my posts, that "you've just written about the finest thing I've ever read on Welles". That was a genuinely kind comment, one that I greatly appreciated. Am I really all that different now? Are you? Come on now...

[Tony]

I guess I've become a minimalist! Thanks, by the way, for posting all those old posts; I was pretty good! But, still, I see no inherent contradiction in anything I wrote then and have written now. I've always been talking about the work, and when one, for example, launches a moral charge against Welles for acting in other movies, or for being "corpulent", I find it over the line. In fact, Mido, [or was it Harvey?] I find both of your original posts over the line, and a downright angry tone in them, like you're personally pissed off at Welles for dissappointing you somehow, when what he really did is give us as many great films as he humanly could. When you (and Harvey- now I've conflated you two) go after Welles with that moral condemnation tone, that's when I get rankled. And if you've been reading my posts for the last several years, when I get into "contrary" trouble it's usually when I go against this inceasingly negative moral tone against Welles, which I believe has absolutely no place in the thinking about his, or indeed anyone's, work. I don't care if he was a serial killer, it makes no difference to me viewing his work. So when both you and Harvey enter into this territory and then start quoting Higham and Thompson, I say Jesus: these men are enemies of Welles (I mean Higham and Thompson).

I can say I was also shocked to see both of you do this, as compared to my recollection of the tone of your previous postings. My feeling was "If long-time members are getting into the moral blame game, then all is lost for this site."

But thanks again for quoting me: I'm actually quite impressed; you sure those are all me?

PS: Yes, I am unworthy to carry his cigar box, and would also be too scared to do so. I might polish his shoes, if he wasn't wearing them.

[Glenn Anders]

Michael, Alan, tonyw, I could not agree with your sentiments more!

Orson Welles came from an America, a tiny era of that America, vestiges of which are evident all around us but which are being consciously erased by the political and cultural forces of the last 30 years or so. Americans, at the time when the last Great Depression struck, suddenly found themselves abandoned by the "boosters," "rugged individualists," and the "Babbits" who had been trumpeting in the first quarter of the 20th Century aggressive commercial virtues of a long faded Gilded Age. Very much as today, these smug swindlers echoed the response to people's plight attributed to Calvin Coolidge [apochrypal]: "They hired the money, didn't they?"

In 1932, the dawn of the New Deal, one third of the wage earners in America were out of work. But the "rock-ribbed" conservatives, then as now, saw other people's misfortunes as their own best business opportunities. After all, people who failed were mostly rabble, illegal immigrants, foreign spawn, ignorant ______, Un-Americans, were they not?

"Let them eat from the Dust Bowl."

As tonyw suggests, the New Deal transformed large numbers of these indeed despairing creatures into once more hopeful Americans, as much by the Government's attitude toward being an American, in whatever walk of life, than by what the Federal programs were actually able to offer materially.

Orson Welles was part of that transformation of being American.

Stefan Droessler of the Munich Film Museum has tucked away somewhere a couple of "home movies" Welles shot on a visit to the retirement lodge of Mentor Roger "Skipper" Hill and his wife Hortense in the Southwest during the late 1970's, possibly early 1980's. The three seniors sit around on a sun-porch, as old folk will, drinking coffee, taking in the view, remenicing, arguing, expressing satisfactions, and a few almost unspoken regrets. Hortense Hill fills the cups occasionally or brings out more cake (or is it a pie?), and one gathers the immense affection they feel for each other. There is a sense of "summing up," that this sojourn is a rare, possibly not to be repeated occasion, a farewell, perhaps.

Orson Welles and the Hills talk about the early days. I don't remember the specifics, but Skipper Hill encouraged young Welles, a demoralized orphan, to read deeply in the literature of the imagination; to stage those drama festivals, wear makeup and the funny clothes; to edit what became the Everyman's Shakespeare; to express his internal psychic biography through the medium of experimental film; to show an idealism and goodness of heart within him which would evidently always be at war with a little boy whose world had been suddenly taken away.

Welles could empathize with people thrown out of work, driven off their land, losing their homes, having their families torn apart, and the New Deal, in the form of Hallie Flanagan's WPA Theater, offered him a medium to deliver all the potential he had discovered at the Todd School to every American he could reach. Welles took that opportunity, and then every new medium he found during the 1930's, until his use of media had made him a household name.

As you suggest, tonyw, "the idealism and spirit of the time that was ruthlessly destroyed [by reactionary forces] in 1939," and any possible re-awakening of that idealism and spirit, was obliterated by the "war on communism" of the McCarthyites in the late 1940's. And today, have you ever observed, on other boards such as the IMDb, TCM, Warner Brothers, etc, how many serious discussions of Welles and his works become gradually smothered by YouTube links to frozen pea and wine commercials? The soul-destroyed cynics, neocons, corporatists, and plain ignorant louts -- for whatever their inner compulsions -- can never allow themselves a clue that a very, very large number of Americans once did combat fascism, did want to help their neighbors, were entranced by Orson Welles, and welcomed cultural or social programs such as those offered by the New Deal which allowed them to do so.

Orson Welles, like a Dennis Kucinich or Keith Olbermann of today, was one of those who tried . . . "TO PREACH THE TRUTH IN THE FACE OF FALSEHOOD."

And who might well have said of himself at the end of his life the words he spoke in the guise of Father Mapple in Huston's MOBY DICK:

"Now Shipmates, woe to him who seeks to pour oil on the troubled waters when God has brewed them into a gale. Yea, woe to him who, as the Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway. But delight is to him who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth stands forth his own inexorable self, who destroys all sin, though he pluck it out from the robes of senators and judges! And Eternal Delight shall be his, who coming to lay him down can say:

"- Oh Father, mortal or immortal, here I die.
I have driven to be thine,
more than to be this world's or mine own,
yet this is nothing
I leave eternity to Thee."

I don't think Welles ever quite managed the last bit (but that would have required sainthood). But he did his best.

My mind always returns to what Geraldine Fitzgerald said of him: "Orson was like a busted water main." He just couldn't help himself!

Oh, Shipmates, let us preach truth to falsehood, and realize how difficult it is to pour oil on the troubled waters.

Glenn