In February of 1941, just three months before Orson Welles first film as a director would be universally acclaimed as a masterpiece, Welles, who was only 26, had the gall, the nerve and the temerity to write a piece that was extremely critical about what he felt was wrong with the Hollywood system. This brilliant […]
Here is Orson Welles beautifully written tribute to one of his own favorite directors: Jean Renoir. It was written for The Los Angeles Times after Jean Renoir died in Feb, 1979. Re-reading this piece is quite interesting, since Welles is ostensibly talking about Jean Renoir’s own career difficulties, but in retrospect, Welles seems to be […]
Here is Orson Welles on Hollywood, that appeared in Esquire Magazine, in March, 1959. Strangely, even though Welles hadn’t been in Hollywood for over ten years, he feels that he needed to point out that fact, even though he had left Los Angeles for Europe in 1948. Twilight in the Smog Solemn suburbia crowds out […]
Shortly after Welles had begun filming The Other Side of the Wind, he published this piece in Look magazine (Nov. 3, 1970), about the rise in prominence of young directors who were now seen as the driving force behind Hollywood’s biggest box-office hits. Films like Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider and Paul Mazursky’s Bob & Carol […]
Shortly after receiving the AFI’s Life Acheivement award in 1975, Orson Welles was asked to contribute a foreword to Marion Davies oral history, The Times We Had. In his foreword, Welles reflects on what people assumed where some of the Hearst like elements in Citizen Kane, and purports that only one scene in Kane “was […]
Orson Welles received the AFI’s lifetime achievement award on February 9, 1975, and without a doubt gave the best acceptance speech that any recepient of that august award has ever delivered. The show was taped for broadcast on CBS and was available on videotape, but since it has long been out of print, here is […]
ORSON WELLES on MR. ARKADIN It is quite remarkable that other than Peter Bogdanovichs indispensable interview book, This Is Orson Welles, there were so few important English language interviews done with Welles during his lifetime. Admittedly, Welles was often not on American soil when a film like Mr. Arkadin came out, but it […]
