| Orson Welles - The Famous Actor-Producer-Director's Journal |
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Orson Welles - The Famous Actor-Producer-Director
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| OTR - The Third Man |
[12 Mar 2007|04:06am] |
 | Hey Orson fans! I've been posting Orson's OTR series, "The Lives of Harry Lime," aka: "The Third Man" in ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) share_otr, and for those of you who aren't in the community, here's the first twenty episodes I've posted (I'll eventually be posting the entire 52 episode series in share_otr, if you're interested. |
( Episodes 1-20 )
Don't be scared away by the whole "episode" thing -- these files are actually really small (only around 6mb each).
Enjoy!!
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| "And then your biographers come along and start theorising about your 'fear of completion.'” |
[05 Mar 2007|09:57pm] |
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Quick drive-by post: Looks like nobody has linked to this here yet, so I just wanted to draw the comm's attention to this fascinating article in the latest Bright Lights Film Journal about the strange saga of The Other Side of the Wind. . .
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| Cross-posted a couple places. |
[24 Feb 2007|03:44am] |
Hey Orson fans! I uploaded this radio show for my new share_otr community that is devoted to sharing OTR (shameless plug, I know), and I thought I'd share it with you all as well, since it'd probably interest you.
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Series: Suspense
Air Date: Sept. 2, 1942
Title: The Hitchiker
Length: 28:27
Starring: Orson Welles
File Info 6mb; mp3
Link: http://www.sendspace.com/file/mj1ba5
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| Description: If you remember "The Hitchiker" episode of the Twilight Zone, then this is the radio play that inspired it. Originally aired in 1941 on Mercury Theatre on Air, Orson Welles stars in the thriller that was redone for Suspense the following year. This is that episode, although I also have the original broadcast. The twist at the end is fabulous. You won't regret giving it a listen. |
If you'd like to support the swapping of OTR on LJ, please feel free to join share_otr. It's lacking members right now, but I hope to change that very soon...with your help! I also have tons of Welles stuff that I plan on uploading, including the Third Man series and stuff from Mercury Theatre and other stuff he did on radio.
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| Would you feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving? |
[16 Nov 2006|02:55pm] |
Has anybody here listened to the audio version of Peter Bogdanovich's This Is Orson Welles?
To clarify: Bogdanovich published a book of interviews with Welles with that title in the early '90s -- but he also created and released a series of audio tapes with many of the actual recordings of the interviews.
Anyway, if you can get a hold of it, I recommend it. Quite the document. The recordings aren't great, but you can hear him and Orson clearly enough. It's like the book, but you're actually hearing it, with all the background noises and the spontaneous laughter and joking among the discussion as well. Orson was quite the raconteur and wit.
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| Just tell 'em you're taking a little tarrrr-get practice! |
[26 Sep 2006|01:28pm] |
Just watched The Lady from Shanghai again.
I saw it years ago and remember being disappointed, to the point that I could barely remember any of it later. But after reading Peter Bogdanovich's interview with Welles about the film and how the studio mangled it, I wanted to see it again.
Wow. I couldn't agree with Welles more. The conventional, telegraphic musical score almost destroys it -- especially the hall-of-mirrors sequence. And the opening reel in Central Park (which Welles had wanted heavily cut) was embarrassing; poorly dubbed and edited. I sense the film as a whole was supposed to have a mysterious, bizarre atmosphere, but they tried to make it look more like a standard-issue noir. I would've loved to see that funhouse sequence (I guess that was destroyed or lost?)
That being said, although I'm sure Lady from Shanghai was a far better film in Welles' original edit, I'm not entirely convinced it would have been as great as Kane or as our imagined concept of the original Ambersons. I found Welles' performance stiff and unconvincing, especially the brogue. Somehow I just don't see him as a naive follower; his big, unmistakable presence defeats that. But I thought Everett Sloane was marvellous -- playing a character the exact opposite of Bernstein!
I guess we'll never truly know, though...
What are your thoughts on Lady?
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[31 Aug 2006|09:07pm] |
Hey there everyone.
I know I've been a horrible mod, but livejournal no longer can hold my interest, so I've taken it down to one journal and left this site.
However, I was just given this as a gift and I figured everyone else should be aware of it.
Finally, we get Simon Callow's second half of the Orson Welles biography:
Hello Americans
Enjoy fellow Wellesian lovers
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| In those days, they had time for everything. |
[25 Aug 2006|05:03pm] |
Just wondering if anybody else here has seen the 2002 TV "remake" of The Magnificent Ambersons, which is billed as being based on Welles' original shooting script.
I watched it the other day. What an incredible disappointment and a true example of false advertising. Talk about missing the whole freakin' point. Not only has it been made into a mediocre, sentimentalized TV soap opera, but in its own way, it's as much of a butchery of Welles' concept than RKO's infamous re-editing. I'll take the 1942 version over this cheese any day, because at least it's got some of Welles' vision left.
I couldn't help thinking of Gus Van Sant's shot-by-shot remake of Psycho a few years back. Van Sant's film may have turned out to be utterly pointless and empty, but... what if somebody did something like that with Ambersons?
Get a first-rate director who loves and has an understanding of Welles' style (Scorsese? Bogdanovich? Just throwing 'em out there...) to take the original shooting script, re-shoot Welles' scenes with a good cast, and also do the deleted scenes in a way he/she thinks Welles may have done it. Not because it would make it a better movie, of course, nor to replace Welles' film -- but to give us a vague sense of what RKO took away from us.
I'm not saying that would work out, or do justice to the original -- it's just that I'd rather see that than a bad TV miniseries that claims to be based on Welles' script when it's anything but. The 2002 version changed some of the chronology, omitted the narration as well as some other memorable bits of dialogue, and doesn't even try to emulate the amazing tones of nostalgia and dark tragedy that pervade the original. It wouldn't have mattered so much to me if they'd just made it as an adaptation of the novel, as their own individual interpretation, without latching onto Welles' name, but Welles would be spinning in his grave to have his name attached to this...
I'll leave you with the letter RKO sent to Welles concerning Ambersons.
Reading this letter really, really makes me want to punch any random movie-industry executive in the head.
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| This door was intended only for you. And now, I'm going to close it. |
[16 Aug 2006|01:43pm] |
What are your thoughts on The Trial? Orson Welles' 1962 adaptation of Kafka's novel, that is.
(Those of you who've seen it, anyway...)
I just bought the restored version on DVD (before that, I just had a cheap VHS tape with a scratchy, crappy print).
It's not my favourite Welles film, but I've always had an affection for it. Welles insisted that it was one of his best works, and it's one of the few that was actually released in the form he intended. And really, was anybody ever a better choice to play Joseph K than Anthony Perkins? I think not.
I've never cared for the weird ending, which has absolutely nothing to do with Kafka's intentions, but other than that it's such a visual feast of bizarre, surreal images and vignettes that I can't take my eyes off it (as with a lot of Welles movies).
Now, if only somebody could restore Chimes at Midnight and sell me the DVD... that would make me very happy.
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| Question/Dicussion |
[06 Aug 2006|03:26pm] |
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A few months ago I picked up a Welles biography titled, what else, Orson Welles. It's written by Ben Walters and it's just a paperback with about 150 papers. For the first 30 pages or so, the author hints and almost bluntly talks about Welles' sexuality and his relationship with teachers at his school and other men in his life. Overall it gives off the impression that Welles could have been bisexual. I have looked all over the interent for more infortmation on the subject, and I couldn't find anything.
Has everyone else heard about Welles' possibly bisexuality? If so, where? And do you think it could be true?
The book just really surprised me and I would like to hear other's opinions.
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| "A toast, Jebediah, to love on my terms." |
[07 Apr 2006|02:51pm] |
Here's an entry I posted in the film_classics community a couple of years ago, regarding Citizen Kane:
http://community.livejournal.com/film_classics/6129.html
This post (and, in fact, the community itself) was inspired by a debacle from the classic_film community that began when some high school kid posted "Citizen Kane sucks!!!"
I continued the conversation here because it annoyed me a little that even some of the people who had been defending or explaining Kane didn't really seem to get it -- they were dismissing it as a cold "technical exercise" without any real emotional substance, and that compelled me to respond as I find Welles' films in general to be very emotionally affecting as well as technically/structurally impressive.
Anyway, I just came upon the post again and thought you might find it (and the accompanying discussion) interesting...
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| The magnificence of the Orson began in 1934. |
[27 Mar 2006|12:33pm] |
Contrary to popular belief... Welles' first movie wasn't Citizen Kane.
It was this:
Hearts of Age
A brief, bizarre short film he made with Virginia Nicholson when he was 18 or so. Here, it's presented with commentary by critic Jeffrey Lyons.
I first saw this about six years ago at Cinematheque in Toronto, where they were having a Welles retrospective. At the end of this, the host of the retrospective quipped, "Yes, and his next film was Citizen Kane."
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| Riffraff. ^_~ |
[04 Feb 2006|02:20pm] |
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I know promotions are annoying, and also seem to herald to downfall of a community. . . But this fandom is small as it is, and I'm going to have to rely on all of you to actually create some kind of working fanbase here on LJ.
The community is based on the Booth Tarkington novel The Magnificent Ambersons, and all of its subsequent film adaptions. If you're a fan of any format, I urge you to come join and contribute. Literary discussion, icons, gushings, fanworks. . . all are welcome.
theambersons
It'd be nice to have some company.
Cross-posted, sorry if you have to see this twice.
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| A Story I found On Corbis.com |
[16 Dec 2005|10:13am] |
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"The world's top party giver Miss Elsa Maxwell held a "love or hate" fancy dress ball at Paris...The guests...had to go dressed as "the person or thing you love or hate the most." ... Orson Welles [came] dressed as himself."
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[02 Dec 2005|11:24am] |
Here's a question:
For those of you who have read Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu by Simon Callow, I've found references in review of his book to a two piece work of Orson Welles by him. I only know of TRtX, does anyone know if he wrote another that I just can't seem to find?
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[10 Oct 2005|09:29am] |
Today, twenty years ago, Orson Welles died
-_-
I guess genius can't live forever
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[04 Oct 2005|10:34pm] |
Ah! Don't let this community die on me!
What is your favourite film which Welles directed? Played a role in?
Why?
If he had done a commentary on this film, what do you think he would have said?
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| The Third Man Animation |
[25 Sep 2005|11:11am] |
I managed to record this from The Third Man
Do what it what you will; I'll probably create more later today, but if anyone has a specific scene they want, do tell me and I'll try to get it.
^_^
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