Evil David Thomson Given Middling Marks in the NY Times:

[ToddBaesen]

As Keats points out so well, you simply cannot seem to accept the fact that Mr. Thomson has mis-stated the facts in at least two points I noted in his most recent article.

I'm not trying to make you accept my view of Thomson, but for Christ sake, can't you accept the fact that he's obviously wrong on these points!

The case is open and shut: Either THE STRANGER made money or it didn't. I have never read anything connected with the film that said it lost money, as every other Welles film did. So what are you trying to say? Studio financial practices at the time made it look like THE STRANGER made money when it really didn't?

If that is the case it would be the one and only time in Hollywood history when that has EVER happened!

Unfortunately, your hero is simply wrong. Plain and simple. THE STRANGER made a profit. That is a fact that you apparently don't believe.

But, it appears you also believe GUNGA DIN was directed by William Wellman, rather than George Stevens.

But let's face it, all writers about Welles have made mistakes. Jonathan Rosenbaum has been wrong about Welles on many points, and he has openly admitted many of the errors he has made.

But you act like Thomson has never written anything that wasn't totally correct about Welles!

Now, we both know Nicole Kidman did not approve of Thomson's book on her. We were also both there when Thomson offered his pathetic response to that issue!

In any case, there is absolutely no doubt that that Mr. Thomson in his recent article on Welles made at least two mis-statements of fact.

You can believe whatever you want, and explain his mis-statements away with studio accounting procedures, but I don't think you'll find any member of this board who will back you up.

Keats, and most people here at Wellesnet realize Thomson for what he is: someone who distorts and misrepresents the facts about Orson Welles to suit his own fanciful purposes.

So let us simply agree to disagree about Mr. Thomson and his writings on Welles.

[Glenn Anders]

Thank you for the correction, Toddy. I was able to make the change on both my complete reply on the previous page, and upon this aborted repetition.

I don't care to continue this insane go-around either. I'm very weary, for reasons that you should be well aware of.

Each of us, as you say, apparently has a different view, and I'll freely admit mistakes when I make them.

I wish that there was some reciprocity, some fairness, a little relief from your absolutist beliefs, where Thomson is concerned.

You simply keep repeating and repeating the same iterations with no facts, no objective sources. Only your word from on high!

Would you not, since you do not present precise proof for your allegations, entertain that he might be, maybe, partly correct; at least the possibility that the man might make a dumb mistake, as you and I have, occasionally? Do all of his mistakes have to be TOTAL LIES? To maintain that judgment really does condemn Thomson to being "Evil David Thomson," the "odious Thomson," as keats describes him.

I don't think that's fair.

[Glenn Anders]

And the above comment is not fair either.

Be careful, keats. Someone who does not know better might reluctantly conclude that you and Toddy are "DOUBLE POSTERS"!

doot-doot-doot . . . Moderator French, call Scholarly Surgery . . . .

Glenn

[nextren]

"[THE STRANGER] was the only instantly successful movie Welles ever made 'within the system,' grossing over three million dollars, on a million-dollar budget." -- Clinton Heylin, _Despite the System: Orson Welles Versus the Hollywood Studios_, p. 196.

[mido505]

Hey Glenn, thanks for the shout out on the "Best Books" thread; as Wellesnet's lone reactionary McCarthyite, and your steadfast sparring partner, I appreciate being included as the loyal opposition. In this instance I am swooping in, weapon in hand, like the short but always heroic Douglas Fairbanks, to defend both you and the esteemed David Thomson from the brutal attacks by cranky Toddy and monomaniacal Keats. I have as low an opinion of Thomson as a Welles biographer as anyone on this site, but to jump from that opinion of a work to describing Thomson the man as "evil" and "odious" is, well, evil and odious. Thomson may have his quirks and failures, as do we all (and as did Welles), but he is an excellent, idiosyncratic, insightful critic, whose Biographical Dictionary of Film is a must own for any film buff. Here's a bet for you, Keats: after those twenty Welles scholars have finished trashing Thomson's Welles biography, ask them to make a list of the top ten must-have tomes for the serious film lover; if The Biographical Dictionary of Film doesn't make the cut, I'll send $500.00 each to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

Thomson has always been forceful, opinionated, and controversial; his entry in the dictionary on John Ford, a director I admire, is one of the most brutal things I have ever read; however, once you get past the brutality it does make sense and it does shed some light on Ford. Thomson's terrible Welles book, on the other hand, is, I think, a complete failure; it starts off well, but quickly and ferociously goes off the rails to the point, as I mentioned in another thread, that after reading it I could just about believe that Welles had killed the Black Dahlia. Thomson, an unequivocal admirer of Welles the artist, developed, in the course of writing his biography, such an unstinting dislike for the man that it infected the entire work, leaving it diseased and useless.

Burgess Meredith once said of Charles Laughton, “when Charles was sitting in a chair doing nothing, he was doing too much”. The same could have been said for Welles. He was too much, he was a giant, and for some who grapple with the giant and find the task too wearying, he becomes a monster. Welles became a monster for Charles Higham, too, ruining his often interesting work, and one can see the process in reverse in the first two volumes of Callow’s magnum opus; Callow, a genuinely capacious man, started out hating Welles and ended in admiration. With Welles, some people get it, and some people don’t – so what, and who cares? David Thomson is a good critic who wrote a bad Welles biography, and it is he who is diminished by the attempt, not Welles. Has anyone written a good one? Some are better than others, but I don’t think any of them have even scratched the surface of the man.

That being said, I have found many of Thomson’s less ambitious writings on Welles, including the dread Guardian article, to be completely engaging. So Thomson fudged a few facts to make a larger, more romantic point – big deal. Should he have written “Welles never directed a movie that made money in his lifetime, except for TheStranger”? I would hardly say that dragging in The Stranger, the least ambitious, least “Wellsian” film of the director’s career ; a film that Welles had very little use for, and which he only directed to show the suits that he could be a good boy, mitigates Thomson’s larger point. As for Welles dying broke, he was always broke, even when he was not, as the money went out faster than it came in. A million dollar estate is nothing, especially if it is tied up in real estate; I doubt there was much in the bank. Welles’ estate did pass into chaos after his death, and while some have claimed that only 30-45 minutes of Wind were edited, others, like Gary Graver, have claimed that the thing was essentially done. We don’t know, because Bogdanovich is too busy planning the broadway musical adaptation of The Last Picture Show to unlock the vaults and inspect the footage.

Thomson’s Guardian article is an assault on the legend of Welles the failure, not a reification of it. It’s rather sweet, and better than any two pages of his biography. At the end of the article, Thomson writes:

“But remember this: Orson died alone in 1985 and you can read the reports as signs of sadness. On the contrary, I suspect he was exhilarated at the end. Real sadness is being worth $5bn and not knowing what to do with it.”

Anyone who can write something like that about Orson, no matter what his other failings, is on our side.

By the way, Glenn, I’ve noticed a few references to your feeling weary in some earlier posts; I hope you are not unwell. I’ve been feeling rather mentally weary myself these days, so I’ve been listening to a lot of Donovan – that never fails to put a smile on my face.

[Glenn Anders]

Thank you, nextren. If I can't trust Curtis Heylin, the only recognized professional critic who cites an observation of mine, who would I trust?

All I'm looking for are the facts, not the bluster.

And thank you, mido505, for your understanding, and the defense of David Thomson's general value as a writer of value. I would only add what I have always said: Thomson was enthralled as a young lad by the "public" Welles, as was I, and only gradually came to realize that much of the man's fabulism was a cover for his failings as an artist and as a man. In truth, no human being could stand up to the hype that was created by him, and for him by John Houseman and his Mercury Theater press agents. At a very young age, Welles became a prisoner of his own legend. He had to live up to it. [That sad fact has become easier to understand in our Age of Celebrity. At least, Welles was the genuine article.] In time, unlike most of us, Thomson, who was being paid to tell the truth as he saw it, did so. Yes, "for money." And when he did, his every statement became suspect by many here at Wellesnet.

But as you point out, no one could have written fairer, nobler lines in defense of Orson Welles than those with which Thomson ends his Guardian article; the one that latterly got all this started: "“But remember this: Orson died alone in 1985 and you can read the reports as signs of sadness. On the contrary, I suspect he was exhilarated at the end. Real sadness is being worth $5bn and not knowing what to do with it.”

No one else here has acknowledged those lines.

I urge you to read Chris Welles Feder's IN MY FATHER'S SHADOW. While most supportive of her father, she offers copious evidence, often quite knowingly, of the general view Thomson came to form of Orson Welles. Being a loyal daughter, she largely hesitates to make the harshest of judgments which Thomson has leveled on occasion at Welles' treatment of his children and people around them, but it's there for anyone with an ounce of realism in his or her soul.

Are we to believe what his own daughter writes or our own misguided wishes? Orson Welles was a man of huge accomplishments, a great human being in many ways, as you say, mido505, but like all of us, a person with human failings.

Why is that so hard to accept?

Must we all become hagiographers who only praise our hero, and attribute fiendish motivations to naturally made mistakes by his critics?

I'm still on my feet, mido505. I'm a little sad I can't be the "free swinging" Glenn Anders of old. I'm slower of foot, my oldest friends are more ill than I am, and I feel guilty about no longer feeling comfortable in ordering a second round of drinks for Baesen. [Because in recent months, I've been living on other people's money.]

All things must come to an end, mido505, but I'm not quite there yet.

Donovan, eh? Maybe, you should become a Rock Critic!

Glenn

[mido505]

Orson Welles spent his entire life fudging a few facts to make a larger romantic point; he even made a film about it, called F FOR FAKE. Welles fudged a few facts about William Randolph Hearst's life in order to make a larger romantic point. He fudged a few facts during the Martian broadcast. He fudged facts about his own life every time he opened his mouth to an interviewer. Welles once said of James Cagney, "when you watch him, there nothing real about it at all. Nobody who ever lived ever acted like that. But every minute is True." That's what artists do, Keats, they lie in the service of truth, and if you don't believe me, go reread Plato, Nietzche, and Oscar Wilde. Wilde wrote that the truth of art is the truth of masks, and he was right. Thomson's ROSEBUD is not a biography in the traditional sense; it is a failed work of art that attempts to get at a higher Truth about Welles by fudging a few facts written by a man who was not up to the job. That ROSEBUD is a very Wellesian work does not make it any less of a failure, but I appreciate Thomson's attempt; at least he got into the spirit of the thing.

What is very un-Wellsian is walking around the park in white gloves with a plastic bag picking up litter. Sorry to bring that up, but it is just too easy. But your un-Wellsian personal habits do not militate your often insightful writings on the man, no matter how distressingly factual they may be.

And since you are aggressively riding that factual hobby horse, Keats, perhaps you could point me to the moment when Dick Cheney said that war was "romantic". Of course, he has said no such thing; he has said that war is sometimes necessary, which is a different notion entirely. And why drag Cheney into the discussion at all, except to score a few Thomson-bashing points with the lefties? Cheney is a politician; he must deal in reality, in facts, or he becomes dangerous. Some would argue that he was deluded, and catastrophically failed this nation as a leader; others would argue that he saved us from a larger horror. That is neither here nor there. What is relevant is that artists, whose primary role does not involve dealing with mere “facts”, should never have anything to do with politics. Welles tried, and failed, miserably, nearly killing his career in the process. That is the true “failure” of Welles’ life: the couple of years when he thought he was the next FDR. Being hounded out of the country by the IRS and the House UnAmerican Activities Committee was the best thing that ever happened to him. Going to Europe, even under duress, freed Welles in some way, and he did his best work. He should never have come back.

[Glenn Anders]

Yes, keats: Now we're getting somewhere . . . AT LAST!

I would not expect Chris Welles Feder to like Thomson's ROSEBUD because, in his opinion, Welles' inability to escape his legend harmed all his work after CITIZEN KANE. Mrs. Feder came to a real understanding of her father's total oeuvre late, as she tells us, and like most of us she sees more in some of those later works than Thomson does. [I might note that Thomson is quite appreciative of F FOR FAKE, on a number of counts, the film I think was Welles' best after CITIZEN KANE.] But I'm sure that she understands Thomson's motivations for what he writes, since granting the distance between them, they are so very much alike in their assessment of Orson Welles.

And so, keats, let us continue. You are becoming as "normal as blueberry pie"!

Glenn

[mido505]

Just called Barnes and Noble and reserved a copy of IN MY FATHER"S SHADOW, which I will pick up after work. Like Keats, I find Glenn's suggestion of an affinity between Ms. Feder's work and Mr. Thomson's to be startling and interesting, and a reason to rush my purchase. Also, like Keats, I appreciate a well-made book.

I am glad to here you are up and about, Glenn. At least you are not sitting alone in your hall of mirrors, like Mr. Clay, "erect, silent, and alone." And don't feel guilty; as long as you can still order that first round, it's enough to get things started...

[nextren]

Welles never made a nickel and died in the gutter friendless, talentless, and unloved. Hey, I know it's BS, but it's a swell yarn.

With biographers like that, who needs enemies?

Instead of deliberately falsifying a person's life on the basis of one's own emotions (an unjust procedure if ever there was one), why not forensically lay out the facts about that life and then draw conclusions - without lying? I suspect Callow's view of Welles evolved (and continues to evolve) in the direction of improvement because of his research and his honesty. Facts are marvelously interesting things! And - God knows - Welles made enough mistakes without anyone's having to charge him with negatives that are made up.

Thomson clearly doesn't give a hoot about the facts or Welles. For Thomson, it's all about Thomson. I wouldn't mind it if his book were accurately labeled "fiction." But people read it and they believe "it's all true," i.e. that they are holding a biography instead of a funky (and none too benign) farrago of falsehoods.

This man should never be let off the hook for this. Never, ever.