Treasure Island

[mido505]

Well, Tony, looks like its time to crack open a bottle of wine, put Terror of the Tongs in the DVD player, and write another post!

Of course those old posts are all yours, just check the handy dates!

I am very aware of your position on the artist and the work - you have stated that position quite clearly and elegantly. I share it to a certain degree. But my distinction is tripartite - the man, the artist, and the work. Like you, when discussing the work, I could care less about the man; it makes no difference to me, either, if the man is a serial killer or a saint. The work speaks for itself. But when I am discussing the artist, or the man-as-artist, the man who created the work, then the man comes very much into play. Because now I am looking at the whole; at the career; at the conditions and processes that led to the creation of the work(s); at the reason for this, or that, or not-this, or not-that. It's another thing entirely. Do you understand what I am saying here?

I am going to speculate, and since it is about you, I want you to tell me what you think. I think that you react so vehemently to the Houseman/Thomson/Higham claque because you essentially agree with the portrait that they collectively paint of the man - that Welles really was a wretched human being. I recently reread Thomson and Higham, because I had forgotten why they are so abhorred, and I put down the books just disgusted with their portrayal of Welles-as-monster. After reading Thomson, in particular, you could just about believe that Orson was the Black Dahlia killer! And Houseman, of course originated that whole demonic boy thing, a vision that was probably more a product of his own fevered imagination than anything corresponding to reality.

You, of course, are enamored of Welles' work, as we all are. And since you dislike the man, you erect this rigid wall between the man and his work so that the work is not somehow "infected" by him. And you despise Thomson and Higham, quite rightly, in my estimation, because they have allowed their contempt for the man to influence their opinion of the work.

I, on the other hand, have a different point of view. I am much more in the Barbara Leaming camp. I do not think Welles was a monster. He had a rare and remarkable gift, a gift perhaps rarer than his talent, the gift of friendship. Welles maintained a large, stable, and loyal coterie of friends for the duration of his life. There must have been a reason for that, beyond their respect for his talent. I am sure he was difficult, as most great men are, but I'll bet he was a hell of a lot of fun to be around. I really do wish I had known him, which leads me to my next point.

You are correct, my post was angry. I came to Harvey's defense for a variety of reasons, but one very important reason was that Harvey's post made me remember that I sometimes do get angry with Welles, and I wanted to explore that, and see if others felt the same way. I am going to write a little bit about why I get angry with him, which will require some biographical confessions, which I hope you will forgive me for.

I fell in love with the movies at a very young age, at about 3 or 4 years old. One of my earliest memories is of watching Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein on the tube with my Mom and Dad. By the time I was 10 or 11, I had fallen in love with Orson Welles and his movies. I say "Orson Welles and his movies" deliberately because, to my childish mind, the two were one and the same, as he was such a visible presence, in the films and in the culture. I read everything I could find, saw everything I could see. You remember those days, when it was difficult to get to that stuff? I was lucky enough to live outside of Boston, which had a theater dedicated to Welles, so I would take the subway in to catch revival showings and retrospectives.

For the first 30 or so years of my life, I wanted to be Welles, or at least a close approximation of him. Not having a creative bone in my body, that was a problem, and I experienced increasingly dire results. Then, one day, by complete coincidence, I went to work for a guy who, while no Orson Welles, was as close an approximation as one is likely to meet in this life. He was not an artist, but he was a genius at what he did. He was a genuinely decent man, but also one of the most difficult, ornery sons of bitches I have ever met. He had an ego the size of New England. He was a screamer. He belittled people. He made people cry. He worked people to death. He was defiantly unreasonable. Some days I would go home shaking. I quit once, but went back. He was a man who valued loyalty above all other values, and demanded it. He would test you in a million and one ways, but once you passed all the tests, he was fanatically loyal to you. He had an old fashioned sense of honor, and protected his people like a lion with his pride. I stayed with him for three and a half years, and eventually became his right hand man. And in the process, I learned something very important about myself; I was not an Orson Welles; I was, in fact, a John Houseman. And I was good at it.

So you see, when I look at Welles the man, and Welles the artist (but not, I stress, the work), I can get very angry, because I am looking at him from the perspective of one who perhaps could have helped. And unlike Houseman, I would not have been deterred by a few Wellesian tantrums. If Welles had thrown a flaming sterno at me, I would have thrown it right back at him, followed by a couple of platters of sandwiches. We would then have had a screaming row, and a couple of hours later would be knocking back some vino and planning the next assault. Houseman went back to New York with his tail between his legs. Houseman can write all he wants about how Welles needed him, but I suspect that Welles would have kept Houseman around if he hadn't been such self-important, nattering little twit. Ironically, Houseman was so obnoxious that he may have been the reason why Welles did all he could to avoid that type of person for the rest of his life.

I'll tell you what sends me into a frenzy, Tony. It's when so-called Welles defenders (not you) try to turn him into some sort of pitiful victim (or when they try to turn him into Adlai Stevenson, but that's for another post). Welles was anything but. Welles, like all of us, was the author of his own fate. Yes, life throws things our way, but it is how we respond that defines us. I don't blame Welles for getting thrown off Mr. Arkadin by his friend and "mentor" Louis Dolivet for taking his time in the editing room; but I do blame him for letting a dim malevolent hack like Dolivet within fifty miles of his person. I don't blame Welles for the mutilation of Ambersons, but I do blame him for not letting Norman Lloyd take over It's All True for a couple of days while he went back to Hollywood to save his film. Do you see what I mean? Do you see the difference?

I am a firm believer in your Oja thesis. As I have written before, I don't think we have even begun to scratch the surface of Wellesian biography. Look at Paola Maori. Barely anything has been written about her or her influence on Welles. Yet she is crucial. The period from 1956 or so, after the Arkadin debacle, until 1965-1966, when Welles hooked up with Oja, was one of Welles' most artistically fruitful. That was the Paola period. Was she perhaps the level head? Was she the late period Houseman? Who knows, because no one is looking into it. It is an objectionable moral attack on Welles to say that he was somehow suspect as an artist because he cheated on his wife. It is not an objectionable moral attack on Welles to wonder if his leaving Paola for Oja Kodar led to the complete unraveling of his creative life, and prevented further works from appearing. I think that is a valid distinction.

[mido505]

Delete, stupidity.

[Tony]

Well, Mido, in my new neo-minimalist style, let me try to take it, point by point:

1. I suppose I must acknowledge that a person's life affects their work, but probably not in the way usually thought: I don't think it's clear, or obvious, or analyzable in a causal way. The artistic process is a total mystery, as I see it, and it's no coincidence that Stravinsky refused to be psycho-analyzed: he thought it would destroy his creative ability.

But I also believe another thing that Stravinsky said: "I am the vessel through which "Le sacre de Printemps" passed", meaning: I don't create the work: God (or whatever you want to call it) transmits the work through me. Now I believe it was T.S. Eliot who wrote "The farther the artist's work is from his personality, the purer the work." And to add another Stravinsky statement (papraphrased) : "My job is to stay out of the way as much as possible."

Now I'm no great supporter of organized religion, but it's a fact there hasn't been a major composer since the death of God in the west in the 60s; I believe all the transmitters in the post-modern era believe it was they who were creating the art.

Which is why I'm a fan of all art up to and including modern art, but from about 73 on, forget it (though recently films and architecture are picking up, I believe).

So: if these are my absolute presuppostions (in Collingwoodian terms) then you know why I take a strong position on Higham, Thomson, Callow and any other biographer who tries to psycho-analyze Welles and his work (and engages in the always attendant moral condemnation): I believe it can't be done, and even if it could, it would be a worthless activity.

2. I do believe Welles was a monster: I would have not wanted to meet him or work with him, but I would have enjoyed watching him work from a safe perch; he's just too scary and unpredictable for me. There are too many horror stories, though he often felt very badly after having lost his temper. One of my favourites is told by an editor of Don Quixote when Welles was editing it: the editor told Welles a sequence wouldn't work, and Welles went crazy and tore the door off the wall of the studio.

Well, I think I would not want to experience that too often.

3. Houseman: When Welles threw the can of sterno at Houseman, it was the straw that broke the camels back: those two had had knock-down screaming matches and fights for years; Housman probably took it longer than most, especially since he was standing up to Welles. And few others ever did after that, except some money men.

4. Welles was partly the author of his own fate; after all, none of us is totally in control and responsible for everything that happens in our life: there are nature, nurture, and just plain bad or good 'fortuna'.

5. I think Dolivet was a good guy who did everything he could to support Welles then finally flipped out, took control of the film, and sued Welles.

6. My Oja thesis is a moral argument: I believe that when you are cheating (another human being), it drains enormous enormous energy away from all other aspects of one's life, perhaps unconsciously. I believe that if Welles had divorced Paola and married Oja, his fourth marriage would have been very successful both in love and in terms of films made. But who knows? Oja thought marrying him would be a recipe for disaster, so she refused. But this is, of course, all speculation.

7. I agree with your idea that the Paola era was his most productive: Arkadin, King Lear, The Unthinking lobster show, Around the World with Orson Welles, the return to Hollywood, the Fountain of Youth, Dumas, Lollabrigida, Don Quixote, the Touch of Evil, Compulsion, The Trial, Chimes, In the Land of Don Quixote, The Immortal Story...

Compare this to the Oja era. Yes, the Paola period is my favourite, by the way. We can't prove a moral aspect, but we can speculate that this is why he didn't do more work.

But still: all of this has much to do with the production of the work, but nothing to do with it's worth, or it's analysis.

Interesting discussion.

[tonyw]

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


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.

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.

Glenn

Thank you, Glenn, for this response coming as it does from a very important "veteran" on this group. The more I read Hallie Flanagan's ARENA the more saddened I am at what was attempted and lost of this very important attempt at cultural renovation of which Welles was a part. Despite the depiction of Welles in THE CRADLE WILL ROCK (1999), I often run this film in my Welles class to show students what was going on in this area as well as adding corrections to the representation. Hallie's book deals with key areas that do not fully appear in either the film or RUN-THROUGH, namely the important touring aspects of these productions and how even individual states attempted to undermine their role in showing ordinary people theater productions and stimulating them to follow on what they saw. Commercialism soon took over, very similar to what you see of the youtube discourse surrounding Welles and he fell from the grace of being on the cover of TIME MAGAZINE to the post-CITIZEN KANE failure of popular ideology. Looking at Michael Dennings THE CULTURAL FRONT is also important in seeing Welles within this context. Hallie wished the New Deal Theater to reflect social concerns. So did the people who were blacklisted after that great year of 1947 (that Houseman also deals with in FRONT AND CENTER in terms of theater). We really have to move beyond the traps of the individual celebrity aspect, with its "rise and fall" dogma, to consider much more important and relevant issues.

[Glenn Anders]

And thank you, tonyw: I found many good things in CRADLE WILL ROCK when I reviewed it for Epinions, in late 1999. The review like the film itself was somewhat prophetic. You possibly have read that review, but if not, here is a URL for it:

http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-2F8 ... 629B57-bd1

Michael Denning's THE CULTURAL FRONT has come to me only in bits and pieces, mostly from the Internet, but the book sounds fully worth anyone's time. It it is interesting to contrast how the New Deal and the Bush Administration faced two of America's greatest national tragedies over the last hundred years. FDR's spirit in the person of Hallie Flanagan and others used the Federal Arts Project to educate and enrich the life and surroundings of Americans during the Great Depression, while George W. Bush urged frightened Americans in the aftermath of 9/11 to go shopping in the malls, or go fly somewhere, as he and his gang manipulated the event for their own ideological purposes, and looted the treasury. [When things went disastrously wrong, people like the Pentagon's Don Rumsfeld and Office of Homeland Security's Michael Brown [Katrina] were told publicly they had done "a heck of a job."] Seven years of these insane activities and actions have left us heartsick as a people, and on the edge of a new Great Depression.

You say: "We really have to move beyond the traps of the individual celebrity aspect, with its "rise and fall" dogma, to consider much more important and relevant issues."

True . . . but how to do it? Orson Welles was a multi-media "celebrity" before the term had even been fully anchored in the American psyche. Yet, almost alone in his generation of theatrical artists, he rose in several mediums to address "important and relevant issues." His "celebrity," in his heyday, was not that found in the movie fan magazines of the time. It was both larger and less sentimental. Still, the arc of his career does trace the growth of a "'rise and fall' [celebrity] dogma" you decry, an object lesson of which is his association with Harry Alan Towers and TREASURE ISLAND. We have considerable evidence of his subsequent descent into pure, unholy commercialism preserved in those popular YouTube clips. And dwarfish, degraded versions of Orson Welles aspirants are seen every night now on Network "reality shows."

The dark philosophical leitmotif of Tim Robbins' CRADLE WILL ROCK [that art can be turned into a product like any other] has been extended to the creation and acceptance, even celebration, of the lowest common denominators in American life. Everything and everyone should be sold, and the most vulgar, adulterated, and debased will evidently sell best of all.

I'm afraid it's going to take a hell of a jolt to knock some good common American horse sense back into the American People.

We shouldn't have to wait too long.

Glenn

[mido505]

Wow, I didn't realize that the purpose of the Wellesnet Board was to agitate for a revival of the Popular Front!

You guys should figure out how to attach a Vote Obama or Impeach Bush/Cheney sticker to your posts, in place of those cute little yellow happy faces!

I thought political posturing was forbidden here on Wellesnet, a policy I agree with, because I can't think of any aspect of Welles life that was more boring.

Welles the Moralist is interesting; Welles running around giving speeches for the New Deal is not. A mistress cannot serve two masters, and Welles' brief period as a politician manque was a disaster for him as an artist - I think it contributed to the Ambersons/It's All True fiasco, and ultimately led to his leaving the U.S. under duress. Welles himself took great pains to discount this part of his life in later years. Welles joined the Federal Theater Project because they gave him a lot of money to stage plays, not out of any political conviction. He was a great admirer of FDR, but so was Ronald Reagan. Welles had no use for the Communists, loathed the New Deal bureaucrats that came with the government money (and began to hate Houseman when he turned into one), and had nothing but contempt for the kind of insincere leftist prattle that was so prevalent among intellectuals and pseudo-artists in those days. His running around giving speeches and making political broadcasts was all about ego, in my opinion. The one area where Welles seems to have had deeply held convictions, took real risks, and perhaps did some good, was in the area of race relations. I'll give him real props for that; the rest of it is bosh.

I don't give a toss about any Wellesnetter's politics, it is none of my business, but when Glenn puts Welles' name in the same sentence with Dennis Kucinich and Keith Olberman, it's just too much. Dennis Kucinich, like most if not all politicians, is a dangerous hack, perhaps a tad less dangerous than most because we have solid evidence of his complete incompetence at running anything larger than a fruit stand. Keith Olberman is a paid shill for George Soros, our generation's Grigori Arkadin. Too bad Welles is not around to make a movie about him...

[tonyw]

Mido, You are really looking at Welles in a vacuum with no consideration of the cultural and historical forces that formed his historical personality. These posts about the New Deal and the Popular Front are not meant to engage in "political posturing" but to illuminate the very forces that influenced Welles.

So I now expect you to argue for the banning of any discussion on THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI which clearly marks Michael 0'Hara as a Spanish Civil War activist while Grisby promotes his involvement in the Franco side. I guess you will now go along with the film's media description of Michael 0'Hara as a "waterfront agitator" rather than somebody who was a progressive in the New Deal era of which the Spanish Civil War was a key element? Like many in that time, he gets shafted by the establishment. This is but one of the elements in a very important film but still crucial towards understanding its context.

If you read any relevant histories of this period you will find that many actors supported progressive policies until McCarthy and the texts that have been cited are certainly not political documents but historical reminiscences of an era that many today hope will be permanently forgotten.

I strongly urge you to read these works and especially Hallie Flanagan's ARENA, a book by a non-political but important woman who wanted to bring the Arts to everyone in America but whose dreams (along with those of others) were brutally curtailed in 1940. Certainly, Welles's films are not political in the demeaning manner of your second paragraph but you cannot isolate any art work from its relevant social and historical context as you are attempting to do here.

[Glenn Anders]

Thanks, tonyw. You give mido505 good advice here. And thanks, too, for your defense of our position on democracy, of which I'll write more later.

Mido505: Not to get between the flaming sterno cans, but I had wanted to compliment you on bringing up the intriguing idea that, from 1955 to 1965, Paola Mori Welles acted as a stabilizing, supportive force in Welles' career. The idea should be given credence, not only because both you and Tony agree upon it, but because it may provide a missing part of the Orson Welles' puzzle. There appears amazingly little in print of their relationship.

[One wonders why Beatrice Welles-Smith has never brought out a big book about growing up with, and among appearances by, her illustrious father (whose memory she so covets and reveres), in Italy, Spain, the Balkans, New York, Las Vegas, etc. Like Christopher Welles, she appeared in one of his movies, CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT, may even have stood in for him in one of his most renowned sequences, and spent more time with her father than either of the other daughters did.]

Not wishing to have to duck missiles thrown from both sides, I shall not name a critic whom I trust for his understanding of the slow retreat of Welles' career, and the thousand natural disintegrations of his life, when that writer observes the following (paraphrasing):

Aside from her lean dark beauty, taste, and aristocratic birth, qualities he always prized in women, Welles may have taken to the Italian Contessa di Girfalco, Paola Mori, because she was, like himself, an orphan of sorts, having been put into a detention camp as a child because of her family's opposition to Mussolini. No actress, though he tried when besotted to make her one in MR. ARKADIN, she was at first take like a classy version of the second Mrs. Kane with a strong domestic streak, which he came immediately to recognize and to value.

People close to Welles thought that the Contessa Girfalco appeared alternately withdrawn, dull, at times arrogant, but she cheerfully assured the press, after they married in 1955, that Welles was "super normal." The trick was, she added, how to bring that quality out in him. She also was, so closely as your down-trodden Italian contessa can be, an old fashioned nester and home maker. She loved to shop, and curiously, preferred Las Vegas to many of the more elegant, familiar and venerable places they stayed. That's why he set up a home in Vegas for her and Beatrice, when he became a somewhat unexpected hit there in the casino floor shows.

[An aside: There was no doubt, too, on the negative end, all that Italian food to consider, which after he took up with Oja Kodar would have been compounded by Croatian barbecue. Welles evidently didn't require much encouragement of satisfaction in that department.]

It was obviously the most successful marriage Welles had, simply on the conventional basis that they were never divorced. After all, a 30 year marriage usually wins a brass ring in America. And Tony has listed the number of reasonably successful projects (plus, a possible masterpiece or two) he had in this period: "Arkadin, King Lear, The Unthinking lobster show, Around the World with Orson Welles, the return to Hollywood, the Fountain of Youth, Dumas, Lollabrigida, Don Quixote, the Touch of Evil, Compulsion, The Trial, Chimes, In the Land of Don Quixote, The Immortal Story..."

I would add only one small caveat to your Paola Mori thesis, mido505. You write: "It is not an objectionable moral attack on Welles to wonder if his leaving Paola for Oja Kodar led to the complete unraveling of his creative life, and prevented further works from appearing."

The fact is, mido505, that Welles never left Paola Mori. He was, to paraphrase someone here, a master serving at least two mistresses. He "simply" used the place in Las Vegas as his home base, and maintained a second household with Miss Kodar, wherever they happened to be. You should also consider that Welles' formidable enemies, remnants of the Hearst Empire, the FBI, the IRS, and Nixon, kept him moving around the United States and abroad, in a fashion not attractive to the home-loving Mrs. Welles.

------

As for the remarks, mido505, you direct toward me and tonyw, amid your argument with Tony over the relative merits of Orson Welles' [poor] TREASURE ISLAND and Anthony Bushell's [splendid] TERROR OF THE TONGS, would you rather we attempt to connect Welles' life and career with the German American Bund rather than the Popular Front?

Orson Welles was clearly influenced by "Popular Front attitudes" in every important project he undertook from the early 1930's to the mid-1950's, when you credit Paola Mori with rescuing him.

True, examination of Welles' political ideas and activities was discouraged initially on this site because they were considered secondary to who he was as an artist, and because they caused arguments, which indeed they did, and do. While recognizing the palpable dangers of didactism in works of art, my sense is that such a position had to be modified with the appearance of Simon Callow's HELLO AMERICANS, that to the surprise of many, possibly even to Callow, showed how passionately and genuinely Welles' life and works were informed by progressive democratic themes. Though these themes had always been in his background, the spoiled, irresponsible Georgie-boy of THE ROAD TO XANADU had become to Callow in the five years 1942 to 1947 a flawed but genuinely dedicated advocate for democratic causes wherever the mature Welles found them, a man willing to sacrifice an incredible career for what he believed in.

Mido505, I bring up Dennis Kucinich (in his demand for the President's Impeachment) and Keith Olberman (for his even handed attacks on the degradation of truth and decency by figures in either party), not because they are on the scale of Orson Welles, but because like him, they have been willing in our day to stand up and unequivocally demand action against the rise of fascism and the acceleration of corruption in America. It would be so much easier for them, as it would have been for Welles, "to go along to get along," the traditional mantra of both political parties, the twitter of many nominally democratic societies as the slip into totalitarianism, and the annoyed complaint of so very, very many Americans. All the most execrable practices of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Soviet Russia, the corporate state, and banana republics around the World have been adopted, and are being practiced, by our present Administration, and the Democratically controlled Congress goes along with only a little sigh and a grumble, hoping to get along in November when all will be "forgiven and [no doubt] forgotten."

What would we say about Orson Welles today if he took to Television, or stood outside the Capitol, to express a similar protest? No doubt in my mind, he would be there. From what you say, Mido505, perhaps against your better judgment, you would support him. If Welles produced a play in which Macbeth became the El Supremo of some South American or African dictatorship, or in another George W. Bush and his people wore black uniforms, reciting JULIUS CAESAR, or the Trial of the Bush Administration was staged in the form of Danton's Death; or a movie showed the disintegration of George Soros with Keith Olberman playing his right hand man, or a Presidential Nominee [Democrat or Republican] was revealed as a kind of Manchurian Candidate, or a lone ne're-do-well confronted a group of neo-Nazis in America after 9/11 before they started a war without end which would make them untouchably rich; or Welles produced a TV reality show about a scheme to turn American Society into a gigantic video game -- you would be for those endeavors . . . . RIGHT?

Then, whatever the hell it has to do with TREASURE ISLAND and THE TERROR OF THE TONGS, to quote one mido 505, ". . . instead of quashing debate on this site, how about we encourage it, in the hope of reaching new insight."

I remain, as always, obediently yours.

Glenn

[Tony]

Glenn:

I like very much your suggestion that Beatrice write a book; it would seem a natural fit for her- just get a really good ghost writer, and let the tapes roll. And it would fill in that important gap covering perhaps what is Welles's most productive decade ever: 1956-1966.

Your observation that they never divorced is true, though Paola did, according to Beatrice, kick Orson out because of Oja: in 1985!!!!

Welles apparently thought he needed both. The artistic record might show differently.

[Glenn Anders]

Good points, Tony, all around.

I had not heard that Ms Kodar said, the Contessa finally threw Welles out in 1985. Multiple exclamation points warranted! I trust that there was no suggestion that the shock contributed to Welles' sudden passing. One of the most moving parts of the still unreleased SEARCHING FOR ORSON is a love letter he wrote Oja, supposedly a few weeks before he died. It is read in voice over as she sits looking out on the Adriatic at sunset, presumably from her home on the Croatian Coast.

The bottom line, I suppose, is that if Paola Mori were a Roman Catholic, and I expect she likely was, she would have resisted divorce. Why would she have not kicked him out earlier while still holding on to the marriage? Or when Beatrice reached her majority? And if she "kicked Welles out" for good in 1985, might that also explain some of the problems in his will?

Abasak has just posted a clip of Welles from Henry Jaglom's SOMEONE TO LOVE. His speech about the breakdown of the modern family becomes particularly affecting in light of the above. Welles, despite his failings, no matter how he might have wished it because of his relationship with Oja, would not have taken the long postponed collapse of his marriage to Paola as matter off fact. He was quite a moral man, in a philosophical or religious sense.

Do you have an Oja Kodar or other source for this information?

It might be of interest.

Glenn

[mido505]

Good morning Glenn!

Thank you for your usual beautifully written and thoughtful post. I am in the process of downing my morning coffee and getting ready to dash off to work, so I will have to give it closer attention later. Suffice it to say that I have no problem discussing what I prefer to call the moral content of Welles' work. Welles of course was a moralist, in the sense of someone who is interested in moral problems, and who holds and demonstrates a coherent set of moral principles. These principles were expressed both in his life, and in his work, and I have no problem with explicating either.

But Glenn, as you well know, as a long time member of this board, the discussion of politics in the narrow sense is expressly forbidden. Forgive me, but the last few posts on this thread seem to do little more than drop Welles' name as an excuse to promulgate a decidedly partisan political point of view. There are 469 registered members of Wellesnet. A great number are likely to agree with you. A great number may not care at all. But an equally great number are not going to agree with you and are going to get their hackles up. Politics are a powder keg. For instance, some folks might be offended by this sentence: "would you rather we attempt to connect Welles' life and career with the German American Bund rather than the Popular Front?", which implies that anyone not enamored of the Popular Front is a fascist. I am sure that was not your intention, but do you see where this can go? Personally I would prefer to see Welles unconnected to either.

I'd hate to see this thread locked because a bunch of Wellesnetters disagree on the merits of Dennis Kucinich.

[Alan Brody]

I too recall reading that Mori kicked Welles out of their house in '85. I think it was in a People Magazine article on Beatrice Welles. I believe that article has even been posted here before, but good luck finding it.

I like very much your suggestion that Beatrice write a book; it would seem a natural fit for her- just get a really good ghost writer, and let the tapes roll. And it would fill in that important gap covering perhaps what is Welles's most productive decade ever: 1956-1966.

Maybe she can blog it on her website first:

http://beatricewelles.com/index.htm

[tonyw]

Mido, When you return from work and finish your next coffee I'd like to bring something to your attention and another book you should read, namely Michael Denning's THE CULTURAL FRONT (note "Cultural") that, like Hallie Flanagan's excellent ARENA deals with the artistic movements of the New Deal of which Welles was a part. Both books are not "political" in the narrow sense of the word but deal with that flourishing period in which arts were inspired in America both on the macro and micro-levels. I finished ARENA with tears in my eyes since it deals with that last opportunity for American culture that political forces (in the very narrow sense of the word) destroyed. I really think you need to consider the broader context otherwise you will probably dismiss Welles theatrical staging of Julius Caesar delibertaley set in the 1930s totalitarian area. The play functioned both as art and political message. Neither need to be mutually exclusive.

[Glenn Anders]

Thank you for your thoughtful reply, mido505. I'm just about to prepare my morning coffee, too, here in San Francisco. We obviously live in different time zones, if not worlds.

My argument in response, which tonyw states much more elegantly and succinctly than I, would be that, for an artist to have great legs, he/she must express, if not only the political concerns of an age, at least its social attitudes, in such a way as to have relevance in generations thereafter. Shakespeare, to take the obvious example, was not only a beautiful poet and a fine dramatist but an artist with a profound understanding of the human emotion behind, say, heroism and villainy, in the historical political context of the Plantagenet and Elizabethan ages. That understanding, drawn from his works, may be applied to a Richard III or a George Bush. [Peace to the 29% of Americans, less I trust among wellesnetters, who still have confidence in Our President. Perhaps his rumored adoption of Catholicism and a future pitch for sainthood will convert him, in time, to more of a Henry V hero figure in our eyes.] Without his political and social insights, Shakespeare might just as well be John Marston, Francis Beaumont, or John Fletcher, who were the really big playwrights of his time. How many passionate websites are dedicated to their works and vagaries?

In any case, my point is that Orson Welles is a giant artist primarily because his work and ideas may, indeed must, be equally seen equally as important in their relevance for today as they were in the 1930's, 1940's -- if not, they become trivial. Should we not see Welles in that context, we might as well devote our heat and erudition to Maurice Evans, who was considered by many critics of the 1930's or 1940's a much more respectable artist than Welles, for all his razz-ma-tazz.

"Politics are a powder keg," you say. "For instance, some folks might be offended by this sentence: 'would you rather we attempt to connect Welles' life and career with the German American Bund rather than the Popular Front?'" Patently, I was suggesting the absurdity of such an attempt, but with due respect, mido505, a majority of Americans -- out in the German or Italian American hinterlands where I came from -- were puzzled if not repelled by Welles' 1937 "modern dress" Julius Caesar, in which Caesar and his minions wore black, and his secret police strangled Cinna the Poet. Many an American wondered what Welles was getting at, were offended by the suggestion that the man who was making the trains run on time, or the guy who was building the autobahns, should be suspected, possibly condemned.

But Mido505, old chap, so long as we remain civil, I think there is more danger of this thread being locked up because we neglect Welles' aborted TREASURE ISLAND than because of the odd remark dropped about Dennis Kucinich, an American Patriot, who is in a small but more direct fashion, in the tradition of Orson Welles.

Glenn

[Glenn Anders]

Thanks, Alan, for that confirmation, and for the URL to Beatrice's website. She does seem to have lived through a great amount of loss as a young woman, and in such a short period of time. It might steel one against the World.

Great photo, too, of Welles with her when she was a child, btw, and does anyone know more about this museum of hers in Spain "featuring a look into Orson personally as well the other facets of this amazing man"?

Maybe, we should try to get Todd Baesen or Larry French to personally lure her onto our board. In fact, both of our worthies together would be incredible at such a task.

Glenn