Rosenbaum's "Discovering Orson Welles"

[Nate H]

How is the book? Amazon has it at 5 stars but there are only two reviews. I did a search but couldn't find any threads on it which seemed odd

[Roger Ryan]

Since the book is a compendium of Rosenbaum's writing on Welles over the last thirty or so years, I suspect many Welles fans were familiar with the material prior to the book's publication. Therefore, there isn't much "new" information or critiques to discuss. All the same, it's wonderful to have so much of Rosenbaum's Welles analysis collected in one place.

[Tony]

Actually, to be completely accurate, almost all of the articles are 'unexpurgated'; the original editors' excisions have been 'returned' so reading the pieces often yields interesting new info. In addition, several of the pieces I've never seen and I thought I had them all. And there's a general intro, comments for every piece and a new article at the end.

Personally, I would reccommend getting it in hardcover: along with Bazin, you're going to be returning to it, again and again.

IMO!

[mteal]

Rosenbaum's book makes for fascinating reading, even including some of the erroneous bits from the early 70's, when Welles scholarship was still somewhat in the dark ages, and Welles himself was still active and trying to make a comeback. It shows how far that scholarship has come since, spearheaded significantly by Rosenbaum himself.

Here's a 2005 magazine article of his, ORSON WELLES AT 90, which he has posted to his website:

http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=23347

Some of the most popular and least informed biographies, like David Thomson’s Rosebud, consist of little more than highly speculative character assassination. Part of Thomson’s winning formula is to assure himself and others he doesn’t even need to see Welles’ unreleased features to know that they’d be disappointments. I’m sure this must simplify matters for Thomson; but I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen large sections of all these legendary works, and I beg to differ.

[Jedediah Leland]

I found Jonathan Rosenbaum's writings in the book to be a bit of an acquired taste - but I'd definitely recommend it.

Being a collection of articles written over a thirty year span, it's quite eclectic (don't expect thorough coverage of every stage of Welles's career), some of the older articles are quite dated (like his inventory of seen and unseen Welles work, even though at the time these things were essential, with no-one else going into this level of detail on unseen Welles - although in all fairness to Rosenbaum, he provides up-to-date introductions to most chapters, which recognise some of these limitations), and some of his more conceptual writing is brilliant but debatable, i.e. he makes an impassioned plea against Welles's unfinished work being finished, but I find the piece less than convincing.

What I found a bit grating was the somewhat condescending tone in some pieces, particularly when dealing with Welles-haters; there are passages when he can be less than gracious, and that was quite off-putting.

Having said that, the book is an often thought-provoking set of essays, by turns brilliant and infuriating, and at his best, Rosenbaum opens up new dimensions of Welles's work. I have warmed to the collection, but I would say this: it's not a book that's greater than the sum of its parts. There are some truly outstanding essays in here, but they can be quite patchy. And it's definitely not a book for Welles beginners - for what it's worth, I'd first suggest the seminal This is Orson Welles (edited by Rosenbaum) for Welles's perspective, Berthomé & Thomas' recent Orson Welles at Work for its brilliant research into Welles's working methods, and for sheer readability, Naremore's Magic World of Orson Welles and the two Joseph McBride books are all more smoothly-flowing while being every bit as perceptive as critical appraisals.