Upcoming Welles Profile - for Senses of Cinema, Oz-based e-journal

[Jaime N. Christley]

I was pleased and intimidated when the Senses editors granted me the assignment of writing a profile on OW for their Great Directors: A Critical Database series. The finished product, which will be available here sometime during this week or the next, doesn't contain any revelations, but I've tried to take an original approach by assuming the site's readership is already very familiar with Kane and the wonder-boy legend stuff and the Ambersons affair (and they are, certainly), and writing a long polemic on the subject of Welles' lost work, as well as those films that don't get as much love as Kane and Touch of Evil, but that I think are great.

There's nothing particularly new in the article - nothing that's not recycled from This is Orson Welles, the Naremore book, general information, etc. But to my knowledge it's the first article by a Welles enthusiast (rather than a disinterested party) that forcefully argues for a re-examination of Welles' career, and takes a broad inventory of his unreleased work. Unless Jonathan Rosenbaum or Fred Camper or somebody has beat me to the punch. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy it.

[Peter Tonguette]

Jaime,

Congrats on the Senses piece. (I'm currently knee-deep in writing a Great Directors profile of Richard Lester for them.) And I'm also, as mentioned in another thread, in the early stages of researching a piece on Welles's late, uncompleted works, with a particular focus on "The Dreamers." Maybe we could learn something from each other - feel free to e-mail me.

Peter - ptonguette@aol.com

[Welles Fan]

Good luck to you both. I look forward to reading both. I'm also a big Lester fan (particularly the Musketeer films written by Fraser).

[colwood]

Jaime,

Congratulations on the Welles article. Very informative. I greatly enjoyed the way you opened your article, noting that we have not yet seen all there was to Orson Welles, that Welles was more than Citizen Kane and his subsequent "failures" and that his place in cinema history is far from set.

A great article.

[Jaime N. Christley]

Thanks everybody - ultimately just trying to fight the good fight, and all. Peter, looking forward to the Lester profile...there's a director that's sort of hit & miss with me. What is he doing these days, by the way?

Also re Dreamers, I don't think I have anything to offer that isn't already well-known. But if you have any questions, email me or post them here!

j_christley@yahoo.com

(I don't worry about posting my email address 'cuz that account has already gone to crap anyway...)

[Peter Tonguette]

Jaime,

I just read the Welles piece on Senses. Congrats - great, great work.

As far as I know, Lester is more or less retired these days. "The Return of the Musketeers" was his last film and it was a particularly unhappy experience: it wasn't a very promising project to begin with, but, tragically, Roy Kinnear died during the making of it after having an accident on the set. I think Lester essentially decided to call it quits after that.

However, given his connections with Soderbergh, I'm sure he could get something made today if he had the inclination. The way his career went post-1980 is a big part of my essay; he was one of the most prolific directors in America during the '70s, but was basically unable to get anything he wanted to do done in the '80s. A real testament to how much Hollywood had changed.

Peter

[Jaime N. Christley]

You'd think the success of the second and third Superman movies would guarantee his immortality. Do you think he's capable of directing a film at this point? You mention his connection w/Soderbergh - surely the fancy cutting is passed down to SS via Roeg and (in mutated form) Ollie Stone (and I've speculated that Lester and Richardson must have been profoundly influenced by Resnais' first features, particularly Muriel, which has Lester written all over it), but is there more than that?

But perhaps I'll just wait for the profile. You know, Senses is starting to pay for feature articles, but not for Great Directors profiles. Oh well.

[Peter Tonguette]

Well, the interesting thing is that you would think the huge success of S2 and S3 would have given Lester some carte blanche with the studios. But he was absolutely unable to get anything he cared about off the ground after the Superman films, including his adaptation of Conrad's "Victory" which Harold Pinter had written for him. Quite a contrast to the '70s, when he regularly alternated studio assignments with more personal projects.

As far as I know, he's quite content in retirement, but his association w/ Soderbergh is such (I gather they are pretty friendly) that if he wanted to get something done, Soderbergh's company could undoubtedly finance it. He's not an old man (just turned 70 last year) and I have no doubt that he could make a few more great movies, despite the 14 year absence.

I'm with you on Resnais, though I think Roeg was marked for life by the cutting on "Petulia"...

Peter

[LA]

I hope I'm not too late to congratulate you, Jaime, on a great article. That's the kind of piece I wish had been around when I first got interestested in Welles and there was next-to-nothing on the net about him.
Great to read someone speaking up for The Trial , which has always been one of my favourite Welles films, and great to read all the Welles works most people don't look at but should getting specifically examined.

Your article also lead me back to Senses Of Cinema generally, which is a site I haven't looked at for a while, so thanks for that too.