By RAY KELLY
The Eyes of Orson Welles, a Mark Cousins documentary promising fresh insight into the life and art of the late filmmaker, will premiere as a Cannes Classics Official Selection at the 71st Cannes Film Festival next month.
Directed, written, filmed and narrated by Cousins (The Story of Film), the documentary is based upon unprecedented and exclusive access to a lifetime of private drawings and paintings by Welles — most never before made public.
“Like many people, I’ve loved Welles films throughout my adult life, but I didn’t think I’d make a film about him,” Cousins told Wellesnet. “But then, I met Beatrice Welles and, through her, saw his drawings and paintings. I realized that this was a new way of seeing Welles, an unexpected way, a side door. The challenge is, as always, to avoid banality, cliches and the obvious. I wanted to try to say something new.”
The Eyes of Orson Welles, which clocks in at nearly two hours, may change the way some view Welles.
“I’d like people to think that Welles was primarily a visual thinker,” Cousins said. “He had a dramatic and theatrical imagination, but at in the beginning for Welles was the image, brilliantly so.”
Beatrice Welles granted Cousins the exclusive rights to make a film using her father’s artwork. The two met at the 2016 Traverse Film Festival in Michigan and mapped out the project with Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine), who is an executive producer on The Eyes of Orson Welles. Beatrice Welles served as a consultant to the documentary.
“I always wanted to make a documentary about my father’s artwork,” Beatrice Welles said. “After I met Mark at Michael Moore’s, I knew he would be the right person. His idea on how he wanted approach it also seemed just perfect. I trust we will do my father and his work justice. Mark is brilliant.”
London-based Dogwoof plans a summer 2018 release, according to producers. The BBC has the UK broadcast rights, while Turner Classic Movies and Filmstruck have television and streaming video-on-demand rights in North America.
Orson Welles traveled and painted throughout the Irish countryside at the age of 16 in 1931. After his stage success at the Gate Theatre Dublin, Welles embarked on a career as an actor and director, first in theater and later in radio and motion pictures.
But Welles continued to draw and paint throughout his life, for his own private pleasure. When he died in October 1985, he left behind hundreds of character sketches, set designs, visualizations of unmade projects, illustrations to entertain his children and friends, doodles in the margins of personal letters, and portraits of the people and places that he loved. Most have been locked away since his death.
The Eyes of Orson Welles is produced by Mary Bell and Adam Dawtrey for Bofa Productions, in association with BBC Arts and Filmstruck, supported by the National Lottery via Creative Scotland’s Screen Fund. Executive producers are Moore, Mark Bell and Mark Thomas.
“Mark Cousins’ film captures a mercurial genius in flight. It is a brilliantly personable, personal journey into the mind of a complex fugitive figure – Welles remains playful, larger than life yet often curiously elusive. By the end I feel I know him better,” said Mark Bell, who is BBC’s commissioning editor for arts.
The Eyes of Orson Welles will be the only Welles-related project at Cannes this year. Netflix withdrew The Other Side of the Wind as a special non-competitive screening since its other films cannot compete because of a rules dispute with Cannes.
“We are delighted that Mark Cousins’ feature documentary The Eyes of Orson Welles will receive its world premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival,” Thomas, a screen officer at Creative Scotland, said. “Cannes is a fitting platform to present a compelling new story of one of cinema’s greatest icons. We are proud to have supported this latest work from Mark, a unique filmmaker and celebrated cineaste, and we wish everyone involved with the film the very best for the premiere.”
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Visit the official website for The Eyes of Orson Welles at https://www.theeyesoforsonwelles.com/
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