Documentarian Mark Cousins looked into The Eyes of Orson Welles, now psychoanalyst/psychotherapist Jack Schwartz has published a paper on what could be called “the mind of Orson Welles.”
Schwartz recently penned The Other Side Of The Wind; A Lost Mother, A Maverick, Rough Magic And A Mirror: A Psychoanalytic Perspective On The Cinema Of Orson Welles.
“It is an easy conjecture that Welles saw himself, and ultimately his fate in nearly all of his on-screen creations; from grandiose Charles Foster Kane, to the elusive Mr. Arkadin, to the oedipally possessive George Amberson, to the impossibly naïve Michael O’Hara, to the used-up police detective Hank Quinlan, to the overstuffed blustery Falstaff, and lastly and most directly to Jake Hannaford, the aging director trying to make a comeback. It is as if each character was designed to capture an element of Welles’ own persona or personal conflict, always in the existential context of once having then losing,” Schwartz writes.
Schwartz pays particular attention to Welles’ last major released work, The Other Side of the Wind.
He told Wellesnet he used the posthumously completed movie “as the Rosebud that links to all of Welles’ previous work and artistic sensibility.”
Schwartz realizes the late filmmaker would not have been a fan of this approach.
” To be up front, Welles abhorred psychoanalyzing his work and, as it appears, he didn’t see very much use for psychoanalysis in general,” he writes in his paper. “Welles told his biographer Barbara Leaming, “I’ve never, never… want to forgive myself. That’s why I hate psychoanalysis. I think if you are guilty of something, you should live with it. Get rid of it – how can you get rid of real guilt? I think people should live with it, face up to it.’ As we will see we have some possible evidence regarding the nature of the guilt Welles refers to that one should ‘live with,’ but tragically living with guilt, especially childhood guilt associated with loss, remorse and familial breakdown, has a way of insidiously infiltrating and influencing adult consciousness. This infiltration then orchestrates repeating cycles of negative and often punitive outcomes, with which Welles was all too familiar. Welles, like the character ‘Georgie Amberson’ in Magnificent Ambersons (1942), was no stranger to getting his ‘comeuppance.’ As with Herr K in The Trial (1962), punishment was a ready acquaintance for Welles, having nearly his entire body of cinema projects mutilated or derailed.”
He added, “There may be other reasons Welles chaffed at psychoanalysis since often under the guise of objective analysis, he was often the subject of unfair and destructive criticism about his character (Kael, 1971; Higham, 1985) which has shadowed him throughout, especially in his later years which derailed any real chance of getting financing.”
The 25-page paper can be read at https://mindconsiliums.org/publications/2019/09/schwartz-j-2019-the-other-side-of-the-winda-psychoanalytic-perspective-on-the-cinema-of-orson-welles-mindconsiliums-199-1-23
A downloadable PDF can be found at https://mindconsiliums.org/media/Schwartz-J.-2019.-The-Other-Side-of-the-Wind%E2%80%A6-MindConsiliums-198-1-25.pdf
Schwartz, who maintains a private practice in New Jersey, served as the Senior Forensic Psychologist in Passaic County New Jersey, for over 15 years, specializing in criminal investigations, probation, child custody issues, and has regularly served the court as an expert witness.
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