Màscares (Masks)
Masks directed by Elisabet Cabeza and Welles’s scholar Esteve Riambau, will screen at at the San Sebastian Film festival in the “New Directors” section on September 22, 23 and 24. Anyone in Spain who sees it is encouraged to send us a report.
You can see the trailer, in Spanish HERE.
The program notes from the Festival can be seen HERE.
Actors, like magicians, never reveal their tricks. The accomplished Spanish stage actor José María Pou has made an exception in allowing the camera to film him preparing a stage performance in which he takes on the part of the great movie magician, Orson Welles.
The action of Màscares unfolds backstage, in a place hidden from the eyes of the audience where the actor begins to become the part that will invoke his character. Magic, with tricks, but magic nevertheless.
From the directors of La doble vida del faquir (2005).
The basis for Màscares (Masks) is Richard France’s play Obediently Yours, Orson Welles, which has been translated into German, Dutch, Portuguese, Catalan and Spanish. It is an original work by the playwright, scholar and narrator Richard France, who established himself as a leading authority on the life and works of Orson Welles, with the publication of “The Theatre of Orson Welles” and “Orson Welles on Shakespeare.”
The extraordinary Spanish actor, José María Pou, takes on the challenge of playing the artistic genius who was Orson Welles. José María Pou has throughout his career, played great men, including King Lear, the architect in The Goat and the like-able professor in The History Boys, all of which have been performed at the Arriaga Theater.
Wellesnet contributor Leslie Weisman gave this report about Welles’s scholar Esteve Riambau’s “masterfully detailed PowerPoint presentation” of Don Quixote that was shown at the Locarno Film Festival tribute to Orson Welles:
Esteve Riambau provided a scene-by-scene reconstruction of Don Quixote, contextualizing it within the temporal framework of Welles’ other projects (Mr. Arkadin, Touch of Evil, Around the World in 80 Days) and world events. Riambau drew telling parallels between “Quixote” and Welles’ other films, including a fondness for chimerical ambitions; Sancho Panza as the Spanish equivalent of Sir John Falstaff; film itself as a hall of mirrors; and Welles’ love for Spain, and found that Welles had reinterpreted the Don’s windmills as the cinema screen.