OW TV interviews

[ToddBaesen]

A short excerpt from the 1960 Paris interview:

Q: Have you ever cast an actor who was a friend rather than the person you thought was the best for the role?

Welles: Frequently.

Q: Have you ever regretted it?

Welles: Frequently.

Q: Would you do it again?

Welles: Certainly -- I regard great friendship as more important than the arts.

[alex_cox]

First off: I'm a huge Orson Welles fan and this really is the best Welles resource on the web.

I found a complete interview that Welles did in 1960 for the CBC show Close-Up. I don't know if anyone has seen this before; some random clips have been available on Youtube for a while, but this is the whole shebang; all 54 + minutes--and it's a fantastic interview. Welles sites, at point, that Quixote is complete and titled: "Don Quixote Goes to the Moon." The interviewer asks some great questions and Welles is so incredibly and genuinely thoughtful in his responses. Enjoy (if you haven't seen it already)!


http://archives.cbc.ca/search?q=orson+w ... &RA=0&th=1

[ToddBaesen]

Thanks for this great link, Alex.

Nice to see the entire interview, and strangely enough it's done at the Hotel Le Meurice in Paris, who has an ad featuring Welles in the current issue of Vanity Fair!

[aysie]

This one was new to me. Welles interviewed on the set of Is Paris Burning in 1965 by Canadian TV. You need to forward the clip to around 16 mins:

http://www.cbc.ca/archives/discover/pro ... -1965.html

[Le Chiffre]

Thanks Aysie, and welcome. I like that interview and hope it stays up awhile; it's better quality then the copy in my collection. Welles seems in a happy mood, considering the slightly aggressive line of questioning. I like this exchange:

Interviewer: As you look at your work, are you ever worried about being preoccupied with technique and the superficiality of things?

OW: Do you think technique is superficial?

Interviewer: Technique I quess is not superficial, but it's only one part of the artistic process, and I'm just asking whether you feel that you've been able to go deeply into things...Cicero said something about the principles of rhetoric having to take into account not only what your talking about and who you are, but also who you're talking to, and there's a quality of rhetoric about filmmaking, is there not?

OW: You have a good point, but it's another opinion. You see, Whenever I do anything in the theatre, I do it directly for the audience; that particular audience at that moment. But a movie is made for an audience which is quite seriously unthinkably large and diverse, and therefore it's a simple expression of the artist who makes it, without reference to his public.

Interviewer: There's no impulse to propoganda at all?

OW: No, but I'm a moralist.

Interviewer: How can you be a moralist without being interested in moving society? Surely a moralist is essentially a preacher trying to change things.

OW: That's right, but it's trying to change things in a larger context then any audience or congregation or gathering that one person can conceive of.

[the scotsman]

There is a website http://www.thebox.bz where one can find and download many of OW's British TV shows/documentaries and interviews.
It costs nothing so long as one gives something back - the rules are self explanetary.
The above mentioned is from an early BBC Panel/current affairs type show called Press Conference,where 4 journalists interview a selected candidate.
William Hardcastle mentions that this is OW's first BBC appearance - the interview is 25m.It was recently shown on the BBC iplayer which someone hiked and uploaded to the site.
Also on this site are many other Welles related programmes including the complete 1982 Arena interview and his appearance on the Parkinson show 1974 which was given another re-run last night.
One can join this site from abroad without problems.
As all of the material is digitalized,it makes no difference whether one has NTSC or Pal.The material is downloaded onto one's own computer.Then it can be decided as to leaving it on the hard disc or burning it out onto a DVD.
When going to the browse page - type in Orson Welles and to the right of the search button in the little drop down click on -exact- and hit search,
there are 38 entries for Welles which can be downloaded.
Included are
Sketchbook 1955
Around the world 1955
Welles over Europe 2009
Shadowing the third man ect.

[ToddBaesen]

Scotty:

Thanks for posting this.

It's quite a nice collection of Welles material!