WELLESNET MESSAGE BOARD

“I’m very close to putting fingers to keyboard.”
Simon Callow talks ‘Fourth and Final’ book on Orson Welles:
https://www.wellesnet.com/simon-callow- ... UyS9y-8M4o

Actually, unless I misunderstand what
Callow is saying in this interview, there's a great deal of material Welles
directed in his last twenty years that can be studied. Most is at the Munich
Film Museum, although there's also DON QUIXOTE,
scattered in various archives. And there is OTHER WIND.

So it's one thing to say not much of his output in his
last twenty years was released in his lifetime but
another to mistakenly claim he was inactive as a director in
his later years (as the New York Times wrote in its
obit before issuing a correction) or that he wasn't
doing much. In fact, he was working constantly as
a director in that period and going in many challenging and adventurous
new directions. A lot of his unfinished material
has been released posthumously or seen at festivals,
and a scholar can go to Munich and watch a lot that
isn't often seen. As Callow notes, Welles was also writing
many scripts, most of which were not filmed. I give a road map to that period in
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO ORSON WELLES?: A PORTRAIT
OF AN INDEPENDENT CAREER, which I updated in 2021
for the paperback edition.

" think, you're right, Sir."

Actually, unless I misunderstand what Callow is saying in this interview, there's a great deal of material Welles
directed in his last twenty years that can be studied. Most is at the Munich Film Museum

Munich has been very quiet in recent years. Do you know if they have any plans to do anything with all this Welles material?

I look forward to reading anything Callow has to say about the last twenty years of Welles' life, especially his thoughts on the completion of THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND. But one of the chief pleasures of Callow's first three books was his unsurpassed research and enthusiasm in bringing to life Welles' legendary theater career. Unfortunately, in Welles' last twenty years, there was no theater career.

“I’ve amassed a remarkable amount of very fresh research, which has substantially changed my view of the last 20 years – not least because of my revelatory interviews with Beatrice Welles, the filmmaker’s youngest daughter,” Callow said.

That sounds like a promising substitute.

One thing I do know: underpinning this final volume will be Don Quixote, just as Moby Dick underpinned Volume 3,” he said.

Sounds good. Maybe he can inspire Munich to use all their DQ footage to make some kind of documentary about what this project meant to Welles and why he didn't finish it.

Simon is referring to full completed and released films. He is aware of the unfinished projects.

I hope he is and will do everything full justice unlike the unfair treatment he dished out against Welles in THE ROAD TO XANADU.

The way I read this he hasn't started actually writing Vol. 4 yet.

This will surely be much discussed at the Paris festival if Callow talks. I'd like to see focus on his three screenplays, Cradle, Brass Ring and Wind.