Interview with Beatrice Welles

[Wellesnet]

[Le Chiffre]

Very interesting interview. I like the point Beatrice makes when she says that in America the media loves to put people up on pedestals and then knock them off. I don't know if that is an exclusively American thing, but it's a good description of what happened to her father in America, and towards the interview's end Beatrice emphasizes how American her father was in the traditional sense of the word.

[tonyw]

I think she is correct here. When I first arrived in America to work, the Director of The Jack London Foundation noticed this prevalent tendency in academia. To my surprise, I watched a documentary on the British critic Raymond Willims who encountered resentment in Cambridge University for his classic works beginning with CULTURE AND SOCIETY. Williams later ventured into multi-media and Orson, as we know, was always aware of the possibilities of new technologies and changing film production circumstances. Yet, the innovators always get attacked as Orson was and it took time for his work to be really understood after Charles Higham. I noticed her comments about Simon Callow with interest.

[cinescot]

Here is another recent interview with Beatrice Welles. This one by Julian Schlossberg for his Movie Talk podcast.