Orson Welles: Six Films Analyzed, Scene by Scene - 2006 book

[Jeff Wilson]

I know it was mentioned on the news page at some point a while back, but some of you may have been wondering about the recent book Orson Welles: Six Films Analyzed, Scene by Scene, by Randy Rasmussen. Published by McFarland, the book is priced for library purchases mainly, at $45 for a paperback. The question is: is it worth it? Having had a look at the book yesterday at a local university library, the answer would be no. The book does exactly what the title says, looking at six films (Kane, Ambersons, Shanghai, ToE, Trial, Chimes - it's not really clear why the rest aren't included, beyond space issues) and describing, in fairly exacting detail, what happens in each film, scene by scene. That's pretty much it.

To be honest, if you've seen/own the films, this strikes me as something of a pointless exercise, and it doesn't read especially well as a result. Imagine reading a 30 page summary of Lady From Shanghai. That's the section I photocopied, and I gave up reading it after a few pages. Why read this when I can watch the film? I respect the effort, but what was the end goal here?

[Roger Ryan]

Perhaps sometime in the distant future in a post-apocalyptic world, where all film is nothing more than dust and technology has regressed to the point where digitally encoded information is useless, Mr. Rasmussen's book will be the only source of information for the straggling few who had heard tales of a cinematic genius named "Orson Welles" but mourn the fact that they cannot view even the mutilated versions of his work.

I suggest that Mr. Rasmussen simply has more foresight than the rest of us...or just way too much time on his hands.

[Gordon]

There are people who have never seen Chimes or The Trial. They'd probably like to read about them.

[tonyw]

I've read the author's other book on Kubrick and was not impressed since I found it pedantic and mundane. Unfortunately, as a direct-to-library press McFarland still produces some duds like the book on Hitchcock's Silent Films reviewed in The MacGuffin in addition to the interesting books that can not find a home in today's market-orientated mainstream and university presses.

If McFarland followed Scarecrow's recent move towards publishing more distinguished books such as Reynold Humphries's recent book on the 130s Horror Film (which Cambridge University Press eventually turned down for market reasons) then the situation would change and it would not retain its vanity press reputation for certain of the things it brings out. It does produce quality work but it also needs to change direction somewhat.

There are better books on Welles already out and more will appear in future by MacBride and Benamou. The Welles publishing industry may not match Hitchcock's with a book appearing every six weeks but the important factors should involve originality and quality. From what I've read of the author's work on Kubrick these factors are certainly not there and I would be surprised to see them in his work on Welles.