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Orson Welles |
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Director
/ Actor / Screenwriter / Producer |
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1915 - 1985 |
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Born May 6, Kenosha,
Wisconsin |
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Key
Production Countries: USA, France |
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Key Genres: Drama,
Period Film, Film Noir, Psychological Thriller |
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Key
Collaborators: Joseph Cotten (Leading
Character Player), Erskine Sanford
(Character Player), Jeanne Moreau (Leading Player), Akim Tamiroff (Leading Character Player), Ray Collins (Leading
Character Player), Russell Metty (Cinematographer), Everett Sloane
(Leading Player), Agnes Moorehead (Leading Character Player), Edmond
Richard (Cinematographer),
Robert
Wise (Editor) |
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Highly
Recommended: Citizen Kane (1941)*, The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)*, The
Stranger (1946)#, The Lady from Shanghai (1948)*#, Othello (1952)*, Touch of Evil (1958)*# |
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Recommended: The Fountain of Youth [TV] (1956), Chimes
at Midnight (1966)* |
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Worth a Look:
Macbeth
(1948), Mr. Arkadin (1955)#, The Trial (1963)*, The Immortal Story (1968),
F for Fake (1973)* |
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* Listed in TSPDT's
1,000 Greatest Films
section; #
Listed in TSPDT's
250 Quintessential Noir Films
section. |
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Links: [
Amazon
] [
IMDB ] [
TCMDB ] [
All-Movie
Guide ] [
Senses
of Cinema: Great Directors
] [
Film Reference
] [
The
Estate of Orson Welles
] [
Welles Net
] [
The Man and His
Genius ]
[
Reel
Classics
] [
Guardian
Unlimited Orson Welles Special
] [
Film
Journal Article
] [
Los Angeles Times Article (2006)
] [
Review of
"Citizen Kane" by Erich
von Stroheim
] [
Screening the Past Article (2010)
] |
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Books:
[
This
is Orson Welles
] [
Rosebud:
The Story of Orson Welles
] [
Orson
Welles: A Critical View
] [
Despite
the System: Orson Welles Versus the Hollywood Studios
] [
Orson Welles
] [
Orson Welles:
Volume 2 - Hello Americans
] [
Orson Welles: Volume 1 - The Road to Xanadu
] [
Walking Shadows: Orson Welles, William Randolph Hearst, and Citizen Kane
] [
Orson Welles: Interviews (Conversations With Filmmakers Series)
] [
Encyclopedia of Orson Welles (Great Filmmakers)
] [
The Films of Orson Welles
] [
What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career
] |
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"Like
von Stroheim and
von Sternberg, although otherwise hardly in similar mould,
Wisconsin-born Welles was one of Hollywood's enfants
terribles, beginning with brilliance but soon falling out
with the studio, having his work hacked down and setting off on
wanderings round the world, forever in search of another
masterpiece and the money to make one."
-
David
Quinlan (Quinlan's Film Directors, 1999) |
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"Welles's
outsider status in connection with the American film industry is
an interesting part of cinema history in itself, but his
importance as a director is due to the innovations he introduced
through his films and the influence they have had on filmmaking
and film theory." -
Susan
Doll (The St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia, 1998)
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"It
is almost tragically ironic that George Orson Welles, without
doubt one of the greatest filmmakers ever, was forced to work
for most of his career under the most adverse of conditions.
Such were his genius and ambition that his films, years ahead of
their time, still astonish by their inventiveness, stylistic
virtuosity and freshness; while the widely held view that he
never fulfilled his early promise fails to take account of the
thematic and moral consistency of his work, not to say its
restless experimentalism." -
Geoff
Andrew (The Film Handbook, 1989) |
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"People
should cross themselves when they say his name." -
Marlene
Dietrich |
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"One of the most important filmmakers to emerge since the advent
of the talkie. Welles was one of the first in Hollywood to
realize the potential of elliptical narratives and deep focus in
the construction of camera angles. His oeuvre consists of
complex tales with themes of truth and illusion (Citizen Kane,
41; The Magnificent Ambersons, 42; Touch of Evil,
58; Chimes at Midnight, 66). Welles is also one of the
few commercial filmmakers to experiment with the soundtrack of a
film." -
William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978) |
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"I
want to give the audience a hint of a scene. No more than that.
Give them too much and they won't contribute anything
themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working
with you. That's what gives the theater meaning: when it becomes
a social act." - Orson Welles |
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"Hollywood
is the only industry, even taking in soup companies, which does
not have laboratories for the purpose of experimentation."
- Orson Welles |
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Please
note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based
only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director
that we haven't seen include Don Quixote (1955) and Filming Othello
(1978). |
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8+ |
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"If
we have dwelt at some length on Orson Welles it
is because
the date of his appearance in
the filmic firmament (1941) marks more or less the
beginning of a new period and also because his case is the
most spectacular and, by virtue of his very excesses, the
most significant. Yet Citizen Kane is part of a
general movement, of a vast stirring of the geological bed
of cinema, confirming that everywhere up to a point
there had been a revolution in the language of the screen."
-
André Bazin, What is Cinema? Volume 1 |
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●
Top 250 Directors |
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●
Key
Noir Filmmaker |
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●
Pantheon
Director |
| ●
100 Essential Directors (Pop
Matters) |
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The
3rd Most Influential Director of All Time (2002 MovieMaker
Poll) |
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Survey
of Filmmakers: Top 25 Directors (2005 poll by The Film
Journal) |
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●
Kent Jones' Top 10 Directors |
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David Sterritt's Top 10 Directors |
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501
Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest
Filmmakers |
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See Also |
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●
Peter
Bogdanovich |
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●
Joel
Coen and Ethan Coen |
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Richard
Fleischer |
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Stanley
Kubrick |
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Joseph
L. Mankiewicz |
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F.W.
Murnau |
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Laurence
Olivier |
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Max
Ophüls |
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Roman
Polanski |
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Carol
Reed |
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Robert
Siodmak |
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William
Wyler |
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Orson Welles' Favourites |
| The
Baker's Wife (1938)
Marcel Pagnol,
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Sergei Eisenstein,
City Lights (1931)
Charles Chaplin,
La Grande illusion (1937)
Jean Renoir,
Greed (1924)
Erich von Stroheim,
Intolerance (1916)
D.W. Griffith,
Nanook of the North (1922)
Robert Flaherty,
Ninotchka (1939)
Ernst Lubitsch,
Shoeshine (1946)
Vittorio De Sica,
Stagecoach (1939)
John Ford.
Source: Cinematheque Belgique (1952) |
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