MAGICIAN: THE ASTONISHING LIFE AND WORK OF ORSON WELLES – The Review

Not so very long ago I had a co-worker who described himself as a movie geek, film fan, cinema addict, what have you.  He talked about film as if he knew all about it.  I asked him one day what he thought of Orson Welles. His reply?

“I don’t think about Orson Welles, he was old and fat, now he’s dead, what am I supposed to think about him?”

Needless to say I never really talked to this person again, who shall remain nameless.  Of course the fact that he was an egocentric, arrogant, narcissistic weasel didn’t help matters.  (He claimed to have a small part in Tombstone, I have seen that movie several times, never spotted him, by the way…)

I simply cannot fathom the arrogance of someone dismissing, so casually one of the greatest film makers who ever lived.  I have been fascinated, obsessed even, with Orson Welles since about the age of 12. I’ve been told I resemble Welles, at least in size, wish I had one tenth of one per cent of his talent!

It was not Citizen Kane that got me started, I recall seeing that on television at about the age of 16, nor was it Lady From Shanghai although I recall seeing that on television at a young age as well.  (And it wasn’t the shootout in the hall of mirrors that captivated me,  it was “I woke up in the crazy house!”  What a great sequence!

No, Welles got under my skin when I saw, late night on Channel 11, KPLR-TV in St. Louis, a historical melodrama called Black Magic.  Based on a novel by Alexander Dumas peres it tells the tale of a charlatan and a mountebank named Cagliostro who got perilously close to the throne of France, namely King Louis XV, much as Rasputin came to dominate the Russian royal family.

Made in 1949 Welles, who allegedly partly directed the film, and it looks it, plays Cagliostro as no other actor could.  Still young and thin and energetic Welles towers over the other cast members and moves through the film like some force of nature, charismatic, hypnotic, egocentric and lusting for…everything, power, money, women, whatever.  Cagliostro wears all black clothes, decorated with every occult and religious symbol you can imagine.  He repeatedly does magic tricks, sleight of hand, which Welles always loved to do at every opportunity, hence the title of this amazing documentary.

I obtained a copy of Black Magic recently, from the now defunct Atlas Films (thanks Rob!)  I’m pleased to report it is actually better than I remembered!

Chuck Workman, (who created some of the greatest short films for The Academy Awards annual presentation, several of them are on Youtube) has put together one of the greatest documentaries about a film maker that you could ever hope to see.

Apparently I am not the only Movie Geek obsessed with Orson Welles.  The subject of no less than 5 biographies (I have read four of them, I especially can recommend Barbara Leaming’s book) we now have this marvelous film that charts the rise and fall and rise again of a man described as both a genius and a failure (anyone else see any problem with that?) Welles, in his lifetime, revolutionized no less than three art forms; theater, radio and motion pictures.  Given half a chance he would have done the same with television.

Raised to be a genius (a label he was not fond of) he lost both parents at a young age.   Magician charts every part of his life, raised by a family lawyer, staging Shakespeare while still a teen ager.  A walking tour of Ireland at 17 and presenting himself at the Gate Theater in Dublin, proclaiming himself an accomplished actor, when he was no such thing.

He revolutionized theater presentation on the New York stage, with the help of John Houseman and many others in the Mercury Theater, did the same on radio, again with the Mercury Theater.  And of course the infamous War of the Worlds broadcast, which allegedly caused a panic on the East Coast (apparently an urban legend concocted by the newspapers to try and discredit radio news, check it out on Snopes.com.)

Blessed with one of the most distinctive voices in acting history Welles was all over the place in the 1930s, doing as many as 3 or 4 radio shows in one day, theater at night and carousing around town with many women and drinking buddies.

After the War of the Worlds broadcast on October 30, 1938 Hollywood came calling.  Welles himself said he didn’t think he could make a movie, kept turning down every offer and asking for the kind of contract no one in Hollywood had at the time, complete control as to projects, editing, distribution, all that and much more than he thought he could obtain.  RKO finally made an offer he couldn’t refuse and the rest is motion picture history, namely Citizen  Kane, called by many the greatest and/or most important movie ever made.

Welles didn’t know it at the time but he would never have that kind of control again and complete very few movies after that.  Considering who Citizen Kane was based on, William Randolph Hearst and his girl friend Marion Davies, it’s a miracle Welles wasn’t shot dead.

We hear all about his disastrous marriage to Rita Hayworth and Lady From Shanghai.  His adventure in Brazil to try and make It’s All True while his follow-up to Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, was being taken out of his hands.  Welles never forgave Robert Wise for shooting new footage and reediting Ambersons, although Wise was only doing what the RKO management requested that he do.

Before the 1940s were over Welles would start a new pattern of making movies with his own money.  He did a very interesting version of Macbeth for Republic Studios, a company more famous for B Westerns and serials than Shakespeare.

Othello, Mr. Arkadin, The Trial, Chimes at Midnight, Welles’ self financed projects were few and far between.  Touch of Evil was his last film made with Hollywood financing.  One bit of information about Touch of Evil has always fascinated me; Welles got the job of directing the movie at the insistence of Charlton Heston, a lifelong Republican, Welles was a New Deal Democrat who never lost his love for Franklin Roosevelt.  Heston is seen in archival footage relating what he said many times,” why hire Welles as an actor and not give him a chance to direct the movie?”  Touch of Evil, either the theatrical version or the restored “director’s cut” ended up being one of Welles’ best.  But, man is that movie depressing!

He constantly worked as an actor, both on camera and voice work, especially for commercials.  He channeled that money into his own projects, many of which never got near completion.   There is a version of Don Quixote available on dvd for instance, but it is not what Welles had in mind, allegedly.  In fact according to an article in Filmfax Welles never intended to finish Don Quixote!

Magician has clips from both The Trial and Chimes at Midnight that look better than any version I have ever seen.  Both films have come and gone in grey market versions; neither has had a proper dvd or blu ray release.  A deluxe version of Mr. Arkadin was released a few years ago with no less than 4 versions of that film!  Part of the problem with Welles’ self financed projects is they exist in a legal tangle, along with his unfinished projects such as The Other Side of the Wind, The Deep and Merchant of Venice.

I would love to see a complete blu ray box set of everything Welles ever did, finished or not.  I would rather watch two minutes of an unfinished Welles film than some director’s entire resumes.

And descriptions of Welles are all over the map.  In Magician and in several interviews I have read over the years, actors, directors, writers who worked with Welles give very conflicting stories.  Some say he was a monstrous egomaniac who terrorized crews and tried to take over every film he ever acted in.  Others said he was laid back and quiet, reading and minding his own business until he was called on to heave himself in front of the camera and earn a paycheck.

Some of the Welles haters claimed he ended up like Charles Foster Kane, except with no money, sitting alone and friendless and broke.   Gary Graver who worked with Welles for years as a camera man tells a very different story, he had plenty of money, checks came in the mail every day.  He was surrounded by young people more than willing to work for little or no money on his self funded projects just so they could put an internship with Orson Welles on their resume.  That sounds good to me, in fact I can’t think of a better internship!

Fortunately for Magician and for us, Welles was a staple on television talk shows and specials like the Dean Martin Roasts.  Much of the footage in Magician is Welles himself telling his own story that he told many times.

He considered Peter Bogdanovich a trusted friend and granted many hours of interviews that Bogdanovich captured on audio tape.   One of the best stories about Welles I can think of, not included in Magician by the way, was told to Welles by Bogdanovich in one of these interviews.  He quoted John Barrymore who was asked what it felt like to be the greatest living actor of his generation.  Barrymore called the interviewer a dirty name and told him there were only two really great actors working at that time, Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles.  Welles reaction?  He grew very quiet, stared into the distance for a while, smoking his ever present cigar, finally realized the tape was still running and said “Jack was always full of shit!”

So for me, Magician is just about a perfect celebration of one of the greatest film makers who ever lived.  A role model and idol of all the independent film makers working now Welles went his own way, made his own films the way he wanted, never was heard to complain and show any bitterness at being locked out of the studio system.  Welles himself stated the film he was most proud of, that turned out exactly the way he wanted, was The Trial.  Citizen Kane will always be on that pedestal, like a fly frozen in amber, although it still works beautifully as what it was made for, a motion picture to entertain and astonish. But for me Welles will always be the man who made Lady From Shanghai, one of the first and best of the classic film noirs. I could listen to Welles tell that shark story one hundred and fifty times and never get tired of it.

Jeanne Moreau who worked for Welles in one of his last projects, a television special called Immortal Story, has the last word on Orson Welles.  She calls him “a king without a country!”  But I disagree, Orson Welles ruled over a kingdom of the imagination, anything he ever did as a director, actor or a raconteur is worth seeing.  He was more, so much more than a “fat old man who died.”