Orson Welles was realizer, actor, producer and American scenario writer. Born on May 6th, 1915 with Kenosha in the Wisconsin (the United States), he died on October 10th, 1985 with Hollywood, Los Angeles in California of an heart attack. In accordance with its last will, its ashes were dispersed above Spain.

He was sometimes credited under the names with O.W. Jeeves or G.O. Spelvin .

Orson Welles left traces in the memory of the film enthusiasts in more than one way. For example, its first film, Citizen Kane , are regularly quoted as being the largest film of the history of the cinema in the majority of the critical referendums. And this in spite of the fact that it was practically about a film of beginner in this field.

Biography

A rich and chaotic childhood

His/her father, Richard Heard Welles, are engineer and his/her mother, Béatrice Ives Welles, are pianist. The son describes them as follows: “My father was a jovial fellow of the Edwardian time which liked to be said inventive. He generous and tolerant, was adored of all his friends. I owe him a privileged childhood and the love of the voyages. My mother was a woman of a memorable beauty, it dealt with policy, was a champion of shooting to rifle, as well as a very gifted pianist of concert. I hold of it the love of the music and the eloquence without which no human being is complete”.

The Orson young person grows in an environment of refined culture and a key of eccentricity. What has immediate repercussions. Testimonys of its precocity are multiple and eloquent: it can read at two years, learns how to play of the piano at three years and carries out its first adaptation of Shakespeare to seven years. So that the local newspaper devotes a titrated article to him: “Draftsman, actor poet; he does not have that ten years” Its aptitudes in the entertainment world do not stop there. He is also decorator, director and especially actor. At ten years, he interprets Peter Rabbit in Marshall Field of Chicago.

But misfortunes of the Orson young person start when in 1925, it loses his/her mother. Five years later, it loses his father and finds, at fifteen years, orphan. It is dealt with by friend of its parents who will deal with his education. It gains, in 1930, a price rewarding its setting in scene for Jules César of Shakespeare. It leaves for the Ireland, to seal its thirst for painting. He traverses the country with an ass car, and goes to Dublin, sixteen years old. He presents himself as a high-speed motorboat of the theater of New York in front of the director of Spoils Theater. This last is Bern because Welles was skilfully grimé, and its hot and serious voice the fact of passing for older than it is it really. It looks further into its experiment of the scene: “I started by playing the first parts… in the high-speed motorboat. The small roles came later. ” It leaves then to Spain, and is made pass for an author of detective novels.

Promising beginnings

After this formative experiment, it goes back to the United States in 1933. The young man has an immense literary and theatrical culture, and has already a solid controls artefacts of the scene. He also shows aptitudes for conjuring. He initially will work, in 1934, in Todd School of Woodstock, in the Illinois. It become acquainted with Virginia Nicholson there, eighteen year old actress, which it marries a few months later. In 1939, the couple has a girl. If he does not manage to take down the first roles at the time of the various settings in scene, he with satisfaction to start to make known itself with Broadway. John Houseman offers to him to work with him, with the Federal Theater. Parallel to its scenic activities, it begins with the radio where its hot voice and serious fact of the wonders.

It creates sensation while assembling on the boards a very original adaptation of the Macbeth of Shakespeare, because it transposes the history from Scotland, misty and cold, with Tahiti, with black actors. The history proceeds at the time of the black emperor Jean-Christophe, and the witches become of the wizards vaudoux. It also assembles the Faust of Marlowe. Houseman and Welles wish to put in scene a kind of satire of the American political life in form of opera entitled The craddle will rock'n'roll . Many political opponents, but also of the enemies of the Federal Theater, make pressure at Washington, which orders with the police force to close the doors of the theater. Houseman and Welles refuse to obey and play their opera in the street, in front of two thousand people.

It founds, always with John Houseman, Mercury Theater, in 1938, specialized in Shakespeare. It carries out radiophonic adaptations, with the troop of Mercury, the parts of the English playwright, as well as many novels, of which the Splendor of Amberson , which will be its second feature film. Monday October 30th 1938, it frightens a good part of America while making accept the invasion Martians. The coast of exceptionally gifted goes up out of arrow, and Hollywood makes him the soft eyes.

The cinema

It is with RKO that Welles will work. The studio gives him a whole artistic freedom: he is realizer, actor, scenario writer of his own film. Never nobody had a so great freedom for a first film. A few years later, Welles will realize that this unhoped-for gift was poisoned. He works initially with the adaptation of a novel of Joseph Conrad, In the middle of darkness (which later is transposed by Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now ). The project does not succeed. Welles, with Hermann Mankiewicz, the brother of the scenario writer Joseph Mankiewicz, writes the scenario of Citizen Kane , starting from the life of the press baron William Randolph Hearst. All the troop of Mercury is present. The scenario writer obtained total control and wishes to maintain the secrecy on the subject of sound flm, but the producers try to interfere themselves. They unload with the improvist on the plate, and discover technicians and actors exploiting baseball order of the realizer. For the period of post-production, Orson Welles takes part in many promotional demonstrations where one speaks to him only about the parallel between the character of Charles Foster Kane and William Randolph Hearst. Wearied, Welles declares that if one continues to overheat the ears to him, its next film will be a biography of William Randolph Hearst. In spite of an enormous denigration campaign orchestrated by Hearst, the film leaves in rooms. Critical success is unanimous: the film of Welles is a revolution in the cinematographic technique, of the structure of the account, the assembly, the decorations, the make-up, the movements of camera and the impact of the images. But the public does not follow.

For its second film, the Splendor of Amberson , the studio reconsiders its contract, and reduces its room for maneuver. Once again, the genius of the scenario writer floods film, but the public is still not there. It leaves to Brazil, to prepare a report on the festival of Rio. On the spot, it is impassioned for the account of four sailors and starts to turn the sequences of what was to be It' S all true , but that it been able finished forever, for many reasons, in particular financial. In the months which followed, one told that the film would never leave because the rushes rested at the sea-bed. During this time, the layings of the RKO, dissatisfied with pre-projections, oblige Robert Wise, the assembler of the first two films of Orson Welles, to go up film during the absence of the scenario writer. More forty-three minutes are withdrawn in spite of the insistence of all the actors who ask the producers to await the return of Welles to make a decision concerning the future of film. Even if Welles recognizes that in this situation, Wise is taken between the hammer and the anvil, it will never forgive him. He will say: “I was in South America and awaited the rushes Voyage to the country of the fear ; at this point in time an urchin of the RKO having received the benevolent approval of a couple of vice-presidents and critics of the studio, allowed themselves to assemble film. The result was fortunately presented by one black night, whereas nobody looked at. ”

After two consecutive commercial failures, Welles becomes suspect with the eyes of the studios. In financial delicacy, he plays in many films to finance his projects. On the personal level, he marries the star Rita Hayworth on September 7th 1943. The chance smiles to him with the criminal . The producers of film propose in Welles to carry out film, on the condition of taking the scenario of John Huston such as it is. It accepts and easily manages to conclude the setting in scene with ten days in advance on the date envisaged. The same year, Charlie Chaplin leaves Mr Verdoux , according to an idea of Orson Welles, like in fact mention the credits of film. Welles had proposed in Chaplin to play the main role in a film inspired of the business Landru. After reading of the scenario, Chaplin rewrites it according to its needs, including a socio-economic criticism in particular there, and to compensate Welles, he proposes to him 5000 dollars like his presence with the credits.

In 1948, a small independent studio, specialized in the western, agrees to finance its next film, Macbeth , of which it dissimulates the poverty of the decorations by an artificial fog. The result is seizing of strangeness and mystery, restoring very well the atmosphere of the part of Shakespeare. New master stroke: he makes his film in only twenty and one days. The same year, it carries out the Lady of Shanghai , thanks to the presence of Rita Hayworth, with which it is in divorce pending. The public shouts with the scandal by seeing russet-red Rita as a platinum blonde, cynical and cold, symbol of the Hollywood glamor , and is sulky the film which does not pack either the Columbia, which prefers to await the different exit of sound film with Hayworth, Gilda , to leave film Welles. This fourth film of that which is now the enfant terrible of Hollywood completes on the sequence of the palate of the ices, where the three protagonists entretuent themselves. Woody Allen will pay there homage in mysterious Meurtre to Manhattan , by putting in scene the final settling of score in a part filled with mirrors.

The European career

In disgrace with the American producers, Welles will play of many roles to finance its new project: Othello . It will spend four years to make film, using many decorations (Venice, Rome, as well as many places of Italy and of Morocco) without that being visible or handicapping, stopping its film for lack of financing to take it again later a few months. Once again, the artistic success is total, the film receiving even a reward in Cannes. Three years later, it carries out Mr secret Arkadin-File , in the line of Citizen Kane , for artistic and commercial results very similar. He plays in several films, in particular in France where he is very admired: does Paris burn? of Rene Clement, If Versailles to me were told and Napoleon of Sacha Guitry with which, it gets along with wonder. The two men have many common points: men of theater and radio, realizers and actors, scenario writers of their own films, same black and caustic humor.

In 1958, he sees himself entrusted the realization of the Thirst for the evil . In its discussions with his/her friend Peter Bogdanovich, Welles explains how Charlton Heston, large star of the Fifties, played a determining role for him. Interested by the project, Heston meets the producers of Universal who declare to him that the distribution will include/understand Janet Leigh in the role of his wife, and Orson Welles in the role of the police chief. Heston believes that Welles will be the realizer of film and declares: " If Welles is the realizer, I am of accord" . The machine is moving, and the producers who view every evening, the rushes are packed at the point to propose in Welles to sign a contract of four films for the five years to come. Alas for him, once the assembled film, the studio changes position radically. Always in the book of Bogdanovich, Welles declares: " humor that I put in film was unusual for the time. Today, it was standardized. But at the time, it displeased with the layings of Universal" . Its only wrong would be to be too much advances some over its time. It is its last Hollywood film.

It starts to turn, in 1959, the first images of Don Quichotte , film which will never be born of the hand of its author. It will turn during seven years, stopping voluntarily film, generally for budgetary reasons. It will be assembled in 1994, according to the notes left by Welles. In 1963, it signs the Lawsuit according to Kafka. Film baroque and destabilizing, with an eclectic distribution, which is completed on mushroom cloud. Three years later, it puts in scene Falstaff , which is a recasting of several tragedies of Shakespeare. Orson Welles incarnates John Falstaff, and its passion devouring for the English playwright irradiates film; he considers itself that it is about his greater success: my best film is Falstaff, then Amberson. Falstaff is the complement, forty years later, of this Citizen Kane which I turned at the dawn of my life. Its film following, F for fake is a reflection on the cinema, art of the illusion, like on the various techniques being implemented. Its very last work, Filming Othello , is completed for television, but profits from a distribution in rooms. Fact rare but due to the personality and the prestige of its author. In 1982, he is the president of the ceremony of the César.

The artist

Actor shakespearien brilliant and inspired, incisive scenario writer, Orson Welles knew to pose on the entertainment world and of the communication a lucid glance and visionary. Its analysis of the capacity of the media, in Citizen Kane , did not take a wrinkle. And the dangers related to the advances in knowledge, crystallized in the accident of George Amberson, in its second film, are always of current events. But the man is before all set on literature, music, painting and theater. In 1958, come to present the Thirst for the evil in France, Orson Welles meets André Bazin, journalist and founder of the Cahiers of the cinema, to which it grants a long maintenance which is included in the book that the critic devotes to Welles. He acknowledges his admiration without terminals for Raimu which he holds for the largest actor of the world, especially the woman of the baker . He speaks about the scenario writers whom he admires: Marcel Pagnol, John Ford of which he saw the fantastic Ride forty times before carrying out its first film, Vittorio de Sica, Kenji Mizoguchi, Sergueï Eisenstein, Charlie Chaplin, Rene Clair and D.W. Griffith. But it is not tender with some of its pars. Always in the discussion with Bazin, it descends Roberto Rossellini, Nicholas Ray and Vincente Minnelli. Only Stanley Kubrick finds thanks to her eyes. Remainder, it is possible to consider Kubrick as the best disciple of Welles so much the two artists have in common.

Its career was not a long quiet river. It was obliged to battle firm to conclude all its projects, which it is of theater or cinema. After 1946 and the commercial failure cooking of the Round the world tour in eighty days of Cole Porter, with the theater, it had troubles with the tax department. But he also knew happy moments. He could assemble some parts of Shakespeare to England. Visionary and daring, it assembled, to New York, Macbeth and transposed the history from misty Scotland to the islands of Tahiti, while making play black actors. Its passion for the large English playwright will not stop with the theater and the cinema: it carries out several radiophonic adaptations which it will leave thereafter in disc.

He collaborated with the group of Heavy-Metal Manowar by lending his voice on narrations on the titles " Dark Avenger" and " Defender".

Shakespeare

Orson Welles idolâtrait the English playwright more than no matter whom. In the multiple talks which it granted, it did not cease repeating that Shakespeare was the largest poet of all times. The shock, in most beautiful and the noblest direction of the term, between the two artists could lead only to chief-of works. Before even making cinema, Welles had a perfect command of the theater of Shakespeare: Richard III, monster of the theater of the English playwright, was with his repertory. In 1939, it produces the five kings , where it remake several parts, and the fact of playing by Mercury Theater. Dedication take place in the Fifties, some time after having finished its adaptation of Othello . Thanks to the assistance of the actor Laurence Olivier, it could assemble the part on the scene of the Saint James Theater, that is to say the temple of the theater élizabéthain. The triumph was total. In 1956, in New York, it put in scene the king Lear , with the theater City Center, always with same success.

With the cinema, the influence of Shakespeare appears as of Citizen Kane : a king of the press, which seeks to extend its empire, must wipe several sentimental, relational failures and professionals who will lead it to loneliness and death. We find in this first film of many sets of themes shakespeariennes: a solitary king, trying in vain to reconcile ambition, be able and family life, and having to face treason. Those of his/her friends, but also his because Charles Kane betrays his profession of faith. This topic of treason, and the failure which follows, will be found throughout its work, but also of its professional life. It is enough to think of It' S all true and Don Quichotte : betrayed by his commercial failures, the scenario writer has many difficulties in conclude his projects. The adaptations that Orson Welles realizes are each one different but also attractive. Macbeth is mainly made up of very long sequence shots. The only crowning of the king lasts nearly ten minutes. The scenario writer plunges film in fogs, pointing out those of Scotland, in order to hide the poverty of the decorations. Contrary, Othello is composed of approximately two thousand plans. True technical prowess of Welles which stops its film to take it again later a few months, once arrived finances. It is also the film where the topic of treason is sublimated: Othello is Bern by Iago which he believes being his friend, whereas makes this last of it serves only its ambitions. Its last adaptation is also imposing since it is about Falstaff , where he remake several parts of the playwright and fact of John Falstaff, supporting character, almost a development at Shakespeare, a character of foreground. The sequence of battle is admirable, and the Welles pachyderm, very far from the young first of Citizen Kane , incarnates the buffoon but sincere Falstaff, disavowed by his/her friend become king.

Advertisement of October 30th, 1938

It probably thus created the most famous emission of all the history of radio operator Monday October 30th 1938. This day, on CBS, the emission Mercury Theater one the air (the Mercury Theater on the waves) presents an adaptation of the War of the worlds of HG Wells in which a false presenter of CBS announces the quarrelsome arrival of the Martians on Earth.

It should be known that in 1938, the radio is a new object and therefore of many listeners listen to it. Thus it manages to make accept nearly a million of them (on the 6 million which listened to the emission) that the United States is indeed attacked by the extraterrestrial ones come from Mars and that it is imperatively necessary to flee. It is thus chaos in any New York and even the American troops, massed in the port but in permission, are recalled with an aim of defending the fatherland. The radio is submerged calls of people claiming to have seen UFO… a water tank will be taken for a machine extraterrestrial and sifted balls by citizens. In fact, panic took place only the following day, in the press.

Quotations

  • “Among the young generation, Kubrick appears to me to be a giant. ”
  • “Jeanne Moreau is the largest actress of the world. ”
  • “happiness is not the right of each one, it is a combat of the every day.”

Catalog of films

Realizer

Actor

American boxoffice

Documentary for television

  • 1955 : Orson Welles' Sketchbook
  • 1955 : Around the World with Orson Welles
the Business Dominici
  • Bullfight in Madrid
  • Saint-Germain-of-Meadows
  • the Pays Basque
  • the Ball Basque
  • the Third Man in Vienna
  • Prisoners of the Queen

    Producer

    See too

    • the work Me, Orson Welles which covers all its career is composed of several discussions with Peter Bogdanovich, carried out as from 1968 and extending over 15 years. It is its only true autobiography.

    • There exists audio CD published in France which restores the whole of the emission the war of the worlds of 1938 with a thick booklet of comments, in the collection the great hours of the radio (Phonurgia nova editions, Arles, France. 1989).

    • Films carried out by Orson Welles

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