hundredmillionlifetimes
Banned
" ... Maybe a man's name doesn't matter all that much."
Orson Welles on Gothic Chartres [from F For Fake]
Orson Welles on Gothic Chartres [from F For Fake]
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hundredmillionlifetimes
Banned
On the other hand, from the (symbolic) sublime to the (sarcastic) sonic, here's Welles in relaxed intensity, alternatively demonstrating his abilities as a pop music critic and commentator.
Is there even anyone (media-prominent) today in music criticism with the sheer nerve, with the ruthlessly disciplined sarcasm, with the committed, principled public stance (against smug dreck, in this historical case the rat-pack swooner Dean Martin) so evident in this short Wellesian performance from the archives?
"And now, may I direct my remarks to Dean Martin, who is being honoured here tonight for reasons that completely elude me ...":
"When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that's amore!"
[Yeah, they imagine that they don't want to end up like this]. Or especially this.]
Is there even anyone (media-prominent) today in music criticism with the sheer nerve, with the ruthlessly disciplined sarcasm, with the committed, principled public stance (against smug dreck, in this historical case the rat-pack swooner Dean Martin) so evident in this short Wellesian performance from the archives?
"And now, may I direct my remarks to Dean Martin, who is being honoured here tonight for reasons that completely elude me ...":
"When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that's amore!"
[Yeah, they imagine that they don't want to end up like this]. Or especially this.]
hundredmillionlifetimes
Banned
What's always interesting - and mind-bogglingly tragic - is that vast, reflecting-mirror netherland that resided between the two - constructed - Orsons: how every film he made was a nightmare of Hollywood-political machiavellianism, how all his Hollywood-funded films were financial and commercial flops, how his subsequent bitter exile to Europe fragmented his vision and his economic precariousness, all before the real horror set in. Hollywood later honoured Welles with a Lifetime Oscar and an AFI Life Achievement Award, but they still wouldn't let him make another film anywhere near a Hollywood studio, or any other studio. Worse were the easy-rider/raging-bulls of the New Hollywood, saying one thing in public about Welles and then doing another with their chequebooks, a different stripe of behaviour alltogether. It was perhaps the most emblematic and perverse instance of Hollywood hypocrisy and bad faith when Welles approached Spielberg for some funding to help complete one of his many unfinished film projects: Spielberg had spent $200K - going to some private seller - on the Rosebud sled from Citizen Kane, but didn't give a cent to Welles to finish his film.
[BTW, will have to comment on your "Crap Film" thread when I get a chance ...]
Guybrush
Dittohead
Orson Wells is shockingly brilliant in every way possible. I particularly adore his voice (one of the greatest, along with James Mason’s), and how he knows how to use it to tell a story in the most captivating way imaginable. «F for Fake» is filled with ingenious word-plays like, «they saw nothing, and believed every word they told each other», which may seem trivial in print, but sound uppermostly profound and poetic when read by him. That Chartres clip is fabulous.