Orson Welles
George Orson Welles, best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio. Noted for his innovative dramatic productions as well as his distinctive voice and personality,
Welles is widely acknowledged as one of the most accomplished dramatic artists of the twentieth century, especially for his significant and influential early work—despite his notoriously contentious relationship with Hollywood. His distinctive directorial style featured layered, nonlinear narrative forms, innovative uses of lighting such as chiaroscuro, unique camera angles, sound techniques borrowed from radio, deep focus shots, and long takes.
Welles's long career in film is noted for his struggle for artistic control in the face of pressure from studios. Many of his films were heavily edited and others left unreleased. He has been praised as a major creative force and as "the ultimate auteur."
After directing a number of high-profile theatrical productions in his early twenties, including an innovative adaptation of Macbeth and The Cradle Will Rock, Welles found national and international fame as the director and narrator of a 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds performed for the radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was reported to have caused widespread panic when listeners thought that an invasion by extraterrestrial beings was occurring. Although these reports of panic were mostly false and overstated, they rocketed Welles to instant notoriety.
Citizen Kane (1941), his first film with RKO, in which he starred in the role of Charles Foster Kane, is often considered the greatest film ever made. Several of his other films, including The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Lady from Shanghai (1947), Touch of Evil (1958), Chimes at Midnight (1965), and F for Fake (1974), are also widely considered to be masterpieces.
In 2002, he was voted the greatest film director of all time in two separate British Film Institute polls among directors and critics, and a wide survey of critical consensus, best-of lists, and historical retrospectives calls him the most acclaimed director of all time. Well known for his baritone voice, Welles was also an extremely well regarded actor and was voted number 16 in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list of the greatest American film actors of all time. He was also a celebrated Shakespearean stage actor and an accomplished magician, starring in troop variety shows in the war years.
“Our works in stone, in paint, in print, are spared, some of them, for a few decades or a millennium or two, but everything must finally fall in war, or wear away into the ultimate and universal ash - the triumphs, the frauds, the treasures and the fakes. A fact of life: we're going to die. "Be of good heart," cry the dead artists out of the living past. "Our songs will all be silenced, but what of it? Go on singing." Maybe a man's name doesn't matter all that much.”
“I can think of nothing that an audience won't understand. The only problem is to interest them;once they are interested, they understand anything in the world.”
“I don't think any word can explain a man's life.”
“I'm not basically a happy person, but I have all kinds of joy.”
“If you want a happy ending, it depends on where you stop the story”
“There are three intolerable things in life - cold coffee, lukewarm champagne, and overexcited women...”
“Exactly, I repeated myself. I believe we do it all the time. We always take up certain elements again. How can it be avoided? An actor’s voice always has the same timbre and, consequently, he repeats himself. It is the same for a singer, a painter…There are always certain things that come back, for they are part of one’s personality, of one’s style. If these things didn’t come into play, a personality would be so complex that it would become impossible to identify it.It is not my intention to repeat myself, but in my work there should certainly be references to what I have done in the past. Say what you will, but The Trial is the best film I ever made…I have never been so happy as when I made this film.(talking about directing, The Trial (1962) - from Orson Welles: Interviews (book))”
“A good artist should be isolated. If he isn't isolated, something is wrong.”
“The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.”
“If you want a happy ending, it just depends on where you close the book!”
“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.”
“If there hadn't been women we'd still be squatting in a cave eating raw meat, because we made civilization in order to impress our girlfriends.”
“I don't say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could.”
“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn”
“You're beautful. Yes you are, you're very very beautiful. Extremely beautiful.”
“I dont believe in learning from other peoples pictures. I think you should learn from your own interior vision of things and discover, as I say, Innocently, as though there had never been anybody.”
“In my opinion, there are two things that can absolutely not be carried to the screen: the realistic presentation of the sexual act and praying to God.”
“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”
“What's happening now is what happened before, and often what's going to happen again sometime or other”
“Viele Menschen sind gut erzogen, um nicht mit vollem Mund zu sprechen, aber sie haben keine Bedenken, es mit leerem Kopf zu tun.”
“My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.”
“Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him.”
“I passionately hate the idea of being with it, I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.”
“A toast, Jedediah, to love on my terms. Those are the only terms anybody ever knows - his own.”
“The absence of limitations is the enemy of art.”
“I don't pray really, because I don't want to bore God.”
“Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.”