Originally published in hardcover in 2006. "Parts of the epilogue appeared in somewhat different form in Bright lights and Sight & sound, on Wellesnet.com, and in Two cheers for Hollywood: Joseph McBride on movies (Berkeley : Hightower Press, 2017)."--Title page verso. Includes bibliographical references (pages 336-356) and index.
Contents:
Introduction: "The high priest of the cinema." -- 1: "God, how they'll love me when I'm dead!" -- 2: "Committing masterpieces." -- 3: Orson Welles at large. -- 4: "Twilight in the Smog." -- 5: "Your friendly neighborhood grocery store." -- 6: "No wine before its time." -- Epilogue: "From before the beginning, young fella - and now, it's after the end" - revelations from Welles's ongoing career.
Summary:
"What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? A Portrait of an Independent Career" challenges the conventional wisdom that Welles's career after Kane was a long decline and that he spent his final years doing little but eating and making commercials while squandering his earlier promise. In this intimate and often surprising personal portrait, Joseph McBride shows instead how Welles never stopped directing radical, adventurous films and was always breaking new artistic ground as a filmmaker. McBride is the first author to provide a comprehensive examination of the films of Welle's artistically rich yet little know later period in the United States (1970-1985) when McBride knew and worked with him. McBride reports on Welles's daringly experimental film projects, including the legendary 1970-1976 unfinished film The Other Side of the Wind, Welles's satire of Hollywood during the Easy Rider era. McBride gives a unique, inside perspective on Welles from the viewpoint of a young film critic playing a spoof of himself in a cast headed by John Huston and Peter Bogdanovich. To put Welles's widely misunderstood later years into context, What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? reexamines the filmmaker's entire life and career. McBride offers many fresh insights into the collapse of Welles's Hollywood career in the 1940s, his subsequent political blacklisting, and his long period of European exile.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.