Orson Welles is the ultimate auteur, according to many. Moreover, he was a revolutionary. Not to mention, from the start, he was a highly ambitious person. After turning down a scholarship from Harvard University to further his studies, Welles started traveling and eventually secured a role in a theater in Dublin, Ireland, claiming to be a Broadway star.
Born in Wisconsin in 1915, Welles had an excellent education. Beatrice Ives, his mother, was both an activist and a pianist. Richard Head Welles, his father, was a businessman and an inventor. The young Welles was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to tour the world with his father following the death of his mother when he was nine years old. But at the age of 14, Welles also lost his father in 1930, and Maurice Bernstein, a family friend, took custody of him.
Welles was skilled in acting, painting, playing the piano and violin, magic tricks, and staging. Following his graduation from the Todd School, Welles attended the Art Institute of Chicago before traveling to Ireland to work as a play director, set designer, and writer for newspapers.
He returned to London and New York in 1932 after leaving Ireland. In spite of this, he kept traveling and spent a year in Spain and Morocco after failing to achieve success. Welles was selected to play Mercutio in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in 1933 and 1934 after being introduced to actress Katherine Cornell. Not only did he set up a summer theater festival at Todd School during that period, but he also received the chance to direct his first short film, The Hearts of Age, at the festival's end.
Welles was also successful in radio. His rendition of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, which debuted on October 30, 1938, in the style of a news broadcast with Welles narrating, was one of his most popular and successful series. It heralded the arrival of mars invaders in New Jersey, sparking a national panic. The rumor is that, at the time, even Adolf Hitler objected to it.
If you're at all familiar with films and you hear the name Orson Welles, you've probably heard that he's one of the greatest directors of the twentieth century. Welles started producing full-length motion pictures with his 1941 RKO release of Citizen Kane, which was his debut feature, at only 25 years old.
People are continually being inspired by Welles, and the list of directors he has influenced is long and includes Spielberg, Paul Thomas Anderson, Shyamalan, Tarantino, Nolan, Godard, and many more. Speaking about Godard, he was so moved that in the late 1950s he contributed to the beginning of the French New Wave, a film art movement in France.
Welles' ability to operate outside of the constrictive studio framework is what makes him so groundbreaking. He broke a lot of rules. His second film, The Magnificent Ambersons, released in 1942, was partially edited by the studio, despite the fact that RKO gave him complete creative power when he created Citizen Kane. This is so that, in order to commercialize it, RKO may release their own version. Welles once expressed how saddened he was to be pillaged by RKO later on and that he never recovered from such an attack.
Welles’ subsequent cinematic endeavors included the 1946 noir thriller The Stranger, the 1947 feature The Lady from Shanghai, and a 1948 Macbeth adaptation. With all of these pictures and the rest, Welles followed his own set of guidelines. And practically all of his movies continue to have an impact today.
Many people believe Orson Welles was despised by the film industry. But that's a misnomer. From the start, Welles was the most popular and inspirational figure. Indeed, his distinctiveness lay in the multitude of ways that set him apart. He was also extremely accomplished in whatever he knew and gifted in many areas.
Welles' first feature-length picture, Citizen Kane, in which he plays Charles Foster Kane, set the stage for his subsequent troubles. The figure is a representation of newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, a legendary figure in publishing at the time. When Welles turned his lens on him, the two geniuses squared off.
Everyone, with the exception of gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, thought the movie was fantastic following an early screening. After Hopper notified Hearst, Hearst made every effort to stifle Citizen Kane in order to save his reputation. Hearst’s fury was also mostly centered on Marion Davies' portrayal in the movie. Hearst's companion, Davies, was an actress, screenwriter, producer, and a philanthropist, who was adored in Hollywood. Her honor was at stake. Welles eventually acknowledged the unfairness of Davies's character, Susan Alexander.
Even if Hearst caused some harm, Citizen Kane went on to become the greatest movie made by Hollywood, and one man—Orson Welles—was the driving force behind it. Creative control was always at the root of the other issues Welles encountered with the system. Welles demanded the final cut and was a control freak. On the other hand, studios believed that Welles was not producing movies to earn money at the box office.
I can't hold it against the studios because, at the end of the day, they are in the business of making money off of films, and they want to make sure that their profits outweigh their expenses. This does not imply that they lack taste in films.
But the problem with the studio's approach most of the time is that their rendition often detracts from the film's artistic merits. In a sense, this is mutilating an artist's creation in order to make it profitable. The majority of the studio versions we find are inferior to the original version. Frances Ford Coppola experienced similar problems in his day. Even though his early movies didn't turn a profit, he insisted on having total control.
If you are able to decipher the code and operate inside the system, I think the studio structure can work to your benefit. The perfect example is Christopher Nolan. Though he approaches his highly creative works with a blockbuster sensibility, the studios don't meddle in any way; he has complete creative authority. Not only that, but his movies bring in millions. I will discuss Nolan further, as he is a revolutionary in his own right.
Another factor in Welles' rise to prominence, respect, and platform was his conduct. Despite all of the difficulties he faced, he managed to achieve even in terms of using the money he earned from acting to finance the making of his movies. Welles did indeed have some unfinished projects that, regrettably, never got made, but it didn't stop him from becoming a legendary figure in cinema history.
Welles was a controversial and complex man. He exuded vitality, flair, and charm in equal measure. His presence required notice. He spoke as though he were a prophet or philosopher who had been sent to earth as a kind of angel by the gods of film to upend everything with every utterance. He was wonderful, audacious, brilliant, and all-around amazing.
“Everybody told me from the moment I could hear that I was absolutely marvelous.”
— Orson Welles