Best Director Ever? Give Me A Break!
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Balthazar-5 — 13 years ago(January 15, 2013 03:44 PM)
There are two theories that I have heard about this. I prefer the former, but the latter may well be the more accurate:
a) I was at a sort of party at Cannes in the eighties - I think it was just after Welles' death. I started talking to a woman of about my age - late 30s at the time, and the conversation turned to Welles - maybe we were talking about Jaglom's '
Someone to Love
'. The lady was the wife of an Australian director working in5b4 Hollywood - Philip Noyce, I think.
She said that she had, from time to time, asked people in Hollywood why Welles didn't get financing since to produce an Orson Welles film would have been one of the few almost guaranteed routes to immortality. Then she said that someone high up in one of the studios explained it like this: if you are a studio boss with the ability to greenlight major productions, you are pretty damned proud of youself - you think you are important, and you are. But if Orson Welles comes to see you, you feel small and insignificant. So that un-nerves you and you don't like the idea of being reminded of this fact, so you send him away with words of encouragement but no money.
b) Alexander Walker, the fine and under-rated film critic once told me that several film producers had told him that Welles wouldn't get financing because at the post-production stage, he would never let go of a film, never 'sign it off', he always wanted to keep working on it, and that could result in very unpleasant legal disputes, so he was effectively 'black-balled'.
In any event, he was the most wondrous artist: a deep thinker and a poet of his art. The inactivity of the last twenty years of his life will be regarded as one of the great cultural tragedies of the 20th Century.
THe only currently working director whom I think deserves to be mentioned in the same paragraph as him is Terrence Malick.
'Wb68isdom would be to see life, really see, that would be wisdom.' JLG. -
stephen-morton — 16 years ago(April 11, 2009 03:23 PM)
I could be wrong, but I think the BFI poll just asks what each critic/director thinks the Ten Greatest Films of all time are. THeir list of greatest directors is then calculated by how many times films by each director appear in the list. So since Citizen Kane is on practically everybody's list, he ends up first.
I personally don't consider him the greatest director of all time, though he's easily top 5. While he was clearly a genius, his output, constrained as it was, was just not up to the level of Alfred Hitchcock or Stanley Kubrick, so he loses out because he has fewer masterpieces and too many of his films were butchered by studios. Unfair, I know, but I judge by actual films instead of potential. (And I believe I've seen all his theatrically released films except The Trial and Journey Into Fear.) -
joeparkson — 16 years ago(April 21, 2009 03:14 PM)
Part of being great means working with the tools or people you've got, succeeding in the time and place you're in.
From reading "Citizen Welles", I am amazed that Welles got as far as he did given how many people he rubbed the wrong way and the numerous lies he told to get his way, the many, many unfinished projects. No director ever gets everything they want. Greatness means doing great work with what you've got. It means getting along with studio moguls whom you don't like because it's their studio, not yours.
I admire a director who can create great works with a small budget or modest actors. Look at George Stevens and "Shane". He made a great western with an undersized actor who's best years were behind him, Alan Ladd. -
grampashab — 16 years ago(April 22, 2009 10:43 AM)
" Unfair, I know, but I judge by actual films instead of potential."
I can dig that. Hitchcock and Kubrick ARE pretty stiff competition anyway, but I don't think they quite touched Touch of Evil. I do, howev7ecer, consider 2001, Dr. Strangelove and Psycho (on a good day) a tad better than Citizen Kane, however.
Badges? We don't need no stinking badges! -
cult_classics — 16 years ago(May 04, 2009 04:06 PM)
"Apparently, packers56789 hasn't heard of "Othello", "Chimes at Midnight", "The Trial", "Touch of Evil", "Macbeth", "F for Fake", or "The Lady From Shanghai"."
Or Mr. Arkadin, which in my book is Welles best film. I'd put many of those directors in the top 5, but Welles was streets ahead imo. His ever enduring sense of idealism is right up with Kubrick and Gilliam, even though without him we likely wouldn't have had them either.
"Confess quickly! If you hold out too long you could jeopardize your credit rating." -
grampashab — 16 years ago(April 22, 2009 10:41 AM)
If you can't see the mark of genius that separates Orson's best from everyone else (other makers of English-speaking film anyway) then frankly you're not alone. His incredible legacy doesn't catch everyone the same way, people tend to want to look at it in terms of quantity and so on, and they're welcome to. To me, it's not about how many great films, but about exactly how great the films are. He probably can't be called the greatest director uncontroversially (can anyone?) but he's as good a choice as anyone else. I do think he had more TALENT than any of the other guys you've listed, whatever that means.
Badges? We don't need no stinking badges! -
Balthazar-5 — 11 years ago(September 19, 2014 07:57 AM)
Truffaut had an expression about Welles to the effect that he was the only director who made films like composers compose music. This was, IMHO, because he was the director who understood exactly what magic can be achieved in the cutting room at a level of constructive montage that was, sometimes, breathtaking as it is in large sections of Terrence Malick's recent films. The same was true of Stan Brakhage at his best, but he rarely gave the impression that he was really in control of his work.
The battle of Shrewsbury sequence in
Chimes at Midnight
is possibly the clearest example of Welles demonstrating his mastery. There are spectacular shot-to-shot transformations in
Citizen Kane
, also.
Keep watching the masterpieces. -
studioboy69 — 16 years ago(June 05, 2009 04:30 PM)
I agree. He is not even close to the Best Director He seems to be a man's man so to speak.. meaning a certain breed of guys that like old classics for some reason tend to like him. To me he always came off as egotistical even in his directing efforts. ALFRED HITCHCOCK is by far the greatest director of all time anyone that states or claims different or at least when compared with Welles, is stretching more than a bit.
I do disagree with one thing in packers post Citizen Kane is totally of the "love it, hate it" lot when this happens for some reason I usually end up sitting on the fence. Citizen Kane was not an all around "fantastic" film.. it is in fact very boring. It is very well made and very attractive. but no matter how much one loves "talky" pictures- the story is just not that compelling. It seems to have gained a lot of credit from one single story surprise "rosebud". however, it's not enough to make it through the film in one sitting without dozing off a time or two. What I always remember is how- Agnes Moorehead was wasted thats probably why she ended up giving a bigger performance in "The Magnificent Ambersons". Go figure.
Anyways yeah Alfred Hitchcock.. hands down. No and's, if's or but's about it. Sorry Welles fans. -
grampashab — 16 years ago(June 10, 2009 11:47 AM)
"Anyways yeah Alfred Hitchcock.. hands down. No and's, if's or but's about it. Sorry Welles fans."
Not quite.
By your very own (questionable) criteria, why are Renoir, Bresson, Ford, Clouzot and Kurosawa out of the running?
And that's some useless critique of Welles in my book.
Badges? We don't need no stinking badges! -
LukeLovesFilm28 — 11 years ago(March 23, 2015 09:28 AM)
"Citizen Kane is totally of the 'love it, hate it' lot when this happens for some reason I usually end up sitting on the fence. Citizen Kane was not an all around 'fantastic' film.. it is in fact very boring. It is very well made and very attractive. but no matter how much one loves "talky" pictures- the story is just not that compelling."
Those are some strong and dare I say, very ignorant words. You talk like a fan of Transformers trying to find brilliance in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. It's really sad. -
shadgrindk — 16 years ago(July 23, 2009 09:14 PM)
If there was only one man in the history of cinema directors who deserves the attached title of 'GENIUS' to his name and reputation, it's Welles.
He truly invented a number of cinematic elements first used in Citizen Kane and other films of his, and Othello has the ultimate combination of cinematography, editing, music, set design and the union of all elements into a medievil Shakespearean masterpiece. There were many other films that add to his reputation. He's not necessarily the greatest, but he was the most innovative of all filmmakers.