Orson Welles Volume 2

Examining the years from 'Citizen Kane' to 'Macbeth' in which Orson Welles' Hollywood film career came apart, this volume offers an analysis of the factors involved, presenting the complexities of Welles' temperament and some of the personalities with whom he had to contend.

“Unfailingly intelligent and well written . . . Vivid and three-dimensional.”—Variety The first volume of Simon Callow's magisterial biography of Orson Welles was praised as a "splendidly entertaining, definitive work" by Entertainment Weekly. Now, this eagerly anticipated second volume examines the years following Citizen Kane up to the time of Macbeth, in which Welles's Hollywood film career unraveled. In close and colorful detail, Callow offers a scrupulous analysis of the factors involved, revealing the immense and sometimes self-defeating complexities of Welles's temperament as well as some of the monstrous personalities with whom he had to contend.

Traces the life and career of the legendary director, discussing the making of "Citizen Kane," his contributions to such films as "The Magnificent Ambersons" and "The Lady from Shanghai," and his efforts in radio comedy, spectacular theater, and newspaper politics.

In One-Man Band, the third volume in his epic survey of Orson Welles’ life and work, Simon Callow again probes in comprehensive and penetrating detail into one of the most complex artists of the twentieth century, looking closely at the triumphs and failures of an ambitious one-man assault on one medium after another – theatre, radio, film, television, even, at one point, ballet – in each of which his radical and original approach opened up new directions and hitherto unglimpsed possibilities. The book begins with Welles’ self-exile from America, and his realisation that he could only function happily as an independent film-maker, a one-man band; by 1964, he had filmed Othello, which took three years to complete, Mr Arkadin, the biggest conundrum in his output, and his masterpiece Chimes at Midnight, as well as Touch of Evil, his sole return to Hollywood and, like all too many of his films, wrested from his grasp and re-edited. Along the way he made inroads into the fledgling medium of television and a number of stage plays, including Moby-Dick, considered by theatre historians to be one of the seminal productions of the century. Meanwhile, his private life was as dramatic as his professional life. The book shows what it was like to be around Welles, and, with a precision rarely attempted before, what it was like to be him, in which lies the answer to the old riddle: whatever happened to Orson Welles?

The reason for the decline of Orson Welles's career is a hotly debated issue, but decline it certainly did. When Citizen Kane, his first film, opened in 1941, Welles was universally acclaimed as the most audacious filmmaker alive. But instead of marking the beginning of a triumphant career in Hollywood, the film still regularly voted the greatest ever made proved to be an exception in Welles's life and work. In 1947 Welles left America for Europe and lived for the best part of twenty years in self-imposed exile. Welles himself famously quipped 'I started at the top and worked my way down' - the second volume of Simon Callow's compelling biography tells the story of that complex and protracted descent from grace.

Traces Welles' portentous childhood; his youth in New York, where he worked with director John Houseman; his notorious radio career; and the making of "Citizen Kane."

Publisher description

Traces the life and career of the legendary director, discussing the making of "Citizen Kane," his contributions to such films as "The Magnificent Ambersons" and "The Lady from Shanghai," and his efforts in radio comedy, spectacular theater, and newspaper politics.