Notes on Orson Welles

March 2, 2006

As the day draws to a close, Emily and I like to read a book together, which practically means that I read aloud while Emily falls asleep. Not every book works well as a read aloud book.. there generally needs to be some drama and dialogue. The current book is one that has been sitting on my shelves for a long time, a collection of interviews with Orson Welles conducted by Peter Bogdanovich (This Is Orson Welles). Welles is so lively and colorful in his answers that the book reads quickly and easily, providing a glimpse into a mind stocked with entertainment facts and history. Two paragraphs stand out:

PB: Well, you're shameless, but I think basically your taste is pretty—
OW: Low! . . . The truth is, Peter, I really am one of those I-don't-know-anything-about-art-but-I-know-what-I-like people. If there's no pleasure for me in it, I feel no obligation to a work of art. I cherish certain paintings, books, and films for the pleasure of their company. When I get no pleasure from an author, I feel no duty to consult him. My interests and enthusiasms are pretty wide; and I do try to keep trying to stretch them wider. but no strain. No. I am, indeed, quite shameless, as you say, about not straining to encompass what doesn't truly speak to me. [140-1]

I think it is just like in life, you meet people who consciously strive to "do the right thing", and then you meet people whose life choices are made from the heart. There seems something sterile to me about trying hard to act right, instead of actions flowing from internal standards.

OW: There is no "film culture," Peter—just an awful lot of films. We must "keep up with things," of course, but with the whole wide world—not just the movies. We must find out what we can about this place we're living in—this place in time—but we've got to be awfully careful, it seems to me, never to make ourselves too perfectly a part of it. Modishnes is the sure sign of the second-rate. We're finally to be judged not by the degree of our involvement in the mainstream, but by our individual response to it. [167]

What is refreshing about Welles—and perhaps also connected with his problems in Hollywood—is his sense that life is bigger than films—films being only one way to set down a slice of this world that rushes by us too quickly. Several times he articulates his strong dislike of "hommage" (71, 126), and it seems to me that this is an expression of suspicion toward those who let film dominate the perception of life. The stance he articulates at the end of the paragraph is that a creator is not to be a bystander reflecting the world.. something like what I recommended in my last blog.. but someone creatively interacting with that world.. finally producing an "individual response."