Orson Welles: The One-Man Band (1995)

Directors:

Vassili Silovic
Oja Kodar (co-director)

Writers:

Vassili Silovic (writer)
Roland Zag (writer)

Release Date:

8 October 1995 (France)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

Orson Welles' archives of unfinished/never released movies and the last years of his life from the perspective...

Plot Keywords:

Independent Film | Character Name In Title

Cast

  (Credited cast)

Oja Kodar
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ingrid Bergman	...	Herself (segment "Salute to Orson Welles") (archive footage)
Tim Brooke-Taylor	...	Algy in 'Stately Homes' segment, Presenter in 'One-Man Band' segment
Michael Bryant	...	(segment "The deep") (archive footage)
Graeme Garden	...	Interviewer in 'Stately Homes' segment (voice)
Charles Gray	...	(segment "Taylor's shop" / segment "The merchant of Venice") (archive footage)
Laurence Harvey	...	(segment "The deep") (archive footage)
François Marthouret	...	Narrator (french version) / Récitant (voice)
Jeanne Moreau	...	(segment "The Deep") (archive footage)
Orson Welles	...	Himself (archive footage)

Also Known As:

Orson Welles - l'homme orchestre (France) (TV title)
The Lost Films of Orson Welles (UK) (TV title)

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

Germany | France | Switzerland

Language:

English | German

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR)

Trivia:

This documentary is featured on the 2-Disc Criterion Collection DVD for _Vérités et mensonges (1976)_, released in 2005.

Movie Connections:

Features The Other Side of the Wind (1972)

The Twilight Years Of A Film-making Prodigy.

When a person slowly disappears, nobody seems to notice. This is probably what happened to Orson Welles when his film career stumbled into a downhill slope. The man who was arguably the most brilliant filmmaker to emerge on the American scene, ended up doing narration, wine commercials, and magic shows. He died in poverty, leaving behind masterpieces, but also leaving behind dozens of unfinished films. Films that could have been just as magical as his earlier works. 'Orson Welles - The One Man Band" takes a look at those struggling later years when Welles was a ghost hovering around the Hollywood movie scene. Many people knew he was trying to make movies, but many people also knew he could never get them finished. Because of his inability to finish films, no major studio would try to finance him, so he became a gypsy-like filmmaker. Even still then many projects were not finished.

Although it is sad to see a legend struggling so badly, the film does not feel sorry for him. In fact, the film has a very positive outlook on Welles later years. The film is narrator by two people. One is the filmmaker. The other is Welles' companion, Oja Kodar. She had spent a considerable time with Welles in his last years and knew him probably better than anyone else. The image she shows of Welles was not of a burned-out has-been, but of a strong man who still had plenty of creative spark. When watching the snippets and short clips from his unfinished films, one can see exactly what Oja Kodar was seeing. Either it was bad luck or it was his conflicts with studios that could not get his films finished. Or maybe it was both. Regardless, one can see even in his later films, Welles still had incredible film-making talent and vision. One can see that he was also a versatile actor. He could play a wide variety of roles and play them as good as the best actors. When we see how creative he still was, we cannot help but think it was the Hollywood that ruined his career. There could be a lot of truth to this because many people feel he was never the same after 'Citizen Kane' because Welles might have stepped on too many big toes after his brilliant debut feature. But the unknown remains just that. At times, it is the artist who ruins his or her career with their own bare hands.

It is hard to say what happened, but this film does not try to explain that either. It tries to focus on Welles the artist. And he was just that until his death. An artist who had no audience. How frustrating, but we have seen this example time and again throughout history.