Dear Simon Callow: Your remarkable talk illustrates the brilliance of Welles and how he was influenced by the great theatrical movements in the THEATRE OF 1930S Whether from Max Reinhardt and Erwin Piscator in BERLIN to THE GROUP THEATRE IN NEW YORK. I am so delighted that my late husband, the caricaturist Al Hirschfeld captured Orson in late life, and is included in one of your books. I recently saw THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, and your talk helped me to view the beautiful house with architectural details and period furniture through the lens of Orson's personal life. Best regards, Louise Kerz Hirschfeld May 2020
There is no one like him. Never will be. Genius actor, director, man of mystery. Welles as Harry Lime in the Third Man had maybe 10 minutes of screen time, yet due to his presence, anyone that saw it thought of it as an Orson Welles picture. He brought a sense of other-worldly atmosphere to anything he touched. Orson Welles, truly the most interesting man in the world.
My favorite movie performance is Welles as Harry Lime in The Third Man. "If one of those..dots.. stopped moving, would you really, old man, tell me tell me to keep my money? Or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?" One of the most charismatic performances of all time.
Yes, I agree with every thing you say...though I timed Welles's appearance in The Third Man at 8 minutes! Why did I bother? Like you, Jupiter Le Grand, I was awestruck by his dominance of the film, my favourite film, and one I've seen 30 times over as many years.
I’d love to see someone attempt a biopic about Welles…someone will someday. But, who could play Welles? I honestly think DiCaprio could pull it off. Leo looks a lot like a younger Welles.
Absolutely riveting. Such passion! Callow's enormous love and respect for Welles is so palpable. His final volume on Welles comes out some time in 2025. I'm waiting for it.
Superb talk. How great that he can talk so eloquently and in detail for 90 minutes without any notes. Clearly he is the most informed person regarding Welles as you would expect given the 3 volume biography he has written.
@@lynnturman8157 Many thanks, such a kind comment..first one of this kind I have had... only come back to this after few years..All best wishes to you.
Simon Callow is one of my heroes. He is a brilliant writer--his biographies of Welles and Charles Laughton are mesmerizing--and a wonderful actor. It's charming to see that he has a bit of a stammer!
Super concise details by Mr Callow on a life that defies sheer logic, that can only be described as pure genius. However, Welles took genius to another level that placed him at the very pinnacle of Radio - Theatre & Film throwing in a raconteur par excellence.
Why, I ask myself, why are there always some blokes laughing at the most impossible situations in the speech?? In that, in my humple opinion, most brilliant speech by the way!
The stories here of Welles as a young boy are so fun they're almost too good to be believable in a film but I'd love to see a movie that covered his whole life. Or even better, a Netflix mini-series that could delve into as much detail on parts of his life as Simon Callow's lecture.
I've read the first two volumes of Simon Callow's biography on Orson Welles and hope that he either working or about publish a third. I don't know how many volumes this is supposed to run but Welles is an endlessly fascinating character who should have been the greatest genius of cinema but his hubris seemed to be his ultimate undoing. He should have heeded a bit of ancient Chinese wisdom that goes: That which does not bend is easily broken. Citizen Kane is not my favorite Welles film but rather his adaptation of Kafka"s The Trial. He created a nightmare world that predates David Lynch. The photography is sensational. I like the fact that Welles dubbed the voices of several characters which also adds to the unreal quality of the film. It is unfortunate that he had to scrape together money in attempt to finish whatever project he was working on at thte moment. Hollywood has a great animosity towards artistic maverics and Welles couldn't play the game to serve his own ends and seemed to become his own worst enemy. He is the opposite side of Stanley Kubrick who became what Welles should have been: an independant who still worked within the studio system but without interference from the studio dullards who believe they know better than the directors and feel their sphinters tighten at anything that might deviate from the normal and acceptable. What great cinema we were robbed of because of this great insurmontable friction that Hollywood would survive and banish its naughty upstart. I eagerly await Mr. Callow's next volume. I should buy the first two volumes to add to my own personal library. Terry Gilliam is another director who seems unable to reel in his exceses and has also become a cinema leper but strength as a filmmaker is more surface than actual substance and has none of the scope of Welles or Kubrick.One Man Band. Can't wait to read it.
+GREG FREEMAN Maybe what you call hubris was just an inability to play Hollywood politics. For a mind so full of artistic creativity, it's possible he had very little room left for a desire or capacity to understand how to work well in the system. In general he needed a really good producer who could take care of the business side of things through all his later projects.
+GREG FREEMAN Just finished Simon Callow's 3 books on Welles, amazing detail, great stuff. He threw a coffee mug at a stage manager who told him he was late for a performance; he showed up 13 hrs late with no apology to a film editing session; he rehearsed theatre actors from 10am to 6am everyday; the stories are numerous. Feeling nervous, stressed, under tremendous pressure & expectations, & being on methamphetamines to keep his energy up, can't really excuse him. He was tolerated because of his talent & the results he got. And the majority of the books' content shows he did a lot of great work. It's unfortunate no one ever taught him to give enough respect & consideration to the people he worked with & the people who trusted him with a budget. Maybe he learns it in book 4. But probably the biggest reason for his troubles getting financing was that the movies he directed were never great financial successes, even his most celebrated, Citizen Kane.
Callow talks out of his ass quite a bit, and in his books he has filled in spaces with his theory of what he thinks, not fact. A much more accurate and better account of Welles life is Orson Welles, by Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich
Orson a true genius, an omnipresent polymath, the system tried to shut him down, a True Genius as Orson was, swam against the current. Chimes at midnight is outstanding the best depiction of a Shakespeare play for the Screen.
The late Christopher Lee was in the play (now known as Moby Dick---Rehearsed) written and directed by Orson Welles and we know that it WAS filmed and whoever is hanging on to and gloating over it had better cough it up!
interesting talk. i cringed a bit when he said that welles' was lucky throughout the first part (26 yrs) of his life, given that both his parents died while he was a child. i guess callow meant that he was lucky as an artist. for what that's worth.
@@hyena131 The man's intelligent, knowledgeable and passionate. A lot of what I know about Welles and Laughton, two of the greatest geniuses of 20th century film and theater comes, come from him. How have you benefited Humanity? Obviously not through the eloquence of your commentary...
@@loge10 The man's name couldn't be more apt. I believe his middle name is dilettante. What do you think of Night of The Hunter? Think it holds up with 'Chance in a Million?' Hee! Hee! What a shame you had to discover things through a pint sized lightweight.
Welles' talent fluctuated like his weight... there is always the good, the bad and the dreadful. What is unique in Welles is that he could not always tell the difference. And it is a sad fact that he once tried to imitate John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Check out his last unfinished (now finished) movie "The Other Side of the Wind."
In your documentary on part of orsan Wells you say nothing is that easy I'm not saying it's easy doing nothing is easy, nothing is easy I'm not saying that nothing is that easy, why I'm I getting the blame for saying things I never said .
What sadden's me is that Welles a trunks of artwork that he had done over decades that he created in designing his theater. Most of it was burned in a fire.
Callow has lots of interesting things to say but his stammering and hemming and hawing are just too difficult to endure for more than a few minutes. He’s not the best at giving talks, alas.
I've never understood the British habit of "intellectual stammering" in speech. The stammering, and muttering seriously detracts from the potential for eloquence, and doesn't sound one bit intelligent. Drives me insane.
@@DenkyManner No, its actually a thing. The stammering is an intellectual tick that began at Oxford University. The professors would actually see who could stutter the most. It was a mark of intelligence because you were thinking faster than you could speak. So, before you make weird comments to strangers on RUclips, do your research.
"Ugh". That's a bit Dickensian, isn't it? Vol. 3 of his Welles biography brings up Around The World on page 197. The third volume is called One Man Band.
RW Ffolkes What are you talking about??!! callow speaks for over two hours and you have the nerve to say he's "full of himself." You, sir, are clearly drunk!
Doing "The Cradle Will Rock,' by a card carrying Communist, which was extolling communist ideals, but then later to complain about the "paranoia," of McCarthyism is rather odd.
Welles always embraced the trendy left, even though he loved living in Franco's Spain. He was groomed to be a social climber. His Jewish guardian taught him well. Kael called Citizen Kane a "shallow masterpiece". Everything about Welles, that he showed to the public, was shallow.
@@pinetree1616 I disagree with Kael's view of Kane, and do see Welles as a Genius and an artist. However, you are right about his contradictions in politics. I love everything about him, but his politics (as he said of Right Wing actors like John Wayne). And Bernstein the Jew was a man whom Welles seemed to have contempt for, even though he helped to raise him. He asked Roger Hill to adopt him rather than Bernstein, and Roger (Skipper) Hill, who was a devoted Christian, was his best friend and mentor throughout his whole life (outliving Welles, himself). It is somewhat understandable being involved with Communism in the 30s and 40s, but once the horrors of communism became known in the 70s and seeing how they exceeded Nazism, it was inexcusable for him to try to do Cradle Will Rock in the 80s.
I can't believe how poorly callow speaks. I was also disappointed that he never used the word "fecund". His speech begged for the word and he never used it.
@Psi Clips That's harsh. Very harsh. callow delivered a wonderful reading here and the only tragedy was its brevity. Like callow himself, it was woefully short.
This guy is an audio engineer's nightmare. His unnecessarily over dramatic increases and decreases in the volume level of his words together with his fast talking running together of his words makes this a recording that needs hours of editing of the volume levels. Over exaggeration can have the opposite effect.
Is this guy serious? If he says "ah..ah". once more I'm going to go crazy. I've read all the comments and one guy said that he could not believe what a poor speaker he is! Another person said this: greatactor????!!!! Just because someone is born in England and speaks the King's English DOES NOT MAKE THEM a good speaker. PERIOD! I've wstrched about a half hour and now I'm outt here!
@@chrisdalton5646 I assume that you researched mY name to come up with my 1st film LADY IN A CULT. I ALSO assume that you are not pleased with my comment. If so then by all means expatiate a bit on the subject. Terse is no match for verse. (that is my original thought BTW). Surely by now you must have become aware that the Brits have a certain amount of pretense to their speech and their so-called knowledge. If you are one of those then you should be even more aware of it, unless you like to hide under your outer self.
Dear Simon Callow: Your remarkable talk illustrates the brilliance of Welles and
how he was influenced by the great theatrical movements in the THEATRE OF 1930S
Whether from Max Reinhardt and Erwin Piscator in BERLIN to THE GROUP THEATRE
IN NEW YORK. I am so delighted that my late husband, the caricaturist Al Hirschfeld
captured Orson in late life, and is included in one of your books.
I recently saw THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, and your talk helped me to view the
beautiful house with architectural details and period furniture through the lens of
Orson's personal life. Best regards, Louise Kerz Hirschfeld May 2020
Your husband was one of the most remarkable illustrators of the last century. His work never fails to delight me.
There is no one like him. Never will be. Genius actor, director, man of mystery. Welles as Harry Lime in the Third Man had maybe 10 minutes of screen time, yet due to his presence, anyone that saw it thought of it as an Orson Welles picture. He brought a sense of other-worldly atmosphere to anything he touched. Orson Welles, truly the most interesting man in the world.
My favorite movie performance is Welles as Harry Lime in The Third Man. "If one of those..dots.. stopped moving, would you really, old man, tell me tell me to keep my money? Or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?" One of the most charismatic performances of all time.
Yes, I agree with every thing you say...though I timed Welles's appearance in The Third Man at 8 minutes! Why did I bother? Like you, Jupiter Le Grand, I was awestruck by his dominance of the film, my favourite film, and one I've seen 30 times over as many years.
I’d love to see someone attempt a biopic about Welles…someone will someday. But, who could play Welles? I honestly think DiCaprio could pull it off. Leo looks a lot like a younger Welles.
@@fredmorrison2635 Dots. Yes we are
Maybe Depp? That wqould be the best comeback! @@scottmoore1614
Absolutely riveting. Such passion! Callow's enormous love and respect for Welles is so palpable. His final volume on Welles comes out some time in 2025. I'm waiting for it.
Callow's three volumes on Welles are fantastic
Superb talk. How great that he can talk so eloquently and in detail for 90 minutes without any notes. Clearly he is the most informed person regarding Welles as you would expect given the 3 volume biography he has written.
I just liked your comment and now you have 8 likes which means you are going to the top of the scroll on this video! Welcome to the BIG TIME!!!
@@lynnturman8157 Many thanks, such a kind comment..first one of this kind I have had... only come back to this after few years..All best wishes to you.
I could listen to Mr. Callow speak for ages! Brilliant talk, and so enlightening.
I have always adored Simon Callow - and what a fine actor is he is too !
Saw simon callow on stage in London many times. A great actor.
Excellent riveting talk - Bravo Simon Callow!
I, too, have read both bios. They are superb in every respect. Callow's research is mind-boggling. He clearly admires his subject.
Simon Callow is one of my heroes. He is a brilliant writer--his biographies of Welles and Charles Laughton are mesmerizing--and a wonderful actor. It's charming to see that he has a bit of a stammer!
Excellent presentation on one of my heroes, Orson Welles.
Super concise details by Mr Callow on a life that defies sheer logic, that can only be described as pure genius. However, Welles took genius to another level that placed him at the very pinnacle of Radio - Theatre & Film throwing in a raconteur par excellence.
Why, I ask myself, why are there always some blokes laughing at the most impossible situations in the speech?? In that, in my humple opinion, most brilliant speech by the way!
The stories here of Welles as a young boy are so fun they're almost too good to be believable in a film but I'd love to see a movie that covered his whole life. Or even better, a Netflix mini-series that could delve into as much detail on parts of his life as Simon Callow's lecture.
What an extraordinary life he led.
Excellent. A must for fans of Welles or fans of theater history.
Read his bio on Charles Laughton. My favorite book of his.
Mine too! I re-read it every couple of years. He really understood Laughton.
I've read the first two volumes of Simon Callow's biography on Orson Welles and hope that he either working or about publish a third. I don't know how many volumes this is supposed to run but Welles is an endlessly fascinating character who should have been the greatest genius of cinema but his hubris seemed to be his ultimate undoing. He should have heeded a bit of ancient Chinese wisdom that goes: That which does not bend is easily broken. Citizen Kane is not my favorite Welles film but rather his adaptation of Kafka"s The Trial. He created a nightmare world that predates David Lynch. The photography is sensational. I like the fact that Welles dubbed the voices of several characters which also adds to the unreal quality of the film. It is unfortunate that he had to scrape together money in attempt to finish whatever project he was working on at thte moment. Hollywood has a great animosity towards artistic maverics and Welles couldn't play the game to serve his own ends and seemed to become his own worst enemy. He is the opposite side of Stanley Kubrick who became what Welles should have been: an independant who still worked within the studio system but without interference from the studio dullards who believe they know better than the directors and feel their sphinters tighten at anything that might deviate from the normal and acceptable. What great cinema we were robbed of because of this great insurmontable friction that Hollywood would survive and banish its naughty upstart. I eagerly await Mr. Callow's next volume. I should buy the first two volumes to add to my own personal library. Terry Gilliam is another director who seems unable to reel in his exceses and has also become a cinema leper but strength as a filmmaker is more surface than actual substance and has none of the scope of Welles or Kubrick.One Man Band. Can't wait to read it.
Read the book, Young Orson. It might be the best one on him. Illuminating.
Welles is the greatest American genius of cinema, despite set-backs in his career.
+GREG FREEMAN Maybe what you call hubris was just an inability to play Hollywood politics. For a mind so full of artistic creativity, it's possible he had very little room left for a desire or capacity to understand how to work well in the system. In general he needed a really good producer who could take care of the business side of things through all his later projects.
+GREG FREEMAN Just finished Simon Callow's 3 books on Welles, amazing detail, great stuff. He threw a coffee mug at a stage manager who told him he was late for a performance; he showed up 13 hrs late with no apology to a film editing session; he rehearsed theatre actors from 10am to 6am everyday; the stories are numerous. Feeling nervous, stressed, under tremendous pressure & expectations, & being on methamphetamines to keep his energy up, can't really excuse him.
He was tolerated because of his talent & the results he got. And the majority of the books' content shows he did a lot of great work. It's unfortunate no one ever taught him to give enough respect & consideration to the people he worked with & the people who trusted him with a budget. Maybe he learns it in book 4.
But probably the biggest reason for his troubles getting financing was that the movies he directed were never great financial successes, even his most celebrated, Citizen Kane.
Callow talks out of his ass quite a bit, and in his books he has filled in spaces with his theory of what he thinks, not fact. A much more accurate and better account of Welles life is Orson Welles, by Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich
what fine discourse
Orson a true genius, an omnipresent polymath, the system tried to shut him down,
a True Genius as Orson was, swam against the current.
Chimes at midnight is outstanding the best depiction of a Shakespeare play for the Screen.
The late Christopher Lee was in the play (now known as Moby Dick---Rehearsed) written and directed by Orson Welles and we know that it WAS filmed and whoever is hanging on to and gloating over it had better cough it up!
Canada Lee was also cast as Banquo in Voodoo Macbeth. He was a most amazing man, well deserving of his own books and biopics and lectures.
interesting talk. i cringed a bit when he said that welles' was lucky throughout the first part (26 yrs) of his life, given that both his parents died while he was a child. i guess callow meant that he was lucky as an artist. for what that's worth.
agreed. Also the man was immensely talented--indeed it was his great talent(s) which were able to drive his early career, not "luck"
He means in his career, which was true. Different from his personal life.
Everything is genetics, grooming, and luck. Free will might exist.
This reminds me of Schlesinger writing about Bobby Kennedy, when he said,, "As usual, nothing came easy...."
He was clearly talking about his career.
I want a follow-up, 10-hr version.
ooh jimmy, 90 mins is plenty, come on son. I'm sure u realize now how silly u were in saying that.
ron jizzer
10 seconds is more enough with the blowhard, callow...be fair now.
@@hyena131 The man's intelligent, knowledgeable and passionate. A lot of what I know about Welles and Laughton, two of the greatest geniuses of 20th century film and theater comes, come from him. How have you benefited Humanity? Obviously not through the eloquence of your commentary...
@@loge10
The man's name couldn't be more apt. I believe his middle name is dilettante. What do you think of Night of The Hunter? Think it holds up with 'Chance in a Million?' Hee! Hee!
What a shame you had to discover things through a pint sized lightweight.
Welles' talent fluctuated like his weight... there is always the good, the bad and the dreadful. What is unique in Welles is that he could not always tell the difference. And it is a sad fact that he once tried to imitate John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Check out his last unfinished (now finished) movie "The Other Side of the Wind."
You think that The Other Side of The Wind is a copy of Lennon and Ono?
In your documentary on part of orsan Wells you say nothing is that easy I'm not saying it's easy doing nothing is easy, nothing is easy I'm not saying that nothing is that easy, why I'm I getting the blame for saying things I never said .
What sadden's me is that Welles a trunks of artwork that he had done over decades that he created in designing his theater. Most of it was burned in a fire.
There are all those painting somewhere in Ireland that he left in cottage to cottage to pay his way at the age of 16.
oh sclogsy thats awffffullll! you are awffulll!!
What??!! What's awful?
Welles deserves better.
Callow has lots of interesting things to say but his stammering and hemming and hawing are just too difficult to endure for more than a few minutes. He’s not the best at giving talks, alas.
Presenter looks like George Washington
orson welles loved the kids
an impresario
Listen to the content and not the delivery.
I've never understood the British habit of "intellectual stammering" in speech. The stammering, and muttering seriously detracts from the potential for eloquence, and doesn't sound one bit intelligent. Drives me insane.
You're the only one who noticed it. The problem might be inside your head, not Callow's.
@@DenkyManner No, its actually a thing. The stammering is an intellectual tick that began at Oxford University. The professors would actually see who could stutter the most. It was a mark of intelligence because you were thinking faster than you could speak. So, before you make weird comments to strangers on RUclips, do your research.
@@aaronupton4584Maybe he’s just tired, trying to remember all this information in front of a crowd, for such a long time? Just saying.
Ugh. Nothing on his Broadway musical, with Cole Porter, "Around the World."
"Ugh". That's a bit Dickensian, isn't it? Vol. 3 of his Welles biography brings up Around The World on page 197. The third volume is called One Man Band.
Fascinating history, hard to follow. The man strikes me as being full of himself.
I'm elderly.. a CIA alum with worldly knowledge you'll never have. It seems you're the sucker who'll fall for anything.
@@jjroseknows777 What a completely unnecessary exchange!
RW Ffolkes
What are you talking about??!! callow speaks for over two hours and you have the nerve to say he's "full of himself."
You, sir, are clearly drunk!
Doing "The Cradle Will Rock,' by a card carrying Communist, which was extolling communist ideals, but then later to complain about the "paranoia," of McCarthyism is rather odd.
Welles always embraced the trendy left, even though he loved living in Franco's Spain. He was groomed to be a social climber. His Jewish guardian taught him well. Kael called Citizen Kane a "shallow masterpiece". Everything about Welles, that he showed to the public, was shallow.
@@pinetree1616 I disagree with Kael's view of Kane, and do see Welles as a Genius and an artist. However, you are right about his contradictions in politics. I love everything about him, but his politics (as he said of Right Wing actors like John Wayne). And Bernstein the Jew was a man whom Welles seemed to have contempt for, even though he helped to raise him. He asked Roger Hill to adopt him rather than Bernstein, and Roger (Skipper) Hill, who was a devoted Christian, was his best friend and mentor throughout his whole life (outliving Welles, himself). It is somewhat understandable being involved with Communism in the 30s and 40s, but once the horrors of communism became known in the 70s and seeing how they exceeded Nazism, it was inexcusable for him to try to do Cradle Will Rock in the 80s.
I can't believe how poorly callow speaks. I was also disappointed that he never used the word "fecund". His speech begged for the word and he never used it.
@Psi Clips
That's harsh. Very harsh. callow delivered a wonderful reading here and the only tragedy was its brevity. Like callow himself, it was woefully short.
This guy is an audio engineer's nightmare. His unnecessarily over dramatic increases and decreases in the volume level of his words together with his fast talking running together of his words makes this a recording that needs hours of editing of the volume levels. Over exaggeration can have the opposite effect.
You clearly don't know what you are talking about.
Use a compressor
Get over it and listen to the content.
Is this guy serious? If he says "ah..ah". once more I'm going to go crazy. I've read all the comments and one guy said that he could not believe what a poor speaker he is! Another person said this: greatactor????!!!! Just because someone is born in England and speaks the King's English DOES NOT MAKE THEM a good speaker. PERIOD! I've wstrched about a half hour and now I'm outt here!
Troll less. It makes you come across as an asshole.
@@Toracube not nice to call names.....I suppose you're a Brit or a Brit lover....btw. what does it mean. "troll less".
@garen garson - Would you have been able to direct him to elocute better if he were a cast member of LADY IN A CULT?
@@chrisdalton5646 I assume that you researched mY name to come up with my 1st film LADY IN A CULT. I ALSO assume that you are not pleased with my comment. If so then by all means expatiate a bit on the subject. Terse is no match for verse. (that is my original thought BTW). Surely by now you must have become aware that the Brits have a certain amount of pretense to their speech and their so-called knowledge. If you are one of those then you should be even more aware of it, unless you like to hide under your outer self.
@@Toracube what! no reply in 8 months!
Watch. F for Fake. Documentary