Coordinates | 28°36′36″N77°13′48″N |
---|---|
Name | Don Quixote |
Director | Grigori Kozintsev |
Writer | Miguel de CervantesYevgeni Shvarts |
Starring | Nikolai Cherkasov |
Music | Gara Garayev |
Cinematography | Apollinari DudkoAndrei Moskvin |
Editing | Ye. Makhankova |
Distributor | Lenfilm |
Released | October 15 1957 |
Runtime | 110 minutes |
Country | |
Language | Russian |
Budget | }} |
''Don Quixote'' (, ) is a 1957 Soviet drama film directed by Grigori Kozintsev. It is based on Miguel de Cervantes's classic novel of the same name. It was entered into the 1957 Cannes Film Festival. It opened in the United States in 1961, beginning its U.S. run on January 20, the same day that President John F. Kennedy was inaugurated into office.
The film was exhibited in the mid 1960s by Australian University film clubs receiving the productions of Sovexportfilm. It was the first film version of ''Don Quixote'' to be filmed in both widescreen and color.
Category:1957 films Category:Soviet films Category:Russian-language films Category:1950s drama films Category:Films directed by Grigori Kozintsev Category:Works inspired by Don Quixote
az:Don Kixot (film, 1957) fr:Don Quichotte (film, 1957) ru:Дон Кихот (фильм)This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Coordinates | 28°36′36″N77°13′48″N |
---|---|
name | Don Quixote |
title orig | |
author | Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra |
country | Spain |
language | Spanish |
genre | Picaresco, satire, parody, farce |
publisher | Juan de la Cuesta |
pub date | 1605 (Part One)1615 (Part Two) |
english pub date | 1612 (Part One)1620 (Part Two) |
media type | |
dewey | 863 |
congress | PQ |
length | 381,214 words (original Spanish version) }} |
(, ), fully titled ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'' (), is a novel written by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes. Published in two volumes a decade apart (in 1605 and 1615), ''Don Quixote'' is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age in the Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature, and one of the earliest canonical novels, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. In one such list, ''Don Quixote'' was cited as the "best literary work ever written".
The traditional English rendering is preserved in the pronunciation of the adjectival form ''quixotic'', i.e., or , the foolishly impractical pursuit of ideals, typically marked with rash and lofty romantic ideals.
He sets out in the early morning and ends up at an inn, which he believes to be a castle. He asks the innkeeper, who he thinks to be the lord of the castle, to dub him a knight. He spends the night holding vigil over his armor, where he becomes involved in a fight with muleteers who try to remove his armor from the horse trough so that they can water their mules. The innkeeper then dubs him a knight, and sends him on his way. He frees a young boy who is tied to a tree by his master, because the boy had the audacity to ask his master for the wages the boy had earned but had not yet been paid (who is promptly beaten as soon as Quixote leaves). Don Quixote has a run-in with traders from Toledo, who "insult" the imaginary Dulcinea, one of whom severely beats Don Quixote and leaves him on the side of the road. Don Quixote is found and returned to his home by a neighboring peasant, Pedro Crespo.
As ''Part Two'' begins, it is assumed that the literate classes of Spain have all read the first part of the history of Don Quixote and his squire. When they encounter the duo in person, the young scholar Samson Carrasco, an unnamed "duke and duchess," and others, seize the opportunity to amuse themselves by playing on Don Quixote's imaginings. The result is a series of cruel practical jokes that put Don Quixote's sense of chivalry and his devotion to Dulcinea through many humiliating tests.
Even Sancho deceives him at one point. Pressured into finding Dulcinea, Sancho brings back three dirty and ragged peasant girls, and tells Don Quixote that they are Dulcinea and her ladies-in-waiting. When Don Quixote only sees the peasant girls, Sancho pretends that their derelict appearance results from an enchantment. Sancho later gets his comeuppance for this when, as part of one of the duke and duchess's pranks, the two are led to believe that the only method to release Dulcinea from her spell is for Sancho to give himself three thousand lashes. Sancho naturally resists this course of action, leading to serious friction with his master. Under the duke's patronage, Sancho eventually gets an imaginary governorship, and unexpectedly proves to be wise and practical; though this, too, ends in humiliation.
Near the end, defeated and trampled, Don Quixote reluctantly begins to move back toward sanity. An inn is now just an inn, not a castle.
In his introduction to ''The Portable Cervantes'', Samuel Putnam, a noted translator of Cervantes' novel, calls Avellaneda's version "one of the most disgraceful performances in history".
The second part of Cervantes' ''Don Quixote'', finished as a direct result of the Avellaneda book, has come to be regarded by some literary critics as superior to the first part, because of its greater depth of characterization, its discussions, mostly between Quixote and Sancho, on diverse subjects, and its philosophical insights.
Several abridged editions have been published which delete some or all of the extra tales in order to concentrate on the central narrative.
Cervantes makes a number of references to the Italian poem ''Orlando furioso''. In chapter 10 of the first part of the novel, Don Quixote says he must take the magical helmet of Mambrino, an episode from Canto I of ''Orlando'', and itself a reference to Matteo Maria Boiardo's ''Orlando innamorato''. The interpolated story in chapter 33 of Part four of the First Part is a retelling of a tale from Canto 43 of ''Orlando'', regarding a man who tests the fidelity of his wife.
Cervantes's most important source, however, appears to have been Apuleius's ''The Golden Ass'', one of the earliest known novels, a picaresque from late classical antiquity. The wineskins episode near the end of the interpolated tale "The Curious Impertinent" in chapter 35 of the first part of ''Don Quixote'' is a clear reference to Apuleius, and recent scholarship suggests that the moral philosophy and the basic trajectory of Apuleius's novel are fundamental to Cervantes's program.
The location of the village to which Cervantes alludes in the opening sentence of ''Don Quixote'' has been the subject of debate since its publication over four centuries ago. Indeed, Cervantes deliberately omits the name of the village, giving an explanation in the final chapter:
In 2004, a multidisciplinary team of academics from Complutense University, led by Francisco Parra Luna, Manuel Fernández Nieto and Santiago Petschen Verdaguer, deduced that the village was that of Villanueva de los Infantes. Their findings were published in a paper titled ''"'El Quijote' como un sistema de distancias/tiempos: hacia la localización del lugar de la Mancha"'', which was later published as a book: ''El enigma resuelto del Quijote''. The result was replicated in two subsequent investigations: ''"La determinación del lugar de la Mancha como problema estadístico"'' and "The Kinematics of the Quixote and the Identity of the 'Place in La Mancha'".
There is some evidence of its contents having been known before publication to, among others, Lope de Vega. There is also a tradition that Cervantes reread some portions of his work to a select audience at the court of the Duke of Bejar, which may have helped in making the book known. ''Don Quixote, Part One'' remained in Cervantes' hands for some time before he could find a willing publisher. The compositors at Juan de la Cuesta's press in Madrid are now known to have been responsible for errors in the text, many of which were attributed to the author.
No sooner was it in the hands of the public than preparations were made to issue derivative (pirated) editions. "Don Quixote" had been growing in favour, and its author's name was now known beyond the Pyrenees. By August 1605 there were two Madrid editions, two published in Lisbon, and one in Valencia. A second edition was produced with additional copyrights for Aragon and Portugal, which publisher Francisco de Robles secured. Sale of these publishing rights deprived Cervantes of further financial profit on ''Part One.'' In 1607, an edition was printed in Brussels. Robles, the Madrid publisher, found it necessary to meet demand with a third edition, a seventh publication in all, in 1608. Popularity of the book in Italy was such that a Milan bookseller issued an Italian edition in 1610. Yet another Brussels edition was called for in 1611.
In 1613, Cervantes published the ''Novelas Ejemplares'', dedicated to the Maecenas of the day, the Conde de Lemos. Eight and a half years after ''Part One'' had appeared, we get the first hint of a forthcoming ''Segunda Parte'' (Part Two). "You shall see shortly," Cervantes says, "the further exploits of Don Quixote and humours of Sancho Panza." ''Don Quixote, Part Two'', published by the same press as its predecessor, appeared late in 1615, and quickly reprinted in Brussels and Valencia (1616) and Lisbon (1617). Part two capitalizes on the potential of the first while developing and diversifying the material without sacrificing familiarity. Many people agree that it is richer and more profound. Parts One and Two were published as one edition in Barcelona in 1617. Historically, Cervantes's work has been said to have “smiled Spain’s chivalry away”, suggesting that Don Quixote as a chivalric satire contributed to the demise of Spanish Chivalry.
Thomas Shelton's English translation of the ''First Part'' appeared in 1612. Shelton is a somewhat elusive figure: some claim Shelton was actually a friend of Cervantes, although there is no credible evidence to support this claim. Although Shelton's version is cherished by some, according to John Ormsby and Samuel Putnam, it was far from satisfactory as a carrying over of Cervantes's text. Shelton's translation of the novel's ''Second Part'' appeared in 1620.
Near the end of the 17th century, John Phillips, a nephew of poet John Milton, published what is considered by Putnam the worst English translated version. The translation, as literary critics claim, was not based on Cervantes' text but mostly upon a French work by Filleau de Saint-Martin and upon notes which Thomas Shelton had written previously. Around 1700, a version by Pierre Antoine Motteux appeared. Ormsby considered this version "worse than worthless". What future translator Samuel Putnam called "the prevailing slapstick quality of this work, especially where Sancho Panza is involved, the obtrusion of the obscene where it is found in the original, and the slurring of difficulties through omissions or expanding upon the text" all made the Motteux version irresponsible. In 1742, the Charles Jervas translation appeared, posthumously. Through a printer's error, it came to be known, and is still known, as "the Jarvis translation". The most scholarly and accurate English translation of the novel up to that time, it has been criticized by some as being too stiff. Nevertheless, it became the most frequently reprinted translation of the novel until about 1885. Another 18th century translation into English was that of Tobias Smollett, himself a novelist. Like the ''Jarvis'' translation, it continues to be reprinted today.
Most modern translators take as their model the 1885 translation by John Ormsby. It is said that his translation was the most honest of all translations, without expansions upon the text or changing of the proverbs.
In 1922, Arvid Paulson and Clayton Edwards published a now-forgotten expurgated children's version printed under the title ''The Story of Don Quixote'' which has nevertheless recently been published on Project Gutenberg. It retains as much of the text as it could while leaving out the risque sections as well as those chapters that young readers might consider dull, and embellishes a great deal on Cervantes's original text (the title page actually gives credit to the two translators as if they were the authors, and leaves out any mention of Cervantes).
The most widely read English-language translations of the mid-20th century are by Samuel Putnam (1949), J. M. Cohen (1950; Penguin Classics), and Walter Starkie (1957). The last English translation of the novel in the 20th century was by Burton Raffel, published in 1996. The 21st century has already seen two new translations of the novel into English—by John D. Rutherford and by Edith Grossman. One ''New York Times'' reviewer called Grossman's translation a "major literary achievement" and another called it the "most transparent and least impeded among more than a dozen English translations going back to the 17th century."
In 2005, the year of the novel's 400th anniversary, Tom Lathrop published a new edition of the novel, based on a lifetime of specialized study of the novel and its history. Lathrop's edition includes a slightly modernized Spanish text of Cervantes' work with English annotations.
Farce makes use of punning and similar verbal playfulness. Character-naming in ''Don Quixote'' makes ample figural use of contradiction, inversion, and irony, such as the names ''Rocinante'' (a reversal) and ''Dulcinea'' (an allusion to illusion), and the word itself, possibly a pun on (jaw) but certainly (Catalan: thighs), a reference to a horse's rump. As a military term, the word ''quijote'' refers to ''cuisses'', part of a full suit of plate armour protecting the thighs. The Spanish suffix ''-ote'' denotes the augmentative—for example, ''grande'' means large, but ''grandote'' means extra large. Following this example, ''Quixote'' would suggest 'The Great Quijano', a play on words that makes much sense in light of the character's delusions of grandeur.
The world of ordinary people, from shepherds to tavern-owners and inn-keepers, which figures in ''Don Quixote'', was groundbreaking. The character of Don Quixote became so well known in its time that the word ''quixotic'' was quickly adopted by many languages. Characters such as Sancho Panza and Don Quixote’s steed, Rocinante, are emblems of Western literary culture. The phrase "tilting at windmills" to describe an act of attacking imaginary enemies derives from an iconic scene in the book.
Because of its widespread influence, ''Don Quixote'' also helped cement the modern Spanish language. The opening sentence of the book created a classic Spanish cliché with the phrase ("whose name I do not wish to recall"): ("In a village of La Mancha, whose name I do not wish to recall, there lived, not very long ago, one of those gentlemen with a lance in the lance-rack, an ancient shield, a skinny old horse, and a fast greyhound.")
It stands in a unique position between medieval chivalric romance and the modern novel. The former consist of disconnected stories with little exploration of the inner life of even the main character. The latter are usually focused on the psychological evolution of their characters. In Part I, Quixote imposes himself on his environment. By Part II, people know about him through "having read his adventures," and so, he needs to do less to maintain his image. By his deathbed, he has regained his sanity, and is once more "Alonso Quixano the Good".
When it was first published, ''Don Quixote'' was usually interpreted as a comic novel. After the French Revolution it was popular in part due to its central ethic that individuals can be right while society is quite wrong and seen as disenchanting—not comic at all. In the 19th century it was seen as a social commentary, but no one could easily tell "whose side Cervantes was on." By the 20th century it had come to occupy a canonical space as one of the foundations of modern literature.
Category:Fictional characters introduced in 1605 Category:1605 novels * Category:Fictional knights Category:Metafictional works Category:Literary archetypes by name Category:Novels by Miguel de Cervantes Category:Prison writings Category:Psychological novels Category:Satirical novels Category:Self-reflexive novels Category:Spanish literature Category:Spanish books Category:Spanish novels Category:Spain in fiction Category:Fictional Spanish people Category:Picaresque novels Category:Don Quixote characters Category:1600s fantasy novels
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Coordinates | 28°36′36″N77°13′48″N |
---|---|
name | Orson Welles |
birth date | May 06, 1915 |
birth place | |
death date | October 10, 1985 |
death place | |
death cause | Heart attack |
alma mater | Todd School for Boys |
occupation | Actor, director, writer, producer, voice actor |
years active | 1931–85 |
spouse | Virginia Nicholson (1934–40)Rita Hayworth (1943–48)Paola Mori (1955–85) |
height | 6'1" |
partner | Dolores del Río (1938–41)Oja Kodar (1966–85) |
parents | Richard Hodgdon Head Welles,Beatrice Ives |
awards | 1941 Best Writing (Original Screenplay) for ''Citizen Kane'' 1970 Academy Honorary Award |
influences | John Ford, William Shakespeare, Fritz Lang, Joseph Conrad |
influenced | Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan, John Carpenter, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese }} |
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 October 10, 1985), best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio. Noted for his innovative dramatic productions as well as his distinctive voice and personality, Welles is widely acknowledged as one of the most accomplished dramatic artists of the twentieth century, especially for his significant and influential early work—despite his notoriously contentious relationship with Hollywood. His distinctive directorial style featured layered, nonlinear narrative forms, innovative uses of lighting such as chiaroscuro, unique camera angles, sound techniques borrowed from radio, deep focus shots, and long takes. Welles's long career in film is noted for his struggle for artistic control in the face of pressure from studios. Many of his films were heavily edited and others left unreleased. He has been praised as a major creative force and as "the ultimate auteur."
After directing a number of high-profile theatrical productions in his early twenties, including an innovative adaptation of ''Macbeth'' and ''The Cradle Will Rock'', Welles found national and international fame as the director and narrator of a 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel ''The War of the Worlds'' performed for the radio drama anthology series ''Mercury Theatre on the Air''. It was reported to have caused widespread panic when listeners thought that an invasion by extraterrestrial beings was occurring. Although these reports of panic were mostly false and overstated, they rocketed Welles to instant notoriety.
''Citizen Kane'' (1941), his first film with RKO, in which he starred in the role of Charles Foster Kane, is often considered the greatest film ever made. Several of his other films, including ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' (1942), ''The Lady from Shanghai'' (1947), ''Touch of Evil'' (1958), ''Chimes at Midnight'' (1965), and ''F for Fake'' (1974), are also widely considered to be masterpieces.
In 2002, he was voted the greatest film director of all time in two separate British Film Institute polls among directors and critics, and a wide survey of critical consensus, best-of lists, and historical retrospectives calls him the most acclaimed director of all time. Well known for his baritone voice, Welles was also an extremely well regarded actor and was voted number 16 in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list of the greatest American film actors of all time. He was also a celebrated Shakespearean stage actor and an accomplished magician, starring in troop variety shows in the war years.
At Todd School, Welles came under the influence of Roger Hill, a teacher who later became Todd's headmaster. Hill provided Welles with an ''ad hoc'' educational environment that proved invaluable to his creative experience, allowing Welles to concentrate on subjects that interested him. Welles performed and staged his first theatrical experiments and productions there. Following graduation from Todd, Welles was awarded a scholarship to Harvard University. Rather than enrolling, he chose to travel. Later, he briefly studied for a time at the Art Institute of Chicago. He returned a number of times to Woodstock to direct his alma mater's student productions.
An introduction by Thornton Wilder led Welles to the New York stage. In 1933, he toured in three off-Broadway productions with Katharine Cornell's company, including two roles in ''Romeo and Juliet''. Restless and impatient when the planned Broadway opening of ''Romeo and Juliet'' was canceled, Welles staged a drama festival of his own with the Todd School, inviting Micheál Mac Liammóir and Hilton Edwards from Dublin's Gate Theatre to appear, along with New York stage luminaries. It was a roaring success. The subsequent revival of Cornell's ''Romeo and Juliet'' brought Welles to the notice of John Houseman, who was casting for an unusual lead actor for the lead role in the Federal Theatre Project.
By 1935 Welles was supplementing his earnings in the theater as a radio actor in Manhattan, working with many of the actors who would later form the core of his Mercury Theatre. He married Chicago actress Virginia Nicholson in 1934 and that year he shot an eight-minute silent short film, ''The Hearts of Age'' with her. The couple had one daughter, Christopher. She made her only film appearance in 1948, taking the role of Macduff's son in Welles's film ''Macbeth'' and later became known as Chris Welles Feder, an author of educational materials for children.
In 1937, he rehearsed Marc Blitzstein's highly political operetta, ''The Cradle Will Rock''. Because of severe federal cutbacks in the Works Progress projects, the show's premiere at the Maxine Elliott Theatre was canceled. The theater was locked and guarded to prevent any of the government-purchased materials being used for a commercial production of the work. In a last-minute move, Welles announced to waiting ticket-holders that the show was being transferred to the Venice, about twenty blocks away. Some cast, as well as some crew and audience, walked the distance on foot. The union musicians refused to perform in a commercial theater for lower non-union government wages. The actors' union stated that the production belonged to the Federal Theater Project and could not be performed outside that context without permission. Lacking the participation of the union members, ''The Cradle Will Rock'' began with Blitzstein introducing the show and playing the piano accompaniment on stage with some cast members performing their parts from the audience. This impromptu performance was well received by its audience. It afterward played at the Venice for two weeks in the same informal way.
In the second year of the Mercury Theater, Welles shifted his interests to radio as an actor, director and producer. He played Hamlet for CBS on The Columbia Workshop, while adapting and directing the play. In July 1937, the Mutual Network gave him a seven-week series to adapt ''Les Misérables,'' which he did with great success. That September, Mutual chose Welles to play Lamont Cranston, aka ''The Shadow,'' anonymously and in the summer of 1938 CBS gave him (and the Mercury Theatre) a weekly hour-long show to broadcast radio plays based on classic literary works. The show was titled ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air,'' with original music by Bernard Herrmann, who would continue working with Welles on radio and in films for years.
Welles's growing fame soon drew Hollywood offers, lures which the independent-minded Welles resisted at first. ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air,'' which had been a "sustaining show" (without sponsorship) was picked up by Campbell Soup and renamed ''The Campbell Playhouse.''
On October 28, 1940, Welles met H.G. Wells in San Antonio, Texas; a local radio station KTSA recorded the conversation, which was likely the only meeting between the two.
Welles toyed with various ideas for his first project for RKO Radio Pictures, settling on an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's ''Heart of Darkness'', which he worked on in great detail. He planned to film the action with a subjective camera (a technique later used in the Robert Montgomery film ''Lady in the Lake''). When a budget was drawn up, RKO's enthusiasm cooled because it was greater than the previously agreed limit. RKO also declined to approve another Welles project, ''The Smiler With the Knife'', based on the Cecil Day-Lewis novel, ostensibly because RKO executives lacked faith in Lucille Ball's ability to carry the film as the leading lady.
In a sign of things to come, Welles left ''The Campbell Playhouse'' in 1940 due to creative differences with the sponsor. The show continued without him, produced by John Houseman. In perhaps another sign of things to come, Welles's first experience on a Hollywood film was narrator for RKO's 1940 production of ''The Swiss Family Robinson''.
RKO, having rejected Welles's first two movie proposals, agreed on the third offer, ''Citizen Kane,'' for which Welles co-wrote, produced, directed, and performed the lead role.
Welles found a suitable film project in an idea he conceived with screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, (who was then writing radio plays for ''The Campbell Playhouse''). Initially entitled ''The American'', it eventually became Welles's first feature film (also his most famous and honored role), ''Citizen Kane'' (1941).
Mankiewicz based his original notion on an ''exposé'' of the life of William Randolph Hearst, whom he knew socially but came to hate, having once been great friends with Hearst's mistress, Marion Davies. Mankiewicz had been banished from her company because of his perpetual drunkenness. Mankiewicz, a notorious gossip, exacted revenge with his unflattering depiction of Davies in ''Citizen Kane'' for which Welles bore most of the criticisms. Welles also had a connection with Davies through his first wife.
Kane's megalomania was modeled loosely on Robert McCormick, Howard Hughes, and Joseph Pulitzer as Welles wanted to create a broad, complex character, intending to show him in the same scenes from several points of view. The use of multiple narrative perspectives in Conrad's ''Heart of Darkness'' influenced the treatment.
Supplying Mankiewicz with 300 pages of notes, Welles urged him to write the first draft of a screenplay under John Houseman, who was posted to ensure Mankiewicz stayed sober. On Welles's instruction, Houseman wrote the opening narration as a pastiche of ''The March of Time'' newsreels. Orson Welles explained to Peter Bogdanovich about the writers working separately by saying, "I left him on his own finally, because we'd started to waste too much time haggling. So, after mutual agreements on storyline and character, Mank went off with Houseman and did his version, while I stayed in Hollywood and wrote mine." Taking these drafts, Welles drastically condensed and rearranged them, then added scenes of his own. The industry accused Welles of underplaying Mankiewicz's contribution to the script, but Welles countered the attacks by saying, "At the end, naturally, I was the one making the picture, after all—who had to make the decisions. I used what I wanted of Mank's and, rightly or wrongly, kept what I liked of my own."
Charles Foster Kane is based loosely on parts of Hearst's life. Nonetheless, autobiographical allusions to Welles were worked in, most noticeably in the treatment of Kane's childhood and particularly, regarding his guardianship. Welles then added features from other famous American lives to create a general and mysterious personality, rather than the narrow journalistic portrait intended by Mankiewicz, whose first drafts included scandalous claims about the death of the film director Thomas Ince.
Once the script was completed, Welles attracted some of Hollywood's best technicians, including cinematographer Gregg Toland, who walked into Welles's office and announced he wanted to work on the picture. Welles later described Toland as "the fastest cameraman who ever lived." For the cast, Welles primarily used actors from his Mercury Theatre. He invited suggestions from everyone but only if they were directed through him. Filming ''Citizen Kane'' took ten weeks.
Hearst's media outlets boycotted the film. They exerted enormous pressure on the Hollywood film community by threatening to expose fifteen years of suppressed scandals and the fact that most of the studio bosses were Jewish. At one point, the heads of the major studios jointly offered RKO the cost of the film in exchange for the negative and all existing prints, fully intending to burn them. RKO declined and the film was given a limited release. Hearst intimidated theater chains by threatening to ban advertising for any of their other films in any of his papers if they showed ''Citizen Kane''.
The film was well-received critically, with Bosley Crowther, film critic for the ''New York Times'' calling it "close to being the most sensational film ever made in Hollywood". By the time it reached the general public, though, the publicity had waned. It garnered nine Academy Award nominations (Orson nominated as a producer, director, writer, and actor), but won only for Best Original Screenplay, shared by Mankiewicz and Welles. Although it was largely ignored at the Academy Awards, ''Citizen Kane'' now is hailed as one of the greatest films ever made. Andrew Sarris called it "the work that influenced the cinema more profoundly than any American film since ''The Birth of a Nation''."
The delay in its release and its uneven distribution contributed to its average result at the box office, making back its budget and marketing, but RKO lost any chance of a major profit. The fact that ''Citizen Kane'' ignored many Hollywood conventions also meant that the film confused and angered the 1940s cinema public. Exhibitor response was scathing; most theater owners complained bitterly about the adverse audience reaction and the many walkouts. Only a few saw fit to acknowledge Welles's artistic technique. RKO shelved the film and did not re-release it until 1956.
During the 1950s, the film came to be seen by young French film critics such as François Truffaut as exemplifying the "auteur theory", in which the director is the "author" of a film. Truffaut, Godard and others inspired by Welles's example made their own films, giving birth to the Nouvelle Vague. In the 1960s ''Citizen Kane'' became popular on college campuses as a film-study exercise and as an entertainment subject. Its frequent revivals on television, home video, and DVD have enhanced its "classic" status and ultimately it recouped its costs. The film still is considered by most film critics and historians to be one of the greatest motion pictures in cinema history.
At RKO's request, simultaneously, Welles worked on an adaptation of Eric Ambler's spy thriller, ''Journey into Fear'', which he co-wrote with Joseph Cotten. In addition to acting in the film, Welles was also producer. Direction was credited solely to Norman Foster. Welles later stated that they were in such a rush that the director of each scene was determined by whoever was closest to the camera.
CBS then offered Welles a new radio series called ''The Orson Welles Show''. It was a half-hour variety show of short stories, comedy skits, poetry, and musical numbers. Joining the original Mercury Theatre cast for the show, was Cliff Edwards, the voice of Jiminy Cricket, "on loan from Walt Disney". The variety format was unpopular with listeners and Welles soon was forced to limit the content of the show simply to telling a one half-hour story for the entirety of each episode.
Expected to film the Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Welles rushed to finish the editing on ''Ambersons'' and his acting scenes in ''Journey into Fear''. Ending his CBS radio show, he lashed together a rough cut of ''Ambersons'' with Robert Wise, who had edited ''Citizen Kane'', and left for Brazil. Wise was to join him in Rio to complete the film, but never arrived. A provisional final cut arranged via phone call, telegram, and shortwave radio was previewed without Welles's approval in Pomona in a double bill, to a mostly negative audience response, particularly to the character of Aunt Fanny played by Agnes Moorehead. Whereas Schaefer argued that Welles be allowed to complete his own version of the film, and that an archival copy be kept with the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, RKO disagreed. With Welles in South America, there was no practical means of having him edit the film.
As a result of the difficult financial circumstances that RKO found itself in across the period 1940–42, major changes occurred at the studio in 1942 Floyd Odlum took over control of RKO and began changing its direction. Rockefeller, the most significant backer of the Brazil project, left the RKO board of directors. Around the same time, the principal sponsor of Welles at RKO, studio president George Schaefer, resigned. The changes throughout RKO caused reevaluations of many projects. RKO took control of ''Ambersons'', formed a committee, which was ordered to edit the film into what the studio considered a commercial format. They removed fifty minutes of Welles's footage, re-shot sequences, rearranged the scene order, and added a happy ending. Koerner released the shortened film on the bottom of a double-bill with the Lupe Vélez comedy, ''Mexican Spitfire Sees a Ghost''. ''Ambersons'' was an expensive flop for RKO, although it received four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress for Agnes Moorehead.
Welles's South American documentary, entitled ''It's All True'', budgeted at one million dollars with half of its budget coming from the U.S. Government upon completion, grew in ambition and budget while Welles was in South America. While the film originally was to be a documentary on Carnaval, Welles added a new story which recreated the journey of the ''jangadeiros'', four poor fishermen who had made a journey on their open raft to petition Brazilian President Vargas about their working conditions. The four had become national folk heroes; Welles first read of their journey in ''TIME''. Their leader, Jacare, died during a filming mishap. RKO, in limited contact with Welles, attempted to rein in the production. Most of the crew and budget were withdrawn from the film. In addition, the Mercury staff was removed from the studio in the U.S.
Welles requested resources to finish the film. He was given a limited amount of black-and-white stock and a silent camera. He completed the sequence, but RKO refused to support any further production on the film. Surviving footage was released in 1993, including a rough reconstruction of the "Four Men on a Raft" segment. Meanwhile, RKO asserted in public that Welles had gone to Brazil without a screenplay and that he had squandered a million dollars. Their official company slogan for the next year was, "Showmanship in place of Genius" – which was taken as a slight against Welles.
In 1943, Welles married Rita Hayworth. They had one child, Rebecca Welles, and divorced five years later in 1948. In between, Welles found work as an actor in other directors' films. He starred in the 1944 film adaptation of ''Jane Eyre'', trading credit as associate producer for top billing over Joan Fontaine. He also had a cameo in the 1944 wartime salute ''Follow the Boys'', in which he performed his ''Mercury Wonder Show'' magic act and "sawed" Marlene Dietrich in half after Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn refused to allow Hayworth to perform.
In 1944, Welles was offered a new radio show, broadcast only in California, ''Orson Welles' Almanac''. It was another half-hour variety show, with Mobil Oil as sponsor. After the success of his stand-in hosting on ''The Jack Benny Show'', the focus was primarily on comedy. His hosting on the Jack Benny show included several self-deprecating jokes and story lines about his being a "genius" and overriding any ideas advanced by other cast members. The trade papers were not eager to accept Welles as a comedian, and Welles often complained on-air about the poor quality of the scripts. When Welles started his ''Mercury Wonder Show'' a few months later, traveling to armed forces camps and performing magic tricks and doing comedy, the radio show was broadcast live from the camps and the material took on a decidedly wartime flavor. Of his original Mercury actors, only Agnes Moorehead remained working with him. The series was cancelled by year's end due to poor ratings.
While he found no studio willing to hire him as a film director, Welles's popularity as an actor continued. Pabst Blue Ribbon gave Welles their radio series ''This Is My Best'' to direct, but after one month he was fired for creative differences. He started writing a political column for the ''New York Post'', again called ''Orson Welles's Almanac''. While the paper wanted Welles to write about Hollywood gossip, Welles explored serious political issues. His activism for world peace took considerable amounts of his time. The ''Post'' column eventually failed in syndication because of contradictory expectations and was dropped by the ''Post''.
In 1946, International Pictures released Welles's film ''The Stranger'', starring Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, and Welles. Sam Spiegel produced the film, which follows the hunt for a Nazi war criminal living under an alias in America. While Anthony Veiller was credited with the screenplay, it had been rewritten by Welles and John Huston. Disputes occurred during the editing process between Spiegel and Welles. The film became a box office success and it helped his standing with the studios.
In the summer of 1946, Welles directed a musical stage version of ''Around the World in Eighty Days'', with a comedic and ironic rewriting of the Jules Verne novel by Welles, incidental music and songs by Cole Porter, and production by Mike Todd, who would later produce the successful film version with David Niven. When Todd pulled out from the lavish and expensive production, Welles alone supported the finances. When he ran out of money at one point, he convinced Columbia president Harry Cohn to send him enough to continue the show, and in exchange, Welles promised to write, produce, direct, and star in a film for Cohn for no further fee. The stage show soon failed, due to poor box-office, with Welles unable to claim the losses on his taxes. The complicated financial arrangements concerning the show, its losses, and Welles's arrangement with Cohn, resulted in a tax dispute with the IRS.
At the same time in 1946 he began two new radio series, ''The Mercury Summer Theatre'' for CBS and ''Orson Welles Commentaries'' for ABC. While ''Summer Theatre'' featured half-hour adaptations of some of the classic Mercury radio shows from the 1930s, the first episode was a condensation of his ''Around the World'' stage play, and remains the only record of Cole Porter's music for the project. Several original Mercury actors returned for the series, as well as Bernard Herrmann. It only was scheduled for the summer months, and Welles invested his earnings into his failing stage play. ''Commentaries'' was a political vehicle for him, continuing the themes from his New York Post column. Again, Welles lacked a clear focus, until the NAACP brought to his attention the case of Isaac Woodard. Welles brought significant attention to Woodard's cause. Soon Welles was being hanged in effigy in the South and theaters refused to show ''The Stranger'' in several southern states.
In 1948, Welles convinced Republic Pictures to let him direct a low-budget version of ''Macbeth'', which featured extremely stylized sets and costumes, and a cast of actors lip-syncing to a prerecorded soundtrack, one of many innovative cost-cutting techniques Welles deployed in an attempt to make an epic film from B-movie resources. The script, adapted by Welles, is a violent reworking of the Shakespearean original, freely cutting and pasting lines into new contexts via a collage technique, and recasting ''Macbeth'' as a clash of pagan and proto-Christian ideologies. Some of the voodoo trappings of the famous Welles/Houseman Negro Theatre stage adaptation are also visible, especially in the film's characterization of the Weird Sisters, who create an effigy of Macbeth as a charm to enchant him. Of all Welles's post-''Kane'' Hollywood productions, ''Macbeth'' is closest to ''Citizen Kane'' in its use of long takes and deep focus photography. Shots of the increasingly isolated Scottish king looming in the foreground while other characters address him from deep in the background overtly reference ''Kane''.
Republic initially trumpeted the film as an important work but decided it did not care for the Scottish accents on the soundtrack and held up general release for almost a year after early negative press reaction, which included ''Life'''s comment that Welles's film "doth foully slaughter Shakespeare." Welles left for Europe, while his co-producer and life-long supporter Richard Wilson reworked the soundtrack. Welles ultimately returned and cut twenty minutes from the film at Republic's request and recorded narration to cover the gaps. The film was decried as another disaster. ''Macbeth'' had its share of influential fans in Europe, especially the French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau, who hailed the film's "crude, irreverent power" and careful shot design, and described the characters as haunting "the corridors of some dreamlike subway, an abandoned coal mine, and ruined cellars oozing with water." In the late 1970s, a fully restored version of ''Macbeth'' was released that followed Welles's original vision, and all prints of the truncated continuity have gradually been withdrawn from circulation, turning Welles's compulsory recut, which has the distinction of being created by the director himself, into something of a lost work.
The following year, Welles starred as Harry Lime in Carol Reed's ''The Third Man'', alongside Joseph Cotten, his good friend and co-star from ''Citizen Kane'', with a script by Graham Greene and a memorable zither score by Anton Karas. The film was an international smash hit, but unfortunately Welles had turned down a percentage of the gross in exchange for a lump-sum advance. A few years later British radio producer Harry Alan Towers would resurrect the Lime character for radio in the series ''The Lives of Harry Lime''. The 1951 series included new recordings by Karas, was very successful, and ran for 52 weeks. Welles claimed to write a handful of episodes—a claim disputed by Towers, who maintains they were written by Ernest Borneman—which later would serve as the basis for the screenplay by Welles, ''Mr. Arkadin'' (1955).
Welles also appeared as Cesare Borgia in the 1949 Italian film ''Prince of Foxes'', with Tyrone Power and Mercury Theatre alumnus Everett Sloane, and as the Mongol warrior Bayan in the 1950 film version of the novel ''The Black Rose'' (again with Tyrone Power).
in the 1952 film ''Othello''.]]
Filming was suspended several times as Welles ran out of funds and left to find other acting jobs, accounted in detail in MacLiammóir's published memoir ''Put Money in Thy Purse''. When it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival it won the Palme d'Or, but was not given a general release in the United States until 1955 (by which time Welles had re-cut the first reel and re-dubbed most of the film, removing Cloutier's voice entirely), and it played only in New York and Los Angeles. The American release prints had a technically flawed soundtrack, suffering from a complete drop-out of sound at every quiet moment. It was one of these flawed prints that was restored by Welles's daughter, Beatrice Welles-Smith in 1992 for a wide re-release. The restoration included reconstructing Angelo Francesco Lavagnino's original musical score (which was inaudible) and adding ambient stereo sound effects (which weren't in the original film). The subject of great controversy among film scholars, the restoration went on to a successful theatrical run in America. A print of the U.S. version was released on laser-disc in 1995 and soon withdrawn after a legal challenge by Beatrice Welles-Smith. The original Cannes version has survived, but is not available commercially.
In 1952 Welles continued finding work in England, after the success of the ''Harry Lime'' radio show. Harry Alan Towers offered Welles another series, ''The Black Museum'', with Welles as host and narrator, and this would also run 52 weeks. Director Herbert Wilcox offered him the part of the murdered victim in ''Trent's Last Case'', based on the novel by E. C. Bentley. In 1953 the BBC hired Welles to read an hour of selections from Walt Whitman's epic poem ''Song of Myself''. Towers hired Welles again, to play Professor Moriarty in the radio series, ''The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'', starring John Gielgud, and Ralph Richardson.
Late in 1953, Welles returned to America to star in a live CBS ''Omnibus'' television presentation of Shakespeare's ''King Lear''. The cast included MacLiammóir and the British actor, Alan Badel. While Welles received good notices, he was guarded by IRS agents, prohibited to leave his hotel room when not at the studio, prevented from making any purchases, and the entire sum (less expenses) he earned went to his tax bill. Welles returned to England after the broadcast.
In 1954, director George More O'Ferrall offered Welles the title role in the 'Lord Mountdrago' segment of ''Three Cases of Murder'', co-starring Badel. Herbert Wilcox cast him as the antagonist in ''Trouble in the Glen'' opposite Margaret Lockwood, Forrest Tucker, and Victor McLaglen. Old friend John Huston cast him as Father Mapple in his 1956 film adaptation of Herman Melville's ''Moby-Dick'', starring Gregory Peck.
In 1955 Welles also directed two television series for the BBC. The first was ''The Orson Welles Sketchbook'', a series of six 15-minute shows featuring Welles drawing in a sketchbook to illustrate his reminiscences for the camera (including such topics as the filming of ''It's All True'' and the Isaac Woodard case), and the second was ''Around the World with Orson Welles'', a series of six travelogues set in different locations around Europe (such as Venice, the Basque Country between France and Spain, and England). Welles served as host and interviewer, his commentary including documentary facts and his own personal observations (a technique he would continue to explore). A seventh episode of this series, based on the Gaston Dominici case, was suppressed at the time by the French government, but was reconstructed after Welles's death and released to video in 1999.
In 1956 Welles completed ''Portrait of Gina'', posthumously aired on German television under the title ''Viva Italia'', a 30-minute personal essay on Gina Lollobrigida and the general subject of Italian sex symbols. Dissatisfied with the results—Welles recalled he had worked on it a lot and the result looked like it—he left the only print behind at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. The film cans would remain in a lost-and-found locker at the hotel for several decades, where they were discovered after Welles's death.
In 1978, the long preview version of the film was rediscovered and released. In 1998, editor Walter Murch and producer Rick Schmidlin, consulting the original memo, used a workprint version to attempt to create a version of the film as close as possible to that outlined in the memo. This is at best a compromise that should not be mistaken for Welles's original intent. Welles stated in that memo that the film was no longer his version—it was the studio's, but as such, he was still prepared to help them with it.
As Universal reworked ''Touch of Evil'', Welles began filming his adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes' novel ''Don Quixote'' in Mexico, starring Mischa Auer as Quixote and Akim Tamiroff as Sancho Panza. While filming would continue in fits and starts for several years, Welles would never complete the project.
Welles continued acting, notably in ''The Long, Hot Summer'' (1958) and ''Compulsion'' (1959), but soon returned to Europe.
By this time he had ceased filming ''Quixote''. Though he would continue toying with the editing well into the 1970s, he never completed the film. As the process went on, Welles gradually voiced all of the characters himself and provided narration. In 1992, the director Jesús Franco constructed a film out of the portions of ''Quixote'' left behind by Welles. Some of the film stock had decayed badly. While the Welles footage was greeted with interest, the post-production by Franco was met with harsh criticism.
In 1961 Welles directed ''In the Land of Don Quixote'', a series of eight half-hour episodes for the Italian television network RAI. Similar to the ''Around the World with Orson Welles'' series, they presented travelogues of Spain and included Welles's wife, Paola, and their daughter, Beatrice. Though Welles was fluent in Italian, the network was not interested in him providing Italian narration because of his accent, and the series sat unreleased until 1964, by which time the network had added Italian narration of its own. Ultimately, versions of the episodes were released with the original musical score Welles had approved, but without the narration.
Welles played a film director in ''La Ricotta'' (1963)—Pier Paolo Pasolini's segment of the ''Ro.Go.Pa.G.'' movie, although his renowned voice was dubbed by Italian writer Giorgio Bassani. He continued taking what work he could find acting, narrating or hosting other people's work, and began filming ''Chimes at Midnight'', which was completed in 1966. Filmed in Spain, it was a condensation of five Shakespeare plays, telling the story of Falstaff and his relationship with Prince Hal. The cast included Keith Baxter, John Gielgud, Jeanne Moreau, Fernando Rey and Margaret Rutherford, with narration by Ralph Richardson. Music was again by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino. Jess Franco served as second unit director.
In 1966, Welles directed a film for French television, an adaptation of ''The Immortal Story'', by Karen Blixen. Released in 1968, it stars Jeanne Moreau, Roger Coggio and Norman Eshley. The film had a successful run in French theaters. At this time Welles met Kodar again, and gave her a letter he had written to her and had been keeping for four years; they would not be parted again. They immediately began a collaboration both personal and professional. The first of these was an adaptation of Blixen's ''The Heroine'', meant to be a companion piece to ''The Immortal Story'' and starring Kodar. Unfortunately, funding disappeared after one day's shooting. After completing this film, he appeared in a brief cameo as Cardinal Wolsey in Fred Zinnemann's adaptation of ''A Man for All Seasons''—a role for which he won considerable acclaim.
In 1967 Welles began directing ''The Deep'', based on the novel ''Dead Calm'' by Charles Williams and filmed off the shore of Yugoslavia. The cast included Jeanne Moreau, Laurence Harvey and Kodar. Personally financed by Welles and Kodar, they could not obtain the funds to complete the project, and it was abandoned a few years later after the death of Harvey. The surviving footage was eventually edited and released by the Filmmuseum München. In 1968 Welles began filming a TV special for CBS under the title ''Orson's Bag'', combining travelogue, comedy skits and a condensation of Shakespeare's play ''The Merchant of Venice'' with Welles as Shylock. Funding for the show sent by CBS to Welles in Switzerland was seized by the IRS. Without funding, the show was not completed. The surviving film clips portions were eventually released by the Filmmuseum München.
In 1969, Welles authorized the use of his name for a cinema in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Orson Welles Cinema remained in operation until 1986, with Welles making a personal appearance there in 1977. Also in 1969 he played a supporting role in John Huston's ''The Kremlin Letter''. Drawn by the numerous offers he received to work in television and films, and upset by a tabloid scandal reporting his affair with Kodar, Welles abandoned the editing of ''Don Quixote'' and moved back to America in 1970.
In 1972, Welles acted as on-screen narrator for the film documentary version of Alvin Toffler's 1970 book ''Future Shock''. Working again for a British producer, Welles played Long John Silver in director John Hough's ''Treasure Island'' (1972), an adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel, which had been the second story broadcast by ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'' in 1938. Welles also contributed to the script, his writing credit was attributed to the pseudonym 'O. W. Jeeves'. Welles original recorded dialog was re dubbed by Robert Rietty.
In 1973, Welles completed ''F for Fake'', a personal essay film about art forger Elmyr de Hory and the biographer Clifford Irving. Based on an existing documentary by François Reichenbach, it included new material with Oja Kodar, Joseph Cotten, Paul Stewart and William Alland. An excerpt of Welles's 1930s ''War of the Worlds'' broadcast was recreated for this film, however none of the dialogue heard in the film actually matches what was originally broadcast. Welles filmed a five minute trailer, rejected in the US, that featured several shots of a topless Kodar.
Welles hosted and narrated a syndicated anthology series, ''Orson Welles's Great Mysteries,'' over the 1973–1974 television season. It did not last beyond that season; however, the program could be perceived as a television revival of the Mercury Theatre whose executive producer Welles had been in the 1930s and 1940s.
In 1975, Welles narrated the documentary ''Bugs Bunny: Superstar'', focusing on Warner Bros. cartoons from the 1940s. Also in 1975, the American Film Institute presented Welles with its third Lifetime Achievement Award (the first two going to director John Ford and actor James Cagney). At the ceremony, Welles screened two scenes from the nearly finished ''The Other Side of the Wind''. Filming had begun in 1972 and by 1976, Welles had almost completed the film. Financed by Iranian backers, ownership of the film fell into a legal quagmire after the Shah of Iran was deposed. Written by Welles, the story told of a destructive old film director looking for funds to complete his final film. It starred John Huston and the cast included Peter Bogdanovich, Susan Strasberg, Norman Foster, Edmond O'Brien, Cameron Mitchell, and Dennis Hopper. While there have been several reports of all the legal disputes concerning ownership of the film being settled, enough disputes still exist to prevent its release. The Showtime cable network has promised support for the project should the various entanglements associated with it be resolved.
In 1976, Paramount Television purchased the rights for the entire set of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories for Orson Welles. Welles had once wanted to make a series of Nero Wolfe movies, but Rex Stout — who declined Hollywood adaptations during his lifetime after two disappointing 1930s films — turned him down. Paramount planned to begin with an ABC-TV movie and hoped to persuade Welles to continue the role in a mini-series. Frank D. Gilroy was signed to write the television script and direct the TV movie on the assurance that Welles would star, but by April 1977 Welles had bowed out. In 1980 the Associated Press reported "the distinct possibility" that Welles would star in a Nero Wolfe TV series for NBC television. Again, Welles bowed out of the project due to creative differences and William Conrad was cast in the role.
In 1979 Welles completed his documentary ''Filming Othello'', which featured Michael MacLiammoir and Hilton Edwards. Made for West German television, it was also released in theaters. That same year, Welles completed his self-produced pilot for ''The Orson Welles Show'' television series, featuring interviews with Burt Reynolds, Jim Henson and Frank Oz and guest-starring The Muppets and Angie Dickinson. Unable to find network interest, the pilot was never broadcast. In 1979 Welles also appeared in the biopic ''The Secret of Nikola Tesla'', and a cameo in ''The Muppet Movie'' as Lew Lord.
Beginning in the late 1970s, Welles participated in a series of famous television commercial advertisements. For two years he was on-camera spokesman for the Paul Masson Vineyards, and sales grew by one third during the time Welles intoned what became a popular catchphrase: "We will sell no wine before its time." He was also the voice behind the long-running Carlsberg "Probably the best lager in the world" campaign and promoted Domecq sherry on British television.
In 1981, Welles hosted the documentary ''The Man Who Saw Tomorrow'', about Renaissance-era prophet Nostradamus. In 1982 the BBC broadcast ''The Orson Welles Story'' in the ''Arena'' series. Interviewed by Leslie Megahey, Welles examined his past in great detail, and several people from his professional past were interviewed as well. It was reissued in 1990 as ''With Orson Welles: Stories of a Life in Film''. Welles provided narration for the tracks "Defender" from Manowar's album Fighting the World and "Dark Avenger" on Manowar's 1982 album, ''Battle Hymns''. His name was misspelled on the latter album, as he was credited as "Orson Wells".
During the 1980s, Welles worked on such film projects as ''The Dreamers'', based on two stories by Isak Dinesen and starring Oja Kodar, and ''The Orson Welles Magic Show'', which reused material from his failed TV pilot. Another project he worked on was ''Filming The Trial'', the second in a proposed series of documentaries examining his feature films. While much was shot for these projects, none of them was completed. All of them were eventually released by the Filmmuseum München.
In 1984, Welles narrated the short-lived television series ''Scene of the Crime''. During the early years of ''Magnum, P.I.'', Welles was the voice of the unseen character Robin Masters, a famous writer and playboy. Welles's death forced this minor character to largely be written out of the series. In an oblique homage to Welles, the ''Magnum, P.I.'' producers ambiguously concluded that story arc by having one character accuse another of having hired an actor to portray Robin Masters.
The last film roles before Welles's death included voice work in the animated films ''The Enchanted Journey'' (1984) and ''The Transformers: The Movie'' (1986), in which he played the planet-eating robot Unicron. His last film appearance was in Henry Jaglom's 1987 independent film ''Someone to Love'', released after his death but produced before his voice-over in ''Transformers: The Movie''. His last television appearance was on the television show ''Moonlighting''. He recorded an introduction to an episode entitled "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice", which was partially filmed in black and white. The episode aired five days after his death and was dedicated to his memory.
Since 1932, Welles had fallen in love with Mexican actress, Dolores del Río. They lived a torrid romance between 1938 and 1942, though he was ten years her junior. They collaborated together in the movie ''Journey into Fear'' but the affair ended soon afterward.
Welles married Rita Hayworth in 1943. The couple became estranged during the making of ''The Lady from Shanghai''. After five years, Rita filed for divorce, her reason to the press being, "I can't take his genius any more." During his last interview and only two hours before his death, Welles answered Merv Griffin's suggestive comment "But one of your wives—oh, I have envied you so many years for Rita Hayworth", by calling her "one of the dearest and sweetest women that ever lived" and saying that he was "lucky enough to have been with her longer than any of the other men in her life."
In 1955 Welles married Italian actress Paola Mori (Countess Paola Di Girifalco). Estranged for decades, the couple were never divorced. Croatian-born actress Oja Kodar became Welles's longtime companion both personally and professionally from 1966 on. They lived together for the last twenty-four years of his life. A year after Orson's death, Paola and Oja finally agreed on the settling of his will. On the way to their meeting to sign the papers, however, Paola was killed in a car accident.
Welles had three children: author Christopher Welles, or Chris Welles Feder (born in 1938, with Virginia Nicolson), Rebecca Welles Manning (born December 17, 1944 – died October 14, 2004, with Rita Hayworth) and Beatrice Welles (born in 1955, with Paola Mori).
Some of Welles's claimed familial ties have not held up under scrutiny. Despite the persistent urban legend, promoted by Welles himself, he was not the great-grandson of Abraham Lincoln's wartime Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles. Perhaps the genesis of the myth dates to a 1970 interview on ''The Dick Cavett Show'' during which Welles remarks about his venerable great-grandfather Gideon Welles. Orson Welles's father was Richard Head Welles, son of his paternal grandfather Richard Jones Welles; Gideon Welles had no son by that name. His sons were Hubert (1833–1862), John Arthur (1845–1883), Thomas G. (1846–1892), and Edgar Thaddeus Welles (1843–1914).
In the 2006 book, ''Whatever Happened to Orson Welles?'', writer Joseph McBride made several controversial claims about Welles. Though Welles said otherwise during his lifetime, McBride claimed Welles left America in the late 1940s to escape McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklist. McBride also claimed, in spite of the sexual content of Welles's contemporary work (''F for Fake'' and the unfinished ''Other Side of the Wind''), that Welles was extremely puritanical about sex based on his comment to Peter Bogdanovich that ''The Last Picture Show'' was "a dirty movie".
Welles once told ''Cahiers du cinéma'' about sex in film, "In my opinion, there are two things that can absolutely not be carried to the screen: the realistic presentation of the sexual act and praying to God."
Tim Robbins's 1999 film ''Cradle Will Rock'' chronicles the process and events surrounding Welles and John Houseman's production of the 1937 musical by Marc Blitzstein. In it, Welles is played by actor Angus MacFadyen.
Playwright and actor Austin Pendleton wrote the play ''Orson's Shadow'' about Welles and his collaboration with Laurence Olivier. It deals with the time that Welles directed Laurence Olivier in a production of Eugène Ionesco's play ''Rhinoceros''. According to this play, Welles privately disliked Olivier's film adaptations of Shakespeare's works (which were far more successful than Welles's), at one point stating that Olivier's film of ''Hamlet'' "looked like a Joan Crawford movie". Welles struggled with getting Olivier to play not merely someone lower-class (as he did in ''The Entertainer'') but getting Olivier to play someone utterly non-descript.
Author Kim Newman has featured Orson Welles as a character in several stories from his Anno Dracula series.
In the Tim Burton-directed biopic ''Ed Wood'' (1994), Welles (played by Vincent D'Onofrio and dubbed by Maurice LaMarche) makes a brief "cameo appearance", giving advice to director Edward D. Wood, Jr. who idolises Welles. Inspired, Wood proceeds to finish his film ''Plan 9 from Outer Space'', sometimes called one of the worst films of all time. Though ''Ed Wood'' is based on Wood's life, in reality the scene is entirely fictional: Wood never met Orson Welles. D'Onofrio would again portray Welles in the 2005 30-minute film ''Five Minutes Mr. Welles'' concerning Welles's role in the film ''The Third Man''.
Although the character Brain from the animated series ''Animaniacs'' and ''Pinky and the Brain'' was not initially modeled after Welles, Maurice LaMarche was shown a picture of Brain and tasked with finding a voice for the character. LaMarche immediately thought of Welles and decided to do his Welles impersonation. LaMarche also played Welles in ''The Critic'' (where his "later work", ads for such products as 'Mrs. Pell's Fishsticks', is referenced) and in the ''Futurama'' episode "Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences", in which he performs a ''WOTW''-like play.
One of the recurring celebrity characters on the influential Canadian sketch comedy TV show ''Second City Television'' (SCTV) was John Candy's impersonation of Welles. ON SCTV, Candy-as-Welles appeared in an embarrassing array of commercials, talk shows, and other low-budget productions. It's unknown whether or not Welles ever saw Candy's impersonation.
''Me and Orson Welles'', released in November 2009, stars Zac Efron as a teenager who convinces Welles (Christian McKay) to cast him in Welles's 1937 production of ''Julius Caesar'', based on Robert Kaplow's novel.
The final segment of ''The Simpsons'' "Treehouse of Horror XVII" features a parody of Welles's 1938 War Of The Worlds radio broadcast in which, having been fooled once, the people of Springfield refuse to believe that an actual alien invasion is taking place. Welles was again voiced by Maurice LaMarche in the episode.
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ar:أورسون ويلز an:Orson Welles ast:Orson Welles bn:অরসন ওয়েলস be-x-old:Орсан Ўэлс bs:Orson Welles br:Orson Welles bg:Орсън Уелс ca:Orson Welles cs:Orson Welles da:Orson Welles de:Orson Welles et:Orson Welles es:Orson Welles eo:Orson Welles eu:Orson Welles fa:اورسن ولز fr:Orson Welles ga:Orson Welles gl:Orson Welles ko:오슨 웰스 hr:Orson Welles io:Orson Welles id:Orson Welles it:Orson Welles he:אורסון ולס ka:ორსონ უელსი sw:Orson Welles la:Orson Welles lt:Orson Welles hu:Orson Welles ml:ഓർസൺ വെൽസ് nl:Orson Welles ja:オーソン・ウェルズ no:Orson Welles oc:Orson Welles pl:Orson Welles pt:Orson Welles ro:Orson Welles qu:Orson Welles ru:Уэллс, Орсон sq:Orson Welles simple:Orson Welles sk:Orson Welles sl:Orson Welles sr:Орсон Велс sh:Orson Welles fi:Orson Welles sv:Orson Welles th:ออร์สัน เวลส์ tg:Орсон Уелс tr:Orson Welles uk:Орсон Уеллс vi:Orson Welles zh:奧森·威爾斯This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Coordinates | 28°36′36″N77°13′48″N |
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name | Gara GarayevQara Qarayev |
background | classical_ensemble |
birth date | February 05, 1918 |
death date | May 13, 1982 |
origin | Baku, Azerbaijan |
genre | Classical |
occupation | Composer, conductor |
years active | 44 years }} |
In 1926, at the age of eight, Gara Garayev first entered the junior music school at the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire, currently known as the Baku Music Academy. Due to his musical talents, in 1933 Garayev was allowed to enroll simultaneously in two faculties at the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire. Among his teachers were Georgi Sharoyev, Leonid Rudolf, and the prominent Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov. In 1937, Garayev joined the Union of Composers of Azerbaijan SSR.
In 1941 Garayev returned to Baku to teach at Azerbaijan State Philharmonic Society. In 1945, Garayev and Jovdat Hajiyev wrote the ''Motherland'' ("Vətən") opera, for which they were awarded a prestigious Stalin Prize. In 1948, at the age of 30, Garayev was again awarded this prize for his symphonic poem ''Leyli and Majnun'', based on the same-titled famous work of Nizami Ganjavi. Upon the death of Uzeyir Hajibeyov in 1948, Garayev became the Chair of the Union of Composers of Azerbaijan SSR and the rector of Azerbaijan State Conservatoire. In the latter position, Garayev retained Uzeyir Hajibeyov's traditional emphasis on Azerbaijani folk music in teaching, and also promoted the contemporary genres, such as jazz, in Azerbaijani music. In 1948 Garayev also became the delegate to the First National USSR Congress of Soviet Composers. In the same year Garayev also headed the Music Department at the Azerbaijan Architecture and Art Institute.
In 1952, under the direction of the choreograph P. A. Gusev, Garayev's ''Seven Beauties'' ballet was staged at the Azerbaijani Theater of Opera and Ballet. Based on Nizami Ganjavi's famous poem, ''Seven Beauties'' ("Yeddi gözəl") became the first Azerbaijani ballet and opened a new chapter in the history of classical music of Azerbaijan. Garayev's only other ballet, ''Path of Thunder'' ("İldırımlı yollarla"), staged in 1958, was dedicated to racial conflicts in South Africa. In the same year, Garayev also wrote the score for the documentary film ''A Story About the Oil Workers of the Caspian Sea'', directed by Roman Karmen and set at the Oil Rocks.
During his teaching career at the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire, Garayev tutored a number of prominent Azerbaijani musicians and composers, including Niyazi, Arif Malikov, Khayyam Mirzazade and Ismayil Hajibeyov among others. Garayev's own son, Faraj (born 1943) was also his student, who went on to compose single-act ballets such as ''Shadows of Qobustan'' ("Qobustanın kölgələri") and ''Kaleidoscope'', and later led the musical avantgarde movement in Azerbaijan.
In June 1961, amidst the Cold War, Garayev and Tikhon Khrennikov were the only two Soviet composers who attended the first International Los Angeles Music Festival held at UCLA. Fifteen composers from seven nations presented their works, including Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky. On June 11, Franz Waxman conducted the Festival Symphony Orchestra with a suite from Garayev's ''Path of Thunder''.
In 1962 Garayev became a member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and visited the United States, Ethiopia and Lebanon. In 1972 he visited Poland.
Garayev died on May 13, 1982 in Moscow at the age of 64. His body was flown to Baku and buried at the Alley of Honor.
Category:1918 births Category:1982 deaths Category:Azerbaijani composers Category:People from Baku Category:Heroes of Socialist Labour Category:People's Artists of Azerbaijan Category:People's Artists of the USSR Category:Soviet composers Category:Soviet film score composers Category:Stalin Prize winners Category:Baku Academy of Music alumni Category:Burials at Alley of Honor
az:Qara Qarayev de:Qara Qarayev fa:قارا قارایف fr:Gara Garayev nl:Gara Garayev ja:カラ・カラーエフ ru:Караев, Кара Абульфаз оглы tr:Kara Karayev uk:Кара КараєвThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Coordinates | 28°36′36″N77°13′48″N |
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name | Alexander Frey |
born | October 5, 1972 Chicago, Illinois,United States |
occupation | Conductor, pianist, organist, composer, recording artist. |
label | KOCH International Classics, Decca, Deutsche Grammophon |
background | non_vocal_instrumentalist }} |
Alexander Frey (born October 5, 1972) is an American symphony orchestra conductor. He is also a virtuoso organist and pianist. Frey is in great demand as one of the world's most versatile conductors, and has enjoyed great success in the concert hall and opera house, and in the music of Broadway and Hollywood.
In addition to his regular appearances as a conductor on major concert series, Frey is known for being able to completely learn entire concert programs virtually overnight and follow with performances of great depth, and is very frequently called upon to replace conductors who have canceled their engagements, often at the last minute.
A well-read, witty and urbane figure, Frey has been called "a raconteur, a young Oscar Levant" by American writer and Prairie Home Companion host Garrison Keillor, "his generation's Noel Coward", "everybody's favorite dinner guest" and that "he seems like a classic character from the golden age of the Broadway musical".
In an interview celebrating his 95th birthday, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Studs Terkel discussed his "diverse and idiosyncratic taste in music, from Bob Dylan to Alexander Frey, Louis Armstrong to Woodie Guthrie".
In January 2008, during an interview broadcast on Radio Cairo while conducting in Egypt, Frey stated that "Music is a peaceful island in a river of sadness.
In recent years, he has taken to playing his solo recitals with a lamp next to or on the piano providing the only stage light (and often the only lighting in the concert hall as well), and an oriental rug underneath the instrument to "create an intimacy between my audience and the music, as if everyone were in my living room listening together".
A resident of Berlin, Germany, Frey has been frequently invited by the city's diplomatic community to perform for heads of state including President Bill Clinton and the Dalai Lama, and former German chancellors Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schroeder, among others.
Frey is an official Steinway Artist.
He is Musical Advisor for the Hollywood in Vienna Festival held every year in Vienna, Austria.
Frey is of Greek-American and Swiss-American descent.
Frey was appointed conductor of the Bohemia Symphony Orchestra (later named the Stern Chamber Orchestra) in Prague, Czech Republic, a position he has held since 2000. He was conductor of Prague's historic Karlin Theater from 2004 to 2008 where he conducted 50 performances per season.
His many recent guest conducting appearances include performances on five continents with the Rio de Janeiro Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Athens State Orchestra, Sibelius Symphony Orchestra, Rome Philharmonic Orchestra, Seoul Royal Symphony Orchestra, Cairo Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra of Berlin, Brandenburg Chamber Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of Sicily (Palermo), Bari Symphony Orchestra, and the Collegium Symphonium Veneto (Padua) among others. He also conducted Ensemble Europa (members of the Israel Philharmonic and Deutsche Oper orchestras) in sold-out concerts in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Berlin commemorating the 50th anniversary of World War II and the liberation of the concentration camps. In 2006, he conducted Prague's official orchestral gala concert (with the Stern Chamber Orchestra) celebrating Mozart's 250th birthday on the day of the composer's birth. In 2010, he was the only American conductor invited to conduct an Italian orchestra for the Festa della Repubblica, the Italian independence day on which all the major orchestras in Italy give concerts in honor of the occasion.
Frey has also been Music Director for major productions at the Edinburgh International Festival (where he was awarded the festival's Critics' Prize), the Wiener Festwochen (Theater an der Wien, Vienna), Venice Festival (Teatro La Fenice), Holland Festival, the Fifth European Festival, and the Copenhagen Opera Festival.
From 1992 to 1996, he was Music Director of Germany's most renowned theater, the Berliner Ensemble, founded by Bertolt Brecht, where he collaborated with the celebrated stage director Peter Zadek. Frey was the first American to hold a position at the Berliner Ensemble, as well as being the theater's first non-German Music Director; his historic predecessors who held the same music directorship included the composers Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, and Paul Dessau. While there, Zadek and Frey's artistic collaboration made theater history by producing several revolutionary and innovative productions which received great international acclaim. They adapted Vittorio DiSica's classic film ''Miracle of Milan (Miracolo e Milano)'' for the stage using the actual entire dialogue script from the film. Frey devised the idea of restoring the entire original film score and performing it live throughout the play using exactly the same music cues as in the film, marking the first time this technique was ever used. He repeated this method for a subsequent production in Austria of a stage version of the film ''Arsenic and Old Lace''. For ''Miracle of Milan'', Frey and the production were nominated for a Berlin Theater Critics' Prize. Frey also produced and directed the Berliner Ensemble's ''A Paul Dessau Evening'', a highly acclaimed multimedia retrospective of the musical and dramatic works of the theater's music director of the 1950s.
He frequently played recitals with the renowned Grammy Award-winning tenor, Jerry Hadley. Frey has performed chamber music with violinist Ruggiero Ricci and the Vermeer Quartet, among others. In 1985, Ricci and Frey performed New York City's official concert commemorating the anniversary of the birth of Johann Sebastian Bach, given in a sold-out Alice Tully Hall on the actual day of the composer's 300th birthday. He has performed concerts in Europe with American writer and ''A Prairie Home Companion'' host Garrison Keillor.
Frey's annual schedule also includes worldwide recital tours. He was the first organist ever to perform an entire symphony of Gustav Mahler as a solo work for organ. This historic achievement resulted in Frey's live performance of the organ transcription Gustav Mahler's Symphony #5 (transcribed by Jerry Kinsella) being regarded as one of seven performances listed as "the most important organ-related events of the 20th century" by ''The American Organist'' magazine.
In Barrie Gavin's documentary film, ''Erich Wolfgang Korngold-Adventures of Wunderkind: A Portrait and Concert'', Frey performs several solo keyboard works and the first public hearing of Korngold's second symphony, which exists only in a manuscript piano score. Most of the background piano music in the film is also taken from Frey's performances of the composer's music.
He has conducted James Helme Sutcliffe's ''Gymnopedie'' and ''Night Music'' (both world premieres), Charles Kalman's ''Hudson Concerto'', Naji Hakim's ''Hymne de l'Univers'' (North American premiere) and Ada Gentile's ''Adagio and Adagio Prima, Adagio Seconda''. As pianist, Frey has given the world premieres of Leonard Bernstein's ''Five Anniversaries'' and ''Thirteen Anniversaries'', as well as the European and Asian premieres of that composer's ''Sonata for the Piano''. He gave the world premieres of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's ''Vier Walzer'' (Four Waltzes), Kurt Weill's ''Albumblatt'' (the composer's only work for solo piano) and Franz Schubert's unpublished ''Fugue in D minor'' for organ.
Frey is Musical Advisor to the Hollywood in Vienna Festival.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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