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Discovering Orson Welles
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Book Presentation:
Of the dozens of books written about Orson Welles, most focus on the central enigma of Welles's career: why did someone so extravagantly talented neglect to finish so many projects? Film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum has long believed that to dwell on this aspect of the Welles canon is to overlook the wealth of information available by studying the unrealized works. Discovering Orson Welles collects Rosenbaum's writings to date on Welles—some thirty-five years of them—and makes an irrefutable case for the seriousness of his work, illuminating both Welles the artist and Welles the man. The book is also a chronicle of Rosenbaum's highly personal writer's journey and his efforts to arrive at the truth. The essays, interviews, and reviews are arranged chronologically and are accompanied by commentary that updates the scholarship. Highlights include Rosenbaum's 1972 interview with Welles about his first Hollywood project, Heart of Darkness; Rosenbaum's rebuttal to Pauline Kael's famous essay "Raising Kane"; detailed essays and comprehensive discussions of Welles's major unfinished work, including two unrealized projects, The Big Brass Ring and The Cradle Will Rock; and an account of Rosenbaum's work as consultant on the 1998 re-editing of Touch of Evil, based on a studio memo by Welles.
About the Author:
Jonathan Rosenbaum writes film criticism for the Chicago Reader and has written on film for many other publications. He is also the author of many books, including Movies as Politics (UC Press, 1997).
Press Reviews:
"The intellectually insatiable Rosenbaum is just the person to dissect the myths and expose the inaccuracies that have grown to define the Welles legend. [It] has both breadth and depth."— American Cinematographer
"[Rosenbaum] is a master of details. His writing gives journalism a good name: all the anthologized pieces are lively and clear with an admirably high correlation between intelligence and intelligibility."— Cineaste
"Any film fan will appreciate having these seminal articles in one place."— Metro Newspapers
"Jonathan Rosenbaum is . . . probably the most insightful and fair-minded commentator on Welles matters at present writing."— The Times
"It takes the fanaticism and skills of a biographer, historian, archivist, and critic—that is, it takes Jonathan Rosenbaum—to encircle a corpus of such legendary girth and to keep up with its peripatetic auteur. The ardor and tenacity with which Welles lived inside a prodigious repertoire of projects, personae, and media have inspired Rosenbaum’s own ardent, tenacious career: that of discovering Orson Welles."—Dudley Andrew, R. Selden Rose Professor of Film and Comparative Literature, Yale University
See the publisher website: University of California Press
See the complete filmography of Orson Welles on the website: IMDB ...
> From the same author:
Abbas Kiarostami (2018)
by Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa and Jonathan Rosenbaum
Subject: Director > Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami (2003)
by Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa and Jonathan Rosenbaum
Subject: Director > Abbas Kiarostami
> On a related topic:
What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? (2022)
A Portrait of an Independent Career
Subject: Director > Orson Welles
Orson Welles in Focus (2018)
Texts and Contexts
Dir. James N. Gilmore and Sidney Gottlieb
Subject: Director > Orson Welles
At the End of the Street in the Shadow (2016)
Orson Welles and the City
Subject: Director > Orson Welles
My Lunches with Orson (2014)
Conversations between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles
Dir. Peter Biskind
Subject: Director > Orson Welles
Orson Welles and the Unfinished RKO Projects (2009)
A Postmodern Perspective
Subject: Director > Orson Welles
Orson Welles Remembered (2007)
Interviews with His Actors, Editors, Cinematographers and Magicians
Subject: Director > Orson Welles
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