Book review - "Whatever Happened to Orson Welles" by Joe McBride

Another book on Welles? At this stage in the game? But one pauses -McBride is one of the best movie biographers ever, he wouldn't waste our time. And so it proves. This is an unusual sort of book - I'd call it a "personal biography", because it is very much based on McBride's experience as a young writer doing pieces on Welles and working with him on The Other Side of the Wind.

The first section of the book covers Welles' career up to that movie - radio, Kane, Rita, Chimes etc. It is brightly done, but familiar and McBride's tendency to criticise writers who are critical of Welles (e.g. David Thomson, Charles Higham) gets a bit irritating at times - its like being caught in a vicious academic debate about post-modernism. But when he gets on to Other Side of the Wind and Welles's last decade and a half its really interesting; McBride offers a fascinating sketch of Welles and his methods, his collaborators in the last years of his life (especially Gary Graver and his mistress), how his methods changed (a younger mistress = more sexy topics), the staggering array of unfinished projects, his endless struggles to make films, his at times difficult relationship with Peter Bogdanovich and with McBride (despite the young man's passion for Welles' work the director was a real prat at times).

Because Welles' final years were full of so many "if only"s and "wouldn't have been good if he'd been given the support to finish X"s (one of the reasons that he will always be fascinating to film buffs, because his career is so rich in hypotheticals), it can't help but being sad. But there are moments of triumph, too - his various friendships, making F For Fake, his continual ability to remain at the cutting edge with creative powers undimmed, his lust for life.

I was also delighted to read that his final decade was among his most rewarding financially - voice over and commercials work kept him in cigars and food, so he wasn't poor. (NB good on McBride for chiding those who point to his 70s wine ads as some sort of low point in his career - he points out that Welles did heaps of ads back in his 30s glory days, he was always a bit of a huckster). Even better is the fact that Welles at one stage EDITED A PORN MOVIE - Graver worked on the less glamorous fringes of the film industry from time to time, and Welles one day asked if he could help out on something his DOP was doing... hence a Welles touch where you least expect it? (Wonder if they'll start showing it in retrospectives).

The book is (unavoidably) frustrating in one respect in that McBride describes so many of Welles' films from this time but you know its nothing quite like the experience of watching the movie - you kept wishing you could click on a link to watch what he was talking about.(I'd love to watch the Orson Welles talk show). For all the status of The Other Side of the Wind as a lost masterpiece, the story doesn't sound very interesting - I'm sure it would be visually dazzling but Welles running loose without the structure of either a strong co-writer or source material often resulted in a bit of a mess. The heart doesn't beat too fast at the thought of Cradle Will Rock or Big Brass Ring either. However, King Lear - that would have been magnificent, and the fact that didn't get made really upsets me.

The quality slips away in the last bit of the book, as McBride starts to get stuck into other people over Welles - daughter Beatrice for stopping people seeing his father's work (though Beatrice does sound like again), Bogdanovich for wanting money to complete projects, George Lucas and Henry Jaglom for not financing Welles restoration projects out of their personal fortunes (which is a bit unfair, it is their money), slagging off Tim Robbins for Cradle Will Rock.

But on the whole this is a passionate, personal book about Orson Welles, well work reading and invaluable on the last decade and a half of his life.