{Read} {PDF EPUB} ~download Son of Man by Welles Bristol Son of Man by Welles Bristol. From and To can't be the same language. That page is already in . Something went wrong. Check the webpage URL and try again. Sorry, that page did not respond in a timely manner. Sorry, that page doesn't exist or is preventing translations. Sorry, that page doesn't exist or is preventing translations. Sorry, that page doesn't exist or is preventing translations. Something went wrong, please try again. Try using the Translator for the Microsoft Edge extension instead. Me and Orson Welles. I t is difficult to recapture the excitement Orson Welles generated 50 years ago among cinephiles and serious theatregoers. When George Coulouris joined the Bristol Old Vic Company in 1950 after a lengthy sojourn in the States my fellow sixth-formers and I were thrilled beyond measure to have in our city an actor who'd played Mark Antony opposite Welles in the Mercury company's fabled 1937 modern dress production of Julius Caesar and had a leading role in Citizen Kane . Yet none of us had seen Citizen Kane which had been out of distribution since shortly after its opening in 1941. We only knew of him through a few film appearances, most notably The Third Man , and his reputation for brilliance, wit and innovation, and what a few years later we'd learn to call charisma. Satyajit Ray said that one of the great regrets of his life was being out of Calcutta when Kane had its brief three-day screening there; one of mine is queuing at a London theatre in 1951 to see Welles in Othello and failing to get in. This exhilaration came back to me this week while seeing Richard Linklater's engrossing film version of Robert Kaplow's charming novel about a fictitious 18-year-old schoolboy briefly becoming a member of Welles's Mercury Theatre in 1937. In a very personal way, the experience was enhanced by the curious fact that much of the film was shot in a theatre in Douglas, Isle of Man, where I spent several summers in the earlier 1940s, though I can't remember anything I saw on stage there. The film is presented through the eyes of Richard Samuels, a bright high school senior from New Jersey, in love with theatre, cinema, literature, radio and popular culture, attractively played by Zac Efron, star of the High School Musical series. One day he crosses the Hudson to look around Manhattan. First he meets in a music store Gretta Adler (Zoe Kazan), a deeply serious girl his own age with literary ambitions. Then he strikes up a conversation with actors outside the Mercury Theatre on 41st Street, which has just been taken over by Welles's company after their departure from the government-sponsored Federal Theatre. Suddenly Welles himself arrives, immaculately turned out in a homburg and three-piece suit, and he engages in badinage with his actors and the naive, fearless Richard. The upshot is that after cross-questioning the teenager, the mercurial and capricious head of the Mercury hires Richard to play Brutus's young servant Lucius in the play that is scheduled to open in a week's time. Welles hands him over to his attractive young assistant, Sonya (Claire Danes), to be inducted into the ways of the company. She's a sophisticated, highly ambitious young woman, determined to use anyone to get ahead in showbusiness, her immediate aim being to get a job with David O Selznick, Hollywood's hottest producer. She stands in contrast to Gretta, the idealistic writer, and together they represent key facets of the 1930s. Meanwhile, Welles in his role of teacher takes Richard under his wing, demanding he accompany him on his money-making trips to radio stations, using an ambulance to make his way through the traffic. There's a marvellous scene of Welles arriving just in time for a broadcast, largely unacquainted with the script and taking off into an eloquent improvisation that baffles, infuriates and then impresses his fellow actors. Linklater's film is about the education of a suburban boy in the ways of the world, and the dramatic core is a realistic and persuasive account of the making of the Mercury's Julius Caesar and of the outrageous Welles at work. The modern dress production, with its dark green uniforms and Sam Browne belts, raised-arm salutes and a Caesar with a strong resemblance to Mussolini, is designed to make audiences think of Italy and fascist dictators. But Welles himself, playing Brutus, the intelligent, conscience-stricken liberal, is something of a dictator in the way he savagely cuts Shakespeare's text (re-arranged and pared down to 90 minutes), orders everyone around, and takes credit for his collaborators' work. Never before have I seen a theatrical production so brilliantly re-created, and for this major credit must go to the British cinematographer Dick Pope, who makes us feel we're there on the historic night. But at the end the show belongs to Christian McKay, the fourth and best actor to play Welles on screen. When we first see him the resemblance is merely passing, but after five minutes we think we're in the presence of the arrogant, irresistible young Orson himself, such is the accuracy of the body language, the facial expressions and above all that resonant voice, purring and booming. When after the first night curtain he asks, "How the hell do I top this?", the complexity of his future life flashes before us. Most of the other performances are convincing – Ben Chaplin as the perennially pessimistic Coulouris, Leo Bill as the puckish Norman Lloyd, and James Tupper as the suave lady's man Joseph Cotten, who figures in a lovely joke when in an ironic re-enactment of the most famous image from The Third Man he emerges as eavesdropper from a pitch-black doorway. The one real failure is a miscast Eddie Marsan, a specialist in sad losers, as Welles's closest associate and equal, the haughty, confident John Houseman, one of the great figures of the 20th-century arts. The Son of Man. Rene Magritte's painting titled The Son of Man is both puzzling and popular. It is possibly one of the most easily recognizable surrealist paintings and has become an iconic image, appearing in various formats, in numerous books, films and videos. Originally painted in 1964 as an oil on canvas and measuring 89cm by 116cm, this fascinating painting started out as a self-portrait. In 1963, Magritte's good friend, advisor and patron, Harry Torczyner, commissioned a self portrait of Magritte himself. However letters written by Magritte indicate that he found it difficult to paint his own portrait. Magritte described his difficulties as a "problem of conscience". When Magritte finally finished his self-portrait, the resulting image was of this anonymous man in a bowler hat and titled "The Son of Man". At first glance, "The Son of Man" appears to be a rather simplistic drawing yet it is profoundly perplexing. A figure of a man stands in front of a stone or concrete sea wall. Above the horizon line the sky appears cloudy and is just starting to turn grey. The viewer is given the impression that it is daytime as there is some light reflecting on the man and his left side is falling slightly into shadow. The man appears overdressed and out of context within the setting. He is dressed formally, wearing a dark grey suit complete with a bowler hat, collar and red tie. If the viewer looks more closely they discover that the third, or bottom button of his jacket has been left undone. The figure stands stiffly with his arms by his side but again, when the viewer studies the image carefully, they notice that the figure's left elbow faces the wrong way. When the viewer focusses solely on the left arm and nothing else, the man in the painting appears to face the water. Only the man's torso is shown, the viewer can only assume that he has legs. The most striking aspect of the image is the man's face which has been obscured by a bright, green apple which has four leaves attached. Barely visible, the man's left eye seems to be peeking through the leaves of the apple. Magritte used the apple to hide his real face and in his own comments about the painting, Magritte discussed the human desire to see what's hidden behind the visible. He spoke of the conflict that can arise between "the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present". Magritte cleverly captures this feeling within the picture. The viewer is both curious and frustrated about the face which cannot be seen because of the position of the apple. The viewer has to imagine what the face is like. The painting appears to have been created as a series of three on a similar theme. "The Great War on the Facades" is a painting of a woman near a sea-wall but her face is obscured by a flower. Magritte's "Man in a Bowler Hat" shows yet another figure wearing a bowler hat but this time his face is obscured by a bird. All three were painted in the same year. Magritte painted a very similar painting to "The Son of Man", also in 1964, titled "The Taste of the Invisible"". It was his repetition and recycling of some of his paintings and motifs which drew criticism from other artists. The use of the apple is probably the most perplexing issue. The association between use of the apple and the title of the painting "The Son of Man" has caused some experts to consider whether this is a deliberate reference to Christian ideas about the temptation of Adam in the Garden of Eden and the fall of mankind. Yet "son of man" can refer to anyone, even a faceless man in a suit. Both the apple and the bowler hat have become recurring motifs within Magritte's paintings. Numerous paintings feature apples. "Hesitation Waltz" from 1950 shows two masked apples. A simple picture of an apple with the contradictory title of "This is not an Apple" proved very popular. The 1952 image of a huge green apple confined in a small room, titled "The Listening Room" is a very well-known Magritte image. Some years later Paul McCartney, a Magritte enthusiast, saw a painting of an apple with Au Revoir written across it. This was the 1966 painting called "The Game of Mora" and it provided McCartney with the inspiration for the Beatles' own Apple label and logo. Another "famous" apple has now spawned numerous "Son of Man" stickers. The stickers are of a man in a bowler hat and are designed to fit over the apple logo on a Mac and are clearly inspired by Magritte's "The Son of Man" Painting. The bowler-hatted man makes numerous appearances both singularly, as in the painting called Schoolmaster and in groups, such as in the "The Masterpiece" (also known as Mysteries of the Horizon) which features three men wearing bowler hats. The first instance of a man in a bowler hat appeared in Magritte's 1926 painting called the "Musings of a Solitary Walker". Magritte himself was often photographed wearing a bowler hat and through his repeated use of this particular motif in his paintings, the bowler hat has become a Magritte "trademark". Although it appears that the bowler-hatted man refers to the artist himself, in the painting known as "The Son of Man" which started out as a self-portrait, the blandness or uniformity of the bowler hat has also made the figure ordinary or anonymous. The Son of Man is privately owned so it is rarely on public display. It was last seen briefly in 2001 in the LHotel's lounge in Montreal. Despite the lack of opportunities to view this wonderful painting, the image has become widely recognized due to its frequent use in popular culture. It has been shared, described and depicted in many forms. One of the most notable uses of the image occurred in the 1999 remake of the film called The Thomas Crown Affair, starring Pierce Brosnan. In the film the painting appears on the wall in Thomas Crown's house where Rene Russo likened it to a "faceless businessman". Also during the heist scene, Thomas Crown and several others dress in the same bowler hat, red tie and suit as the figure in the painting in order to confuse the security guards. Other films to have featured the painting are "Mr. Magorium's Empire" and "Bronson" as well as numerous others. The image has been seen in the world of pop too. It was shown in the futuristic gallery scene in Michael and Janet Jackson's Scream video. The iconic character was also depicted in the video of "Astral Traveller" by the group Yes. Even the Simpsons show has imitated this painting with Bart Simpson appearing behind the apple. The artist Norman Rockwell also paid tribute to "The Son of Man" by creating his own painting in 1970 which he called "Mr. Apple". Rockwell's painting featured a red apple instead of the figure's head. Rockwell's painting was sold in 2011 for $33,772. The Son of Man is simple yet striking, clear yet enigmatic. The focus upon a man in a suit with his face obscured, has captured the imagination of millions. Magritte's quirky paintings have provided the inspiration for whole new generation of artists such as Andy Warhol and the pop art movement. Though Magritte the artist might have personally preferred to blend in, rather like his bowler-hatted alter ego, his amazing paintings certainly stand out. Magritte once said that mystery is unknowable, so as much as much as "The Son of Man" can be analysed and interpreted, it will always remain an enigmatic piece of art that will continue to amaze and entertain the viewer. The Son of Man by Rene Magritte, 1964 is a famous Surrealist painting which depicts a suited gentleman with an apple hovering in front of his face. Son of Man is a famous Surrealist oil painting by talented artist Rene Magritte, who remains one of the most respected Europeans within this highly contemporary art movement. This website is devoted to the Son of Man painting and also covers the rest of Magritte's career in great detail. You will find many of his most famous paintings included throughout this page, as well as links to where you can buy your own reproduction prints of Magritte's original paintings. Son of Man is known for it's bizarre use of an apple in front of the head of a man dressed smartly in a suit. The Son of Man is actually a truly surrealist depiction of Magritte himself, as his best known self-portrait, though many who like the painting are not actually aware of this and enjoy the mystery around it. As with most surrealist paintings, Son of Man is only truly understood as a work in it's own right once a small amount of study has been done on it - you can't simply browse through images of Magritte's work and understand it straight away. Son of Man by Rene Magritte was created in 1964 and represents the finest piece of art work to have come from the career of this Belgian innovator. The original piece stands at an impressive 116 cm × 89 cm (45.67 in × 35 in) and is the typical oil on canvas that was found right throughout the 20th century. Sadly the Son of Man is now privately owned meaning that the opportunity to see it for yourself are rare, despite it's great fame and importance within the overall European surrealist movement. In view of it's status as a privately owned piece, many choose to buy reproductions of the original to enjoy in their own homes and these can take the form of prints, posters and stretched canvases. Framed prints tend to be the most popular choice and also giclees can best match the original colour schemes chosen by Magritte. All of the links included within this website offer Rene Magritte prints from recommended retailer, Art.com, whom we regularly use ourselves. Rene Magritte was an impressionist early on in his career before arriving at his trademark surrealist style after several years of study which helped to develop both his technical ability and also his range of ideas that inspired his work. Surrealism is one of the most popular aspects of contemporary art from the 20th century, and Magritte sits at the top of the pile within this, alongside other greats like Spaniard Salvador Dali. Surrealism has gathered a large group of fans in almost a cultish style but the movement has certainly become part of mainstream art over the years, after first being seen with suspicion and not the same academic respect that it receives today. Magritte's approach to art was intended to encourage his supporters to consider more closely the reality that lays around them, and not just accept things as they appear to be. This deep thinking mentality is highly typical of any significant artist, particularly from those in the more contemporary art movements which placed a high level of importance on the creative mind which sat behind each painting, rather than simply the technical skill which was used to create it. Surrealist paintings typically offer the viewer a confused reality with high levels of symbolism and Magritte shows this off in Son of Man. Many of his other notable paintings are listed further down the page, and images of the best are found right across this website. Other notable Surrealist painters included Paul Éluard, Benjamin Péret, René Crevel, Robert Desnos, Jacques Baron, Max Morise, Pierre Naville, Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí, Man Ray, Hans Arp, Georges Malkine, Michel Leiris, Georges Limbour, André Masson, Joan Miró, Marcel Duchamp and Yves Tanguy. A few years after this painting, American artist Norman Rockwell created his own version which replaced the green apple with a red one and played homage to the original which probably stands as the most famous Belgian painting of all time. The Great War on Façades followed a similar format to this and that is also amongst the best known of Magritte's career. Another related work was Man in the Bowler Hat, which replaces an apple with a bird which again is placed in front of the smartly dressed gentleman with bowler hat. Son of Man came just three years before the artist's death and it is interesting to consider what further surrealist paintings he may have come up with if his life had lasted longer. There is a certain look within his paintings which make them instantly recognisable as his, both with the color scheme and surrealist symbolism. His success has continued onto the present day with frequent exhibitions across Europe and North America. Rene Magritte is an important artist who was rare in that Belgian artists have very rarely achieved high levels of exposure. His career helps to highlight the role this country has played within art and help to preserve it's reputation which is normally forgotten when compared to it's heavyweight neighbours of Germany, Netherlands and France who all have had an abundance of success for many centuries and across different art movements. List of Famous Rene Magritte Paintings. Please see below for a summarised list of the best Rene Magritte paintings which are featured throughout this website. The Treachery of Images On the Threshold of Liberty The Son of Man The Empty Mask The Difficult Crossing The Human Condition Not to be Reproduced Time Transfixed Elective Affinities The Portrait Golconda The Mysteries of the Horizon The Menaced Assassin. Golconde by Rene Magritte, 1953 is a Surrealist oil painting currently on display at the Menil Collection, Houston, Texas. Drops of rain are represented by repeated images of a smart gentleman. Golconda is known as Golconde in French, which was the preferred language of this Belgian artist. Suited gentlemen are common used in many of Magritte's paintings, specifically in his period of surrealist work. Le Blanc-Seing by Rene Magritte, 1965 is a surrealist painting which is known as The Blank Check in English. Le Blanc-Seing features some interesting techniques which the artist used to create this attention grabbing scene where the background and foreground mingle together. Son of Man by Welles Bristol. From and To can't be the same language. That page is already in . Something went wrong. Check the webpage URL and try again. Sorry, that page did not respond in a timely manner. Sorry, that page doesn't exist or is preventing translations. Sorry, that page doesn't exist or is preventing translations. Sorry, that page doesn't exist or is preventing translations. Something went wrong, please try again. Try using the Translator for the Microsoft Edge extension instead. Son of Man. " Son of Man " is a common mistranslation, preferred by liberals, which obscures Jesus's divinity. Jesus used an artful phrase to convey his divinity without committing the capital offense of blasphemy, which would have terminated His ministry before it completed. A better English translation which conveys the divinity would be " The Son as man ." [1] In other words, simply replace "of" with "as" to restore the intended implication of divinity , without committing blasphemy under the strict rules of the time. The versatility of "as" in modern English conveys the meaning of the awkward, unusual Greek phrase better than "of" does. The then-blasphemous declaration by Stephen which caused him to be martyred is better translated as "The Son as man" rather than as "the Son of Man": “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:56 NIV translation) He said, “Look, I see the heavens open, and The Son as man stands at God's right hand.” Acts 7:56. The use of the phrase in Mark 10:45 illustrates the flaws in the "Son of Man" and the superiority of the "Son as man" as the English translation: For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve (NIV) For even the Son as man did not come to be served, but to serve. In Luke 24:7 use of the phrase "Son of Man" is confusing to the meaning, while use of "Son as man" would be much clearer: the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men (ESV) the Son as man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men. or perhaps better still: The Son, a human being, must be delivered into the hands of sinful men (Luke_17-24_(Translated)#Chapter_24) Numerous other passages translate in a stronger way if "Son as man" is used rather than "Son of man," such as: "you may be judged worthy . to stand before the Son as man." [2] Of necessity, Jesus could only imply during his ministry that he was divine, in order to avoid being put to death for blasphemy before his preaching and works were completed. [3] Because of blasphemy laws, Jesus often could only imply his divinity without expressly saying so . [4] Jesus' curing of the beggar blind from birth was followed by Jesus asking him, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He responded, "Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?" Jesus replied, "You have seen him, the one speaking with you is he." The formerly blind man responded, "I do believe, Lord," and he worshiped Him. [5] The translation "Son of Man" in English in that passage fails to capture the implication of "Son of God," which was obviously meant. [6] In Matthew 26:64, Jesus says something so blasphemous that it caused the High Priest to demand his execution. It was either "Hereafter you will see 'the Son of man, sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven'" or "Hereafter you will see ' the Son as man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.'" The latter rendition is clearly blasphemous while the former is not. The Greek version of how Jesus described himself is the awkward phrase " ὁ υἱὸς τοὺ ἀνθρώπου ," which can be translated as " the Son, a human being " or, more simply, " the Son as man ." [7] A full, wordy translation of the Greek would be "The Son, with the character of man." The Greek is likely a translation of an Aramaic phrase "bar enosha," which has the connotation of "a human." [8] The Greek wording implies the divinity of Jesus in a non-blasphemous manner, without Jesus expressly claiming to be God. Faith is then required to accept the obvious implication that Jesus was divine, and his opponents thereby had a difficult time catching him in the crime of blasphemy during his ministry. [9] John 9:35 does not make sense as merely "Do you believe in the Son of Man?", and the Greek manuscripts disagree at this verse, some stating "Son of Man" (ὁ υἱὸς τοὺ ἀνθρώπου), others "Son of God" (ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ). A fuller translation might be, "Do you believe in The Son, a human being?" Also, the verses surrounding John 3:16 refers to the same person as both "the Son of God and "the Son ______." To maintain the logic of the passage, the phrase "the Son _____" should not be translated in a manner inconsistent with "the Son of God." The translation "the Son, a human being" or "the Son, a man" is consistent with "the Son of God." Notice that the ancient Greek did not have the punctuation of a comma to convey meaning, as English does: ὁ υἱὸς ὁ ἄνθρωπος is the straightforward Greek version of the English "the Son, a human being." The comma is omitted without loss of meaning. The term highlights Jesus's humanity and how He came to serve and save mankind, but its translation should also emphasize that Jesus was God and not merely man. The term also illustrates how the best of the public comes from ordinary people rather than the elite. The Common English Bible, which includes a superb pro-life rendition of one controversial verse, translates the Greek for "Son of Man" as "Human One." The translators explain, with other examples, that "Greek usage often refers to 'a son of x' in the sense of 'one who has the character of ‘x.’'" [10] Contents. Prophecy in Psalms and Ezekiel. Psalms contains a prophecy of the "Son of Man" as later quoted by the Epistle to the Hebrews (which was possibly written by Jesus himself): When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, (Psalm 8:3-6 ESV, emphasis added) Ezekiel also contains a prophecy of the Son of Man, by describing him as "perfection": “ Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord God: “You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. ” Ezekiel 28:12 (ESV). Literal Translation. The pedantic translation of " ὁ υἱὸς τοὺ ἀνθρώπου " is " the Son of the Man ," as τοὺ ἀνθρώπου is the genitive of ὁ ἄνθρωπος - (the) man. This translation is used, e.g., in the King James Bible, the New American Standard Bible or the New International Version. This rendition is inconsistent with how the similar Greek phrase that replaces "of man" with "of peace" is better translated as "a peaceful person," "someone who promotes peace," or "a man of peace" [11] in Luke 10:6, rather than as the literal phrase "a son of peace." [12] (a translation used in the King James Bible and the English Standard Version.) But in English the overly literal translation as "the Son of Man" is incoherent, and the phrase interferes with the clear logic of the important passage surrounding John 3:16. An analogous phrase, with a genitive that helps define an "ambiguous or metaphorical head noun," occurs at 2 Corinthians 5:5 ("Who has given to us the down payment of the Spirit" is better translated as " . "the down payment which is the Spirit"). [13] Logical Basis. The logic of Christianity is that good and insights do not arise from the self-centered elite, but from the opposite. "Man" is fallen and cannot redeem himself, and neither could a "Son of Man." Instead, "the Son, a man" brought salvation in a way that liberals could never anticipate and prevent. "Son of Adam" Though the Greek version is clear, the Hebrew term for "Son of Man" could be a mistranslation of "Son of Adam," which emphasized how Jesus was a son (male descendant) of Adam. This meaning is suggested by Proverbs 8:31, where "sons of Adam" was translated by the KJV as "sons of men." This possible mistranslation in English Bibles then permitted Darwin to deny, with his theory of evolution, that Adam existed as described in the Bible. Had Jesus been known in the English-speaking world as the "Son of Adam," the theory of evolution would have been a non-starter. Fulfillment of a Prophecy. It is possible that its first use in reference to Jesus Christ is in the Book of Daniel, 7:13, in a prophecy of the Messiah: “ I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. ” But notice that the divine context is clear in this verse of Daniel, and many translations say "a son of man" rather than "the son of man" here. Orson Welles: One-Man Band. In April of 1953, Orson Welles was invited by the BBC to record extracts from Walt Whitman’s A Song of Myself for a radio broadcast. “The BBC recording is the zenith of his poetry reading,” Welles’s biographer Simon Callow notes, “not merely sonorous but deeply felt, a perfect congruence of reader and poet.” In fact, it’s hard to avoid the observation that Welles himself might have written some of these lines. Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) In the preface to his new book One-Man Band , Simon Callow recalls the genesis of his attempt to survey the life and work of Orson Welles in 1989. He planned to write a biography that consisted of three volumes (the third of which, he originally suggested, should be a novel), but over the course of the subsequent quarter of a century that plan has long fallen by the wayside. This is the third instalment of Callow’s monumental project (following The Road to Xanadu and Hello Americans ), and there is still more to come, as One-Man Band only takes us up to the completion of Welles’s Chimes at Midnight in 1967. Perhaps it’s appropriate that a biography of Orson Welles should expand so far beyond the scope of the biographer’s intentions; after all, Welles’s singular life and extraordinarily brilliant/eclectic/frustrating/confounding body of work surely merits a biography like no other. “Welles packed more living into his life, pursued more professions, thrust out in more directions and formed more intense relationships, than any twenty men put together,” Callow writes. In other words, he contained multitudes. The most striking thing about Callow’s study of Welles throughout these books has been his desire to plunge into every single aspect of that life. While most writing about Welles focuses on his work in cinema, Callow gives equal weight to his adventures in theatre, radio, television, journalism, and whatever else he happened to try his hand at along the way (reading about his brief excursion into ballet here is a highlight). He digs into the nuts and bolts of Welles’s approach, finding a man so fascinated by process and experimentation above all else that “occasionally (perhaps quite often) what happened with Welles on location or in the rehearsal room was more remarkable than what ended up on the screen or on the stage.” One-Man Band gives us fascinating insights into the making of some great films, but the most compelling and revealing material in this volume focuses on the work Welles did elsewhere. For example, while his film production of Othello was languishing in financial dire straits (as it usually was), Welles took the same play to the stage in 1951. As with many of Welles’s theatrical endeavours, Othello began in a dizzying flurry of energy, ideas and potential only to rapidly fall into chaos and confusion. Welles was frequently absent from rehearsals and when he did show up he rarely took part, choosing instead to orchestrate the action from the stalls. In fact, despite playing the leading role, he never engaged in a full rehearsal with his company, which led to a predictably disastrous opening night: “Everything that could go wrong went wrong: The curtain stuck, the pieces of the set ended up in the wrong place, the flying pieces became intertwined. Never having run the play fully, even in the rehearsal room, Welles – who now appeared on stage for the first time – came on from wherever he thought might be best, without reference to anything the understudy had done, speaking whatever lines came into his head, some but by no means all of them from Othello , and rarely in the right order. The result was certainly lively, but more often than not it meant that the actors found themselves in darkness, though Welles inevitably managed to locate his own light.” A common theme throughout One-Man Band is a sense of Welles the actor letting down Welles the director. He wouldn’t allow himself to be directed by anyone else on stage, and he rarely submitted to direction in his film work (often undermining and wrestling control from the nominal director on set), but the fact of the matter is that he wasn’t a disciplined enough stage actor to command both roles. “Not only when he was rehearsing, but during the run itself, more than half of Welles’s mind was on his fellow actors, the lighting, the stage machinery. The slow, selfish growth of a performance within an actor over the course of rehearsal and performance never happened for him,” Callow observes. Welles also suffered great anxiety about performing alongside his co-stars, avoiding rehearsals with them and on film sets shooting his side of conversation scenes alone (he even asked the rest of the cast to close their eyes as he recited a climactic courtroom speech in Compulsion ), and he sometimes seemed to be hiding behind his layers of prosthetics and padding. When writing about Welles’s iconic performance as Harry Lime in The Third Man , Callow notes that it was a rare occasion when Welles “gave of himself” for another filmmaker, and adds: “It is a glimpse of a very different acting career that he might have had, had he chosen to trust a director again.” In 1956 Welles was again on stage playing one of Shakespeare’s most challenging roles and the production was again beset by problems. In New York he took on King Lear , but after managing to injure both of his ankles following the (troubled but quite well-received) opening night, the curtain rose the following evening to reveal Welles sitting in a wheelchair. “Ladies and gentleman, I am Orson Welles,” he said, “and there will be no performance of King Lear tonight, we will not dance The Red Shoes .” Instead, Welles simply spoke to his public – reciting speeches, telling jokes, performing conjuring tricks – and he managed to entertain three-quarters of an audience that had arrived at the theatre that evening expecting to see a full production of King Lear , sending them home happy with a 90-minute one-man show. This was Orson Welles’s true gift as a performer; his ability to connect with people, to captivate them with his incomparable wit, intelligence and charisma. He was a better actor as himself than he could ever be as anyone else. It’s little wonder that television proved to be such a natural home for him. Welles actually had one Shakespearean triumph on the small screen – his performance as Lear in Peter Brook’s production for Omnibus being widely lauded – but television was the perfect medium for Welles the bravura personality to flourish. His facility for establishing a sense of intimacy with the viewers at home, to make it seem like he was casually chatting to each of them personally, was uncanny, and it was utilised superbly in series like Orson Welles’s Sketch Book and Around the World with Orson Welles . Callow sums up this gift of his by recounting an electrifying moment that occurred during a BBC interview programme called Press Conference , when Welles was asked if ‘the quiet school of acting’ is going out of fashion. ““It can’t go out of fashion,” says Welles, “as long as there’s that machine there” – and he points to the camera, staring straight into the lens with a look so frank, so intimate, so playful and so seductive that he seems to leap straight into one’s front room, and television suddenly becomes the most brilliant form of communication ever invented. Sixty years later, one feels in direct personal contact with the man; in the background his prickly interlocutors are by now visibly purring with pleasure, vanquished by his charm.” Of course, Welles’s love affair with television didn’t last. He explored it, mastered it, got bored with it and turned his attention elsewhere. During one recording of Sketch Book he threw down his pen in anger when it ran out of ink, and when the show’s producer arrived on set to resolve the issue, having walked the short distance from the control gallery, he was told Welles had already left for Paris. It is this haphazard narrative – littered with arguments, tantrums, bad debts and frustrated dreams – that bolsters the view of Welles’s career as being one long downward slide from Citizen Kane , but One Man-Band is not a story of failure. How could any man who produced Othello , Touch of Evil , The Trial and Chimes at Midnight within the span of two decades (not to mention The Third Man and the myriad fascinating experiments and tantalising near-misses) be classed as a failure? “He never, ever stopped, not for one waking moment, trying to tell stories he believed mattered in a way in which he wanted to tell them,” Callow writes, “till he drew his dying breath, Welles served his restless daemon, experimenting, exploring, pointing a way forward.” The passages of the book that capture Welles at his best – firing on all creative cylinders during the shooting of The Trial or Touch of Evil , for example, or embodying Falstaff, the character he felt a unique kinship with – are joyous and inspiring, and we just have to accept that all of Welles’s triumphs and disasters are borne from the same iconoclastic genius and capricious spirit. Should we lament what might have been? When Welles was on the set of Compulsion , he argued with the director Richard Fleischer over how his character should exit the scene. He insisted that he should leave to the right, disregarding the fact that there was no wall present on that side of the set. “Do you know what I would do if I were directing this picture?” Welles asked, “I’d wait until they built me a wall.” “That is why I am directing this picture and you are not,” Fleischer pointedly replied. This exchange gets at a simple truth, that Welles could have had an easier and much more productive career if he had only been a little bit smarter about playing the game, if he had curbed his natural impulses, chosen his battles more wisely and shown a willingness to compromise at a few crucial junctures – but what would we have lost in this exchange? He would then have been just another filmmaker, just another actor. He would have risked being – heaven forbid – ordinary. And a single-volume biography would probably have sufficed. Orson Welles: One-Man Band by Simon Callow is published on November 26 th by Random House.