I've seen other clips from this interview, and Welles' intensity is in rare form here. He regretted falling in love with film because he was one of those people who could've done anything. The way he skewers (and then honors) Elia Kazan shows that all he needed was a microphone to express a clarity that most directors couldn't reach with 100 pictures.
@@feelemotionsapp The DP is responsible for the image, the sound editor and/or music composer is responsible for the sound/music. And we're talking about What makes a good movie, not Who.
@@AltanirvesTeokwitlaoselotl People make movies. And the director is responsible for everything and everyone involved. It is his vision and everything starts and ends with him.
@icyjaam It warms my heart to read someone ask that. To think, they might be falling into obscurity. In the 2010s, CinemaSins was a youtube channel that created cynical and pedantic videos pointing out flaws in movies. This would range from "I see a crew member in the background of this shot" to the far less reasonable "the entire plot of this movie does not make sense because x plot detail was not explained". Trouble being that sometimes those plot details were explained, and the creator would either not have noticed or would claim otherwise just to pad out the video. Putting aside such film criticisms as "no lapdance in this scene," the channel had no love for film as a craft, nor any want to deconstruct it as a product. The humor was cheap, hollow, and low-brow. This would have been fine, if they hadn't been popular and shaped the conversation around movies for my high school friend group. Say what you will about video essay culture, at least it promotes discussion.
And yet he told amazing stories by working with amazing scripts. I guess Psycho is 90 minutes of a shot of a house, right? Great filmmakers often give the worst advice.
The most nothing director? Melville although there's misogyny suicide betrayal there's ultimately a sense of futility. The critics loathed his nihilism his formal formalization of his nulity Delon plays the same character Jeff either as hit man or Cop in Le Samaurai and Un Flic but it's all impersonal they are types archetypes molded by the exterior coding of the institutions of crime. No private life. The individual disappears in a Zen nothingness. His films always have that feeling of cool distance indifference. Like the blue tint of the photography in Un Flic 1973
I just finished watching a video where Spielberg said that story is the most important thing about making a film. So, now I don't know what to believe.🤣
It's a great film but hardly about nothing, the story structure is the standard as are the story beats. It plays with that fact and people's expectations of a plot while toying with the idea of it being about nothing but if you watch a Felini or a Godard, you'll see the difference.
@@curiositytax9360 I love The Long Goodbye and I agree it's a better movie, but Lebowski ripping it off? I don't see it. Influenced by it in some ways, sure, but rip off is a bit much.
@@curiositytax9360 Yeah I see what you're saying, I'm sure it does owe its existence to it. That's how cinema is, a long trail of directors influencing and building upon each other. And PTA certainly owes a lot to Altman. Anyway, yeah, TLG is amazing, I love it to death. Glad to hear you do too. The theme plays in my head often. And I think it has actually exploded in popularity over the past few years. I noticed it on Letterboxd. I'm pretty sure it has orders of magnitude more people now that have it listed as one of their favorites than there were a few years back.
one could do a film about nothing. the other was a nothing, movie wise. there’s a difference there but probably his ego was too big and his brain too small, to notice it.
I agree, script is the third !! Cinema is before all audiovisual, people tend to forget it. The image and the sound/music are more important than the story in my opinion. I actually write most of my stories with a lot of details that I don't write to be shown on screen or explained; the viewer can understand the story as he pleases, with just the image and sound that is provided. I shot one of my first short movies that way, and depending on the viewer I had very different perceptions and understandings of it, some that I had never imagined but made total sense, it was very interesting. Cinema should be more like that, we need to free ourselves from the old habit of storytelling that made sense when it was just oral transmitted stories or theatre, but is not necessarily mandatory for an awesome movie. Look at Pulp Fiction, for example.
Exactly. The scrip is done the list. What on the screen. Who’s on the screen. What it looks like on the screen. Movies are audio visual but things that grab you. Characters and all. The story is third. Wells knows his stuff. He said he was one of only two directors he knows who lights the scene it self, for the scene, not for the actors to be lit up properly.
@@beckoning-chasm Oh ok, that's funny I took your comment a completely different way than you intended. I thought you were slyly implying that Bogdanovich didn't deserve to be in the frame with the two other giants.
@@Fordham1969 No, nothing like that at all. I just didn't know who it was. It kind of looks like Willem Dafoe but I knew it couldn't be, so I guessed. No offense taken, bro.
i bet somebody clever could extract that phantom shadow overlay/glitch and recombine it with the true image and restore some of the image quality, maybe with ai.
@@heric_ _"You're right but Seinfeld is not good, at all."_ Then why is it consistently ranked amongst the top TV shows of all? _"It succeeded just because at that time there was nothing else which was interesting."_ Then why is it still popular more than 25 years after it's been off the air?
Page said that Led Zeppelin was mostly a band that wrote songs about nothing. It also worked for them. I believe that Buñuel along with his partner at the time, Salvador Dali perhaps made the first ever film about nothing, since the film was just completely taken from their dreams, their subconscious minds. No conscious ideas were even used in the story at all. An Andalusian Dog is that film of course. Honestly though, I'm not sure which film Welles is talking about regarding Fellini. To me Fellini's films often feel full of meaning and intent.
Hollywood film in that particular era depends on traditional storytelling (act- act-2 act-3)..... filmmaker like jean luc godard or fellini film doesn't rely on traditional narrative....they made masterpiece about dream, imagination,satire without proper storytelling structure...
My honest opinion after watching Citizen Cane : Masterfull cinematography but surprising little substance. Consistently ranked as one of the greatest films ever made , I have no idea why really. But, he gave this speech 1982, at a time when all filmaking took a turn for the worse in all the world at the same time. So I guess he´s right. He´s furious about the fast approaching commercialisation in the film industry wich really took of in the 80´s
Not at all. I was having a conversation with someone who thought that Everything Everywhere All At Once was an "unbelievable" script. That's how I've always felt about Citizen Kane. It's disingenuous for people to only praise the look of Kane. Every aspect of that film is masterful. Perhaps the greatest cast ever put to film, and maybe the greatest screenplay. Roger Ebert put it best by saying "on the surface, it's as fun as any film ever made; its depths surpass understanding."
Although fellini entertained with nothing, since he used it to tell about aestheticism, beauty of life and dreams, instead the french bored with their rather dull dialogues about love that made no sense.
Sad to think how far French cinema has fallen since Orson gave this speech. We went from the likes of Louis Malle, Truffaut, Godard, to producing the absolute height of mediocrity. The industry in France is completely choked by the worst kind of nepotistic communist dullards. The pearls are almost nonexistent.
That's true. Even so, in my opinion, "l'état français" will always be the land of auteurs - Haneke, Noé, Denis, Sciamma, etc. I am still hopeful that French cinema will have another Renaissance.
@@antoinepetrov i believe so too, and it's true there are some genuine creative voices in spite of the constraints. As a French film school drop out I'm a bit more cynical, you'll have to forgive me for that
He's not talking about bad scripts, he's saying that you can make a good movie based on a plot of a man staring at a window. Also, watch Drive. Bad script, great movie.
ปีที่แล้ว +10
How do you know a script is bad? You can't read it! As part of the audience, you only get the "processed" part of the script: the lines are being said by an actor and the scenes are being executed by a director. And those two things can make a terrible script look like a masterpiece.
@ I'm not sure I'd go as far as a masterpiece since a masterpiece would need great everything to qualify, including dialogue which is an integral part to a script so it'd need to be good too.
I've seen other clips from this interview, and Welles' intensity is in rare form here. He regretted falling in love with film because he was one of those people who could've done anything. The way he skewers (and then honors) Elia Kazan shows that all he needed was a microphone to express a clarity that most directors couldn't reach with 100 pictures.
i mean it's not like he wasted it playing chess or whatever
Do you know where I can watch the full interview from?
What’re the first 2 important things? The camera and the edit?
3. The script/story
2. The director
1. The actors and what's on screen
In my opinion:
3. The script/story
2. The music/sound
1. The visual/image
@@AltanirvesTeokwitlaoselotl The director is responsible for image and sound
@@feelemotionsapp The DP is responsible for the image, the sound editor and/or music composer is responsible for the sound/music.
And we're talking about What makes a good movie, not Who.
@@AltanirvesTeokwitlaoselotl People make movies. And the director is responsible for everything and everyone involved. It is his vision and everything starts and ends with him.
@@feelemotionsapp Umm, no it doesn't.
And people making movies doesn't change the difference between what and who.
Ah, the French.
- ..champagne... has always been celebrated for its excellence...
MWAH... the frencsh
It's vintage, dated
"Ulala where's my wine, i need wine to sleep and my old stinky cheese"
I understood that reference
And this is why I don't watch CinemaSins anymore.
Cinema Sins always sucked
🛎
@@trinex3332 Yes it did. But you're telling me that still exists?
Whats that
@icyjaam It warms my heart to read someone ask that. To think, they might be falling into obscurity.
In the 2010s, CinemaSins was a youtube channel that created cynical and pedantic videos pointing out flaws in movies. This would range from "I see a crew member in the background of this shot" to the far less reasonable "the entire plot of this movie does not make sense because x plot detail was not explained". Trouble being that sometimes those plot details were explained, and the creator would either not have noticed or would claim otherwise just to pad out the video. Putting aside such film criticisms as "no lapdance in this scene," the channel had no love for film as a craft, nor any want to deconstruct it as a product. The humor was cheap, hollow, and low-brow.
This would have been fine, if they hadn't been popular and shaped the conversation around movies for my high school friend group.
Say what you will about video essay culture, at least it promotes discussion.
So that’s where Jerry and Larry got the idea! Who knew?
Seinfeld really does have a connection to Fellini!
Jajajajaja!
🤔
Recently watching Fellini for the first time and wasn't that surprised to see how much David Lynch was obviously influenced by him.
Everyone was influenced by him.
Lynch visited Fellini in the hospital before he died; he talks about it in Room to Dream.
why wouldn't he?@peterkelnerxd7009
@peterkelnerxd7009 Has nothing to do with being influenced by someone.
They share a birthday too
Even Hitchcock said he didnt care about the content but handling the material.
What’re the first 2 important things? The camera and the edit?
@@gianni206 now nobody knows the first two things because welles didn't say, i'm frustrated....
@@user-yourselves47 image and sound
The story doesn’t so much matter as the storyteller.
And yet he told amazing stories by working with amazing scripts. I guess Psycho is 90 minutes of a shot of a house, right? Great filmmakers often give the worst advice.
Orson Welles speaks the truth.
"Hey Jerry listen to this! That's gold Jerry! Gold!"
He didn't say "great" he said wonderful the title misquoted him.
Antonionni was synonymous with nothing. The famous image of the body in Blow Up disintegrates as he enlarges it.
The most nothing director? Melville although there's misogyny suicide betrayal there's ultimately a sense of futility. The critics loathed his nihilism his formal formalization of his nulity Delon plays the same character Jeff either as hit man or Cop in Le Samaurai and Un Flic but it's all impersonal they are types archetypes molded by the exterior coding of the institutions of crime. No private life. The individual disappears in a Zen nothingness. His films always have that feeling of cool distance indifference. Like the blue tint of the photography in Un Flic 1973
Look at Fellini? Look at Seinfeld!
If script is the third, what are the first and the second most important?
I was wondering the same thing
Image and music/sound.
Cinema is an audiovisual art.
Sex and drugs
I just finished watching a video where Spielberg said that story is the most important thing about making a film. So, now I don't know what to believe.🤣
So what was the first ?
the director, his/her voice
Every Altman film is about nothing
Orson' s ..stage training and attitude....an insistence.. Took him Far..
honestly id cheer if fellini was mentioned too
So Fellini succeed in making a Film about Nothing...(Flaubert wanted to write a novel about Nothing)
It's kinda the same with Seinfeld..only in a show sitcom format..
Beckett done it twee keer.
What did he say the 2nd most important thing is?
Learn every crew member’s name
And first?
Tea and biscuits @@vijethshetty4789
Ironically Fellini remains to be the most nominated Oscar writer Lmao!
That's not true. Woody Allen has twice as many Oscar nominations for writing than Fellini does.
Another example of a movie about nothing, the big lebowski. Yeah that's probably a stupid example to some, but it's still great LOL
It's a great film but hardly about nothing, the story structure is the standard as are the story beats. It plays with that fact and people's expectations of a plot while toying with the idea of it being about nothing but if you watch a Felini or a Godard, you'll see the difference.
@@curiositytax9360 thanks for reminding me that I need to watch that
@@curiositytax9360 I love The Long Goodbye and I agree it's a better movie, but Lebowski ripping it off? I don't see it. Influenced by it in some ways, sure, but rip off is a bit much.
@@curiositytax9360 Yeah I see what you're saying, I'm sure it does owe its existence to it. That's how cinema is, a long trail of directors influencing and building upon each other. And PTA certainly owes a lot to Altman. Anyway, yeah, TLG is amazing, I love it to death. Glad to hear you do too. The theme plays in my head often. And I think it has actually exploded in popularity over the past few years. I noticed it on Letterboxd. I'm pretty sure it has orders of magnitude more people now that have it listed as one of their favorites than there were a few years back.
@@curiositytax9360 I like movies from that era, especially film noir, so it won't be much of an adjustment for me, but thanks for the heads up
one could do a film about nothing. the other was a nothing, movie wise. there’s a difference there but probably his ego was too big and his brain too small, to notice it.
I agree, script is the third !!
Cinema is before all audiovisual, people tend to forget it.
The image and the sound/music are more important than the story in my opinion. I actually write most of my stories with a lot of details that I don't write to be shown on screen or explained; the viewer can understand the story as he pleases, with just the image and sound that is provided.
I shot one of my first short movies that way, and depending on the viewer I had very different perceptions and understandings of it, some that I had never imagined but made total sense, it was very interesting.
Cinema should be more like that, we need to free ourselves from the old habit of storytelling that made sense when it was just oral transmitted stories or theatre, but is not necessarily mandatory for an awesome movie.
Look at Pulp Fiction, for example.
Orson Welles: It's a Film about nothing! How do we know when its over?
The Uncultured: I do. *doesn't watch*
Isn't any image and audio telling a story though?
If story is the third most important thing, what are second and first?
Fear and surprise.
I'd guess that he would say directing and acting. But I disagree.
Money and money
Imagination and money
direction and meaning/depth
Where can I find this whole interview??
Seinfeld's inspiration
look at seindfeld a show about nothing
Low concept movies
He's not wrong
Well THERE is a show about nothing!
Orson had A insistence passion to his work..
Is the fellini film welles is referring to, 8 1/2?
I think he is referring to his every film
Fellini made many films about all kinds of things. La Strada and Nights of Cabiria are both story and narrative driven.
Or look at Pulp Fiction.
Exactly. The scrip is done the list. What on the screen. Who’s on the screen. What it looks like on the screen. Movies are audio visual but things that grab you. Characters and all. The story is third. Wells knows his stuff. He said he was one of only two directors he knows who lights the scene it self, for the scene, not for the actors to be lit up properly.
He’s right
John Huston, Orson Welles and...Peter Bogdanovich?
Bogdanovich and Welles were great friends and also collaborators.
@@Fordham1969 I knew that, I just wasn't sure who that was in the rightmost part.
@@beckoning-chasm Oh ok, that's funny I took your comment a completely different way than you intended. I thought you were slyly implying that Bogdanovich didn't deserve to be in the frame with the two other giants.
@@Fordham1969 No, nothing like that at all. I just didn't know who it was. It kind of looks like Willem Dafoe but I knew it couldn't be, so I guessed. No offense taken, bro.
i bet somebody clever could extract that phantom shadow overlay/glitch and recombine it with the true image and restore some of the image quality, maybe with ai.
I'm craving Grey Poupon and caviar on blinis, with Paul Masson wine.
Characters and ideas are what I would say are the two most important things.
The author of "Citizen Kane" definitely knows the subject of films about nothing :-)
All the 10-time Oscar winners in the comments section are in agreement with Welles here. It's great to see all geniuses agree with each other.
Euphoria
Who is this guy?
Look at seinfeld
You're right but Seinfeld is not good, at all. It succeeded just because at that time there was nothing else which was interesting.
@@heric_ wrong
@@heric_ _"You're right but Seinfeld is not good, at all."_
Then why is it consistently ranked amongst the top TV shows of all?
_"It succeeded just because at that time there was nothing else which was interesting."_
Then why is it still popular more than 25 years after it's been off the air?
Page said that Led Zeppelin was mostly a band that wrote songs about nothing. It also worked for them. I believe that Buñuel along with his partner at the time, Salvador Dali perhaps made the first ever film about nothing, since the film was just completely taken from their dreams, their subconscious minds. No conscious ideas were even used in the story at all. An Andalusian Dog is that film of course. Honestly though, I'm not sure which film Welles is talking about regarding Fellini. To me Fellini's films often feel full of meaning and intent.
Led Zeppelin directly stole the songs, they didn't even write them
@@gabrielegagliardi3956 Go back to school.
@@jh2245I touched your heroes and now you are butthurt, led Zeppelin are for boomers, we are in2024, upgrade.
@@gabrielegagliardi3956 Lol, you're pathetic. Get some sleep, you need to get to school, badly!
@@gabrielegagliardi3956 esagerato. Perlomeno avevano un sound nuovo,che nel rock è praticamente l'unica cosa che conta
Is he criticizing Fellini or praising him?...I am confused
definitely praising
Hollywood film in that particular era depends on traditional storytelling (act- act-2 act-3)..... filmmaker like jean luc godard or fellini film doesn't rely on traditional narrative....they made masterpiece about dream, imagination,satire without proper storytelling structure...
@@sameerahmed-gx8js yes...they broke the rules and made something new... very similer to what Joyce or other modernist maestros did in Literature
no one can make films like Fellini, they are milestones.
Well he did call it a 'great' film, so I would say he is praising him.
❤
Orson sounds a little tipsy.
Shocker.
@@BookClubDisaster would've been surprised to hear him sober
MUAHHHAHAHAHA the French
My honest opinion after watching Citizen Cane : Masterfull cinematography but surprising little substance. Consistently ranked as one of the greatest films ever made , I have no idea why really. But, he gave this speech 1982, at a time when all filmaking took a turn for the worse in all the world at the same time. So I guess he´s right. He´s furious about the fast approaching commercialisation in the film industry wich really took of in the 80´s
Not at all. I was having a conversation with someone who thought that Everything Everywhere All At Once was an "unbelievable" script. That's how I've always felt about Citizen Kane. It's disingenuous for people to only praise the look of Kane. Every aspect of that film is masterful. Perhaps the greatest cast ever put to film, and maybe the greatest screenplay. Roger Ebert put it best by saying "on the surface, it's as fun as any film ever made; its depths surpass understanding."
@@FirstPlace97 I guess i have to re-watch it. It was more then 25 years ago (in my twenties) maybe I was not mature enough
I do not disagree with your opinion! On this film . Thx .
lacks substance?
it is about a man who wants everything and loses his soul trying to attain it
You must a profoundly shallow person to watch "Citizen Kane" and find no substance. That's so laughable, I hope you're joking.
What exactly about Fellini is Welles referring to?
I think 8 1/2, which is about a director lacking of inspiration for a film (but it turns out to be a powerful work of art about the beauty of life!)
Although fellini entertained with nothing, since he used it to tell about aestheticism, beauty of life and dreams, instead the french bored with their rather dull dialogues about love that made no sense.
Sad to think how far French cinema has fallen since Orson gave this speech. We went from the likes of Louis Malle, Truffaut, Godard, to producing the absolute height of mediocrity. The industry in France is completely choked by the worst kind of nepotistic communist dullards. The pearls are almost nonexistent.
That's true. Even so, in my opinion, "l'état français" will always be the land of auteurs - Haneke, Noé, Denis, Sciamma, etc. I am still hopeful that French cinema will have another Renaissance.
@@antoinepetrov i believe so too, and it's true there are some genuine creative voices in spite of the constraints. As a French film school drop out I'm a bit more cynical, you'll have to forgive me for that
"Literature is not good because I only know 3 books" good to know
@@ghostramen3768 "i have no reading comprehension" fascinating
Godard was a communist
But you need to be Fellini to be a movie about nothing
Where can i get the rest of the interview
Here it is:
th-cam.com/video/jKlI8zNl_xk/w-d-xo.html
Try looking up @ghost ramen's ass.
"Look at Seinfeld"
*Bass line intensifies*
Fellini and de sica were very beloved by awards Academy
What’re the first 2 important things? The camera and the edit?
Nothing?! Dear Orson, this time you were spectacularly wrong....
Disagree. Never a good movie from a bad script.
He can't hear you he's dead
He's not talking about bad scripts, he's saying that you can make a good movie based on a plot of a man staring at a window. Also, watch Drive. Bad script, great movie.
How do you know a script is bad? You can't read it! As part of the audience, you only get the "processed" part of the script: the lines are being said by an actor and the scenes are being executed by a director. And those two things can make a terrible script look like a masterpiece.
What is a bad script? Filmmaking is fluid. Unless you are Tarantino.
@ I'm not sure I'd go as far as a masterpiece since a masterpiece would need great everything to qualify, including dialogue which is an integral part to a script so it'd need to be good too.
Uh?