Orson Welles Talks Touch of Evil, James Cagney & Jean Renoir
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2017
- Leslie Megahey interviews Orson Welles for Touch of Evil (1958), also, Charlton Heston talks about Orson Welles, from the documentary Arena - The Orson Welles Story (1982).
People love geniuses who are ten years ahead of their time. But they despise someone who is thirty years ahead his time. That was the case with Welles.
ilker sönmez WOW. That’s a fantastic description. On point, man.
U know the true stature of the man genius.
Like kubrick 🤔
Or they ignore them. I think the hardest thing is to keep working when you’re being completely ignored. That was the case with Van Gogh. Only his little brother’s belief in and support of him kept him working.
@@C.Hawkshaw That's very insightful. It had never struck me like that. There is a slight difference in that albeit prevented from working in the conventional sense, Welles was 'celebrated' throughout his later career.
Both of them, however wonderful in their ways, also had fairly serious character flaws.
What amazes me about Welles is how close to the surface his joy is. Despite everything Hollywood did to him, despite the fact that at this point in his life he had 4 or 5 films stalled because he just couldn't get the money to complete them, despite the failed marriages & the chronic health issues & how far his star had fallen....despite it all, a single question about something he's interested in & his eyes light up & he's carried off on inspiration & joy & creativity. Amazing man. Amazing artist, obviously, but I love that he was hailed as the best of the best in his lifetime--to his face--& it just never affected his desire to be generous & genuine & present.
I know he could be a petty sonofabitch to the Hollywood types, but he always gave the audience the best of what he had.
Very well said.
its all acting
> johnnydtractive Precisely. Very well said .
@@davidmoser3535 Isn't everything?
@@johnkuckowicz781 no
Heston's wisdom is criminally underrated, all he said about Welles genius, expecially his working through small budgets while Hollywood big directors used monumental productions, is true
Yeah he's wrong on one point though, Touch of Evil is indeed a great movie, and stands now as one of the most original Noirs of all time.
Heston knew that Wells was coming back from having been blackballed. That layers my interpretation of him late in life having been such an NRA advocate.
Touch of Evil has survived the test of time to now be rated a great film.
I saw Welles filming the opening of Touch of Evil on Windward Ave, Venice, Ca 1958. I was there. Wide eyed and in wonder of life.
really? cause they finished filming in 1957..
I was only -12 years old.
The film was shot in Cuba, in fact, Fidel Castro was a background extra.
Mug is the right name for you
Tom DeLaCruz i
Orson Welles' aborted career is the greatest tragedy in cinematic history. Impossible to imagine how many masterpieces could have been fashioned by the Michaelangelo of directors. Instead a potential lineup of brilliant artworks remain entombed in marble, never to be revealed to the world at large.
I feel the same way about Sam Peckinpah.
Well said.
When you got the Trail, Lady from Shanghai, Touch of Evil, Chimes at Midnight, McBeth, Citizen Kane and Mr Arkadin, I find it a lil' bit audacious for you to say that man has an aborted career. I'd say the same about Sam Peckinpah. They fought and maybe they lost during their living - I'd rather say they had to fight and quite enjoy a good living in the way, - but in the end they won. People and most directors are more into Welles and Peckinpah than into William Wyler, Stanley Kramer or even Richard Brooks for that matters (all due respects)... Wild Bunch is cited in almost every list of the best Westerns, and Citizen Kane in EVERY best movies lists... And more important : the influence they have on young filmmakers is tremendous.
My uncle visited the set and before he knew it, he was in a makeup chair. Orson gave him a bit part!
Orson Welles was his own greatest flawed masterpiece. A monumental talent. Poetic justice that Touch of Evil is now acclaimed as one of the greatest film noir ever made--it's only taken us half a century to finally catch up to Welles' vision & artistry.
Thanks to Charlton Heston for suggesting Welles...
Heston was an extremely intelligent man. He and Welles were a great pairing.
Welles was also terribly intelligent. And they were as opposite in political views as two individuals can be. Hyowever, they managed to work and collaborate handsomely, and to produce a brilliant piece of art. Nowadays, in spite of all the pro-difference pseudo-humanist official discourse, the slightest departure from the party line, whether it is neo-liberal or neo-con, isn't tolerated, and the unfortunate who doesn't walk the line is demonized and ostracized. Not just in Hollywood but in the media in general, as well as in the political arena. Sad times we are living in.
@@farerolobos9382
There was a time when one's political disposition was a private affair and was not the central focus of every aspect of life.
@@farerolobos9382 Unfortunately, the media is complicit in this, taking sides and playing both sides against each other to generate ratings and ad bucks. It leaves little room for compromise and mutual understanding.
@@farerolobos9382 very good observation.
No he wasn’t.
Nobody with a fragile ego ever likes someone who, even if he IS the smartest person in the room, knows it and has no patience if you don't acknowledge it. To hear Welles speak, the breadth of his intellect and insight, is to realize that he was playing Chess with people who were playing Checkers. But it is as Heston said, he just could not get over the fact that he was beholden to others for funding his work.
Today, however, with the scarcity of original content, they'd be throwing money at him.
His analysis of Cagney's acting is without peer. I have yet to read or hear anyone with a more penetrating understanding of the Art of Film. By the way, Dietrich is smoking hot as a brunette....
The strange thing is that Welles earned his living playing the monsters that he fought with at the studios. Quinlan is a studio boss. Cardinal Wolsely is a studio boss, Will Varner is a studio boss (Long Hot Summer) and so on. You might think that since he inhabited them as an actor, he might have understood how to outwit them as a director. But it wasn't to be.
@@waltermurch5570 good insight ! But again, they were words on a page and not his words to boot...
I think even if he shot a film on a smart phone it would be something to behold
Tangerine is pretty good 🙃
If only he had had our modern technology, where anyone can do it fairly cheaply, instead of having to raise millions of dollars to make his films, his whole career would have been so different.
@@premanadi iz u kiddin me
@@eggbertinkabod1121 Nope, I'z ain't kiddin
@@eggbertinkabod1121 Not thinking of a smartphone, more like a fancy digital movie camera.
The sheer brilliance of Orson Welles as a director is encapsulated in the opening tracking shot.
The most riveting speaker ever - they should have recorded Orson every day !
Man, two of the greatest voices in one clip! I could listen to Heston and Welles talk for hours.
Seriously…these two can make anything sound incredible.
Three. My God that's Marlene Dietrich!
I saw this film in it's director's edit revival in 1998 at the majestic Castro Theater in San Francisco - what a treat! As Mexican-born guy from a Bordertown myself, it was somewhat comical to see Charlton Heston playing a Mexican, albeit, he did look like my dad!
very interesting, good to see Chuck Heston in a better light showing what a fine actor and mind he was.
True. He had such charisma.
Yes, it's sad that he ended his life as a caricature... he is, indeed, thoughtful and interesting, here.
Yes. He started out as a liberal with a vision of a better society. Before he became a right-wing reactionary.
Heston was one of the better actors in Hollywood
"Got another flawed masterpiece?" Perfect.
Shine on you crazy diamond, Orson. Thanks for all the laughs
I've revered this outrageous chappie my whole life. This clip reminds me why. Despite all his trials & tribulations with the business side of the industry & dealing with non-artistic untalented fools for masters & collaborators, as soon as he starts talking about the art form he loves so much his eyes light up with the indefatigable Falstaff-ian twinkle. Mr Orson Welles always had his laser eye focussed on the main game, the creative process...
He was too intelligent to live in this shallow idiotic society.
I could not have said it better.
Hell yes! Welles was a national treasure, but we wouldn't know it given the shoddy treatment given him by the studios. He makes one masterpiece after another, and can't get financed? Can't get a final cut?! Pathetic. The saving grace of course is his films did get made, somehow, and have achieved their rightful merit. Touch of Evil is superb. What a monumental film, ahead of it's time. I can watch anything Welles made or acted in. The least of his efforts, tower over the competition. Fortunately, the Europeans supported his work, when it came out. A great film like The Trial, almost didn't get made, but for overseas backing. He was a true visionary artist.
Even outside of film, Welles is worth study. The boy-wonder who.made a voodoo Macbeth and a Mussolini Julius Caesar for the stage that were were smashes when he was barely.out of diapers.Then his radio career as the first Shadow in1938( the best Lamont Cranston if only for less than 2 years), His Mercury Theater Players putting on War of the World's and convincing.millions of Americans that Earth was being invaded by Martians in real life, his other radio parts ( Max de Winter in Rebecca, the star of a half hour one-shot called.The Hitchhiker guaranteed to keep you awake all night...). I taped mine off TV in 1998 and I cannot find it online, but there is a terrific documentary, 50 minutes long called Martian Mania about the Notorious Welles broadcast featuring talking heads of now elderly men and women who were child witnesses to that Halloween Eve broadcast. There is a clip of a seemingly humble, innocent, shocked Orson speaking to reporters the next day. Someone remarked, THAT was the greatest performance of Welles life. When the broadcast without Welles in it was done years later in South America, the infuriated listeners burned down the studio where the show was done...
@@charlottebuchanan3193not idiotic society. But idiotic Hollywood machinations. He was too original for their non cinematic minds.
'Got another flawed masterpiece?'
Joan Crawford said he was the only true genuis in films and how the studios fought him
The world -by and large -has an enmity and intolerance for people with independent minds. The norm get very threatened . I think they fear that this person is going to take over or is going to ruin everything. They will be exposed as the criminals that they really are.
John Agresti well said, thx 👏👏👏
@@bellavia5 true that
@@ericfurst6091 Roger that
@@bhansen52 maybe huh?
Such a dark masterpiece, can't take my eyes of the screen when it plays.
Makes the greatest film of all time. Told he can’t edit his own movie. That’s Hollywood
Yes -- can't agree with Heston here that it's "not a great film" but it has "patches of brilliance" -- the brilliance pulsates all the way through, from beginning to end.
@@jazzmanchgo
Actors rarely think the films they've starred in as "great," it's some kind of modesty complex.
Horse's, rather...
Charlton had a bad day at the NFA. Bad press & School shootings an all...
@@pendejo6466 Yup, many actors don't even watch their own movies, and even then, it comes down to personal taste whether they like it or not. I don't think I'd watch my own movies if was an actor tbh, it would bug me how I could have done stuff differently/better, and if I'd been edited out.
For the old hypothetical question about your favourite dinner party guest I would select Orson Welles at the top every time.
I remember being about 17 at home and watching this on TV. I was never one for old flicks (I was into Sci-Fi and horror, esp. Jaws and Close Encounters), but the opening sequence grabbed me by the neck and I was spellbound for the rest of the movie. I remember the utmost disgust I felt towards Orson's corrupt cop and the pity I felt at the end. What a genius.
TOUCH OF EVIL is my favourite of his American films. A Baroque film noir that goes beyond the genre. A great picture.
His recollections are amazing. He genuinely does care about every aspect and detail of his work and commits it to memory. At the same time he never boasts about his successes but neither does he downplay himself.
It wasn't too dark for "them" - it was too good.
It’s not about being realistic, but revealing truth.
Amazing.
"Art s life plus, life plus caprice" W.E.Hocking...
"What do you want to do tonight Orson?"
"Same thing we try to do every night. Try to take over the world!"
Narf
So inspirational. Orson Wells is a legend.
What an insightful comment about Jimmy Cagney. It would hold true as well for Orson Welles himself.
Spot on. This is the kind of deep thinker and artist Welles was. His F for Fake and the recently released Other Side of the Wind are both fantastic: check them out! Totally different style: each in its own way a melding of documentary and narrative film.
Back when you were stuck watching whatever was on TV, sometimes starting to watch a film at 3am because it was one of the Great's and that was the only time it was on, James Cagney was probably the only actor I would watch in a film soley because he was in it. As a fan of the art of acting, Cagney is always fun to watch. Thank you Orson for your comments. When I expressed my opinion of Cagney to my film professor in.college his remark was "Why watch films of an actor who all he does is beat up.women." !!?!!?
@@colleencupido5125 Any "film professor" who could make such an asinine comment obviously knew very little about movie history and next to nothing about Cagney's remarkable diverse career. Probably saw the "grapefruit scene" from the great film Public Enemy and stopped at that, and doubtless never heard of his comedy gems like Strawberry Blonde. But one can't educate those who refuse to be educated, and who prefer the narrow comfort of their own prejudgments.
@@yusufu9 I really enjoyed your comment. Strawberry Blonde may be a comedy, but when the Cagney character came back from the slammer to find his loving wife Olivia de Haviland waiting for him, I got teary-eyed. I've seen 37 Cagney films. As a fan, you might want to check out the TCM 4 movies each DVD packages on.gangster films and Cagney. Featurettes with each film, like "Beer and Blood" for Public Enemy, or Molls & Dolls: Women of Gangster Films, or The Immigrants Hero are highly enjoyable- I've watched 9 of them in all. The best was the featurette on White Heat. ( These were made 2005) One Professor said he loved to show his classes White Heat. Quote "It blows them away." And Martin Scorcese showing a small group of young actors the film Public Enemy and overjoyed to see these kids' reaction to a early talkie B&W film. They were transfixed, and applauded at the end. So much for a "dated"film.
@@colleencupido5125 That was a moving scene. Strawberry Blonde is near perfect: superb cast, great script, wonderful story. Olivia and Rita play a great match! Another Cagney comedy gem I like is the underrated Jimmy the Gent, especially the bit where he is introduced to tea drinking. And of course his banter with the divine Joan Blondell in all those early movies -- endlessly entertaining!
Touch of Evil is a masterpiece! You need to see it more than once to fully appreciate it as the story is very hard to follow the first time around! Hollywood hated Orson Wells from day one; they could not stand that such a young and untested person got carte blanch to make his first film.
First statement is true, Second statement is true. The last is nonsense
Not very hard to follow bro all it takes is careful watching
I would have loved to have spent an evening hanging out with Orson and just talking.
Listening...
So fortunate we are that there are as many Orson interviews. He loved to talk, could have been a lot more.
One of my favorite films. The Restoration is a masterpiece.
So true.
I had the good fortune to see this in an independent cinema about 20 years ago. Welles, as the villain, is a colossus. Powerful, knowing, utterly corrupt.
“flawed Masterpiece” is correct. Touch of Evil is a truly great film and very interesting to hear these details from the man himself...
Brilliant man. Love what he said about Cagney. 9:58
"unreal but true" is like the definition of all art, not just the peerless James Cagney...
Yes I think he summed up what Cagney was trying to achieve as well.
@@philiphalpenny9761 exactly. The good art, at least. Films are obviously unreal, but they can be true...performances can be. They have to be, or I'm not buying it.
@@JohnDoe-dj3lw An acting coach once opined that good acting is about truth, whereas bad acting is about deception. Orson, himself, once said what's the point of a film being well directed,written or edited, if the audience don't relate to the actor they are watching. He had a point!
"TOUCH OF EVIL" HAS BEEN RESTORED AND IS A TRUE WORK OF ART.....
Touch of Evil is a true masterpiece!
Touch of Evil’s greatness lies in it’s quirkiness
*its
the screenwriting of this is utterly brilliant, I mean lines like "He was some kind of a man... What does it matter what you say about people?", never leave you. And please a big ovation for Mancini's score, which is probably the best he ever wrote, which is saying something
juan altredo
juan altredo
this is the greatest interview i've ever seen and Barbara Leaming's biography is the greatest biography i've ever read - 3 hours - I laughed heartily and wept bitterly - in spite of everything, he was one of the greatest directors, arguably the greatest and also arguably the most fucked over
I know that the opening pan shot is the legendary one, and rightly so -- but to me, the final frames are among the most searing and emotionally devastating of any on film. Here's a character who up until this moment has been almost unrelievedly loathsome -- bloated with corruption, anger, bigotry, and hate, consumed with bitterness -- and then, in those final seconds, we see him as a broken man, staring blankly into his own abyss, looking like nothing so much as a terrified child . . . and suddenly we feel empathy, if not sorrow, for the man. Emotionally manipulative, to be sure, but that's the point -- "sympathy for the devil", indeed.
...well described.
he foreshadowed lbj
Fellini achieved the same effect with Antholy Quinn in the unforgetable final shots in La Strada.
I think you just described Trump.
Beautifully put. Loathing and pathos swirled together as in ALL of us. He made and makes viewers uncomfortable. Without him, no Fincher, etc. Damn, I want to watch this again
Listening to OW describe his philosophy as a director was tremendously surreal
Which made him brilliant!
Another flawed masterpiece!
Orson had a towering intellect and so incredibly articulate.
As someone of the younger generation (I'm 52!) I had a great good fortune to see Touch of Evil in the theater as my first viewing. It was the 1998 and the film saw re-release thanks to the auspices of Walter Murch's edit from the great man's notes. As close to a director's cut as we were ever likely to get. How rare it is to see a classic for for the first time in the venue for which it was intended!
I have seen Touch of Evil in the ensuing years at a cadence of approximately once every 36 months on average. And each and every time, seeing Marlene Dietrich walk into the kitchen, cheroot hanging from her mouth by faith alone, eyes an exhausted enchantment, greeting her old friend with "you a mess, honey"... it genuinely never fails to surprise me!
This was brilliant as a story and film and as an example of Welles’s genius and as Heston as a great man of his art. A rich feast for gourmet movie aficionados! 👏😊
Fascinating to listen to Charlton Heston's thoughts on Orson Welles' struggle to get financing for his movies.
A Touch of Evil a touch of genius.
Thank you for this gem and thank god for Orson W.
After the 1998 restoration, ToE is now considered "a Prime example of Noir", right up there with "The Maltese Falcon"...
It would have been interesting to see what Orson Welles could have done today as an independent filmmaker with the proliferation of affordable professional quality video equipment.
It's also a testament to his extreme talent, that filmmaking has pretty much become democratized and we've yet to see anyone come along with his vision and skill.
Orson was the greatest artist America ever produced. His abilities, range, depth and profound creativity are unmatched. While I have deep reverence for many other artistic contributors, nobody else created and reached so many heights of accomplishment as Orson. And if he were given the freedom and respect he deserved, everyone would know what I said as true. We would have monuments, holidays and festivals, celebrating his astonishing legacy, But America doesn't seem to know or care about its great artists. And, sadly, it shows in just about every way. What a disgrace.
If Britain's National Theatre had courage it would put Touch of Evil on stage
heston makes a superb point at around 6:10....it needs to be understood and accepted
Just watched "Evil" again for the first time in decades. It really is compelling. And it isn't Orson grandstanding at all. If you listen to his interviews, he has humility about just about everything.
Fascinating accounts of the Making of TOE from both Heston and Welles.
Welles is of course a master story teller, here as elsewhere, but he could also come out with critical aperçus of almost shocking validity, as when, all spontaneously, he defends the heightened theatricality of TOE by way of one of the finest, most discerning appreciations I've ever heard one great film actor give for the work of another:
"What is more unreal and stylized than Cagney? It’s a totally stylized, unreal performance; no human being ever behaved the way he does. And every moment of Cagney’s entire life in films is truth. He never had a second that wasn’t true."
Underrated in every way. True Genius
Hes almost too intelligent to be a believable American. Like "other worldly" type of intelligence. Id be curious to know what his IQ was.
@@charlottebuchanan3193 why the slight on americans?.... its that americana that is his genius. he always loved the nations ideals. it comes thru in his films, even the dark ones. its always a warning to not go this way.
Orson Welles. Truly a genius and a man whose intelligence and theatrical experience I admire beyond calculation.
I could listen to him all day
It's so depressing how the studios butchered the career of one of the greatest directors who have ever lived. He could have made so many more masterpieces and we'll never be able to see them.
Some how this is still so underrated... Love this one........
Love to see Orson actually being happy talking about a film of his like this. This was my fav Orson Welles film as a teenager, though I've since come to appreciate Kane just a bit more, I guess.
This was one of the greatest movie documentaries ever made. I just wish that they would release the whole thing.
Every scene is an absolute gem. So good it’s a shock to the sensibility of even the most casual of viewers.
I've been putting off Touch of Evil for a long time. I don't know why. But I didn't know until just now that Marlene Deitrich is in it! holy cow!
i LOVE ORSON WELLS HIS TAKE ON LIFE AND PEOPLE AND ART
The ultimate level of artistic originality flattened and deflated by bean counters and the insecure envious “unoriginals”.
Evan Torch Jews*
@Steve Brule - Why do you say that? What do the Jews have to do with what Evan Torch said? You must be pathetic or something!
@@stevebrule9343 bingo !
my god even in his twilight years Welles' mind is as sharp as a razorblade and he is compelling, tragic, funny, fascinating.
This documentary (from BBC’s Arena program) was my introduction to film history and all things Orson Welles when I was 16. After listening to “War of the Worlds” and “The Shadow” radio plays on cassette, and seeing “Citizen Kane”, I had to know more about Welles, so I taped this show off of TV and borrowed Charles Higham’s biography of Orson from the library, and immersed myself in both. I’ve loved him ever since.
Welles as the corrupt cop was one of the great performances.
It's a fat suit.
Yes, he was great. I really liked Janet Leigh in this film, as well. She was a scene stealer. Heston was miscast, but gets an A for effort. Leigh, Wells, Dietrich, Tamarof were steller. Dennis Weaver was commendably bizarre, in a small role. Epic.
I saw the official version, which was confusing many years ago. I love the re-edited version.
True genius is always suppressed, but their works will far outlive anything their suppressors create.
"creative minds always overcome bad teaching"
"....We will sell no wine, before it's time " { I am now 56 and that classic was from Orson Wells in the 1970's ! { " He isn't what we hate it's his method " { Touch of Evil ....long before The Soprano's } Orson's role in that movie,...very much like Tony Soprano ....41 years before !!
Thank you so much for this . Brilliant
Fantastic. Thanks for sharing.
Chuck nails it starting 6:10. Perfectly sums it up!!
A true genius !
Thankyou for sharing this great interveiw !
I saw this when it first came out. I was impressed, what a great picture.
I can see sadness in his eyes when he talked about how the studio didn't let him go near post production
Thanks for uploading :)
“So much of it gives little room for maneuver.” That’s precisely what makes it good. Probably my favorite from Welles. Thanks.
Delightful interview.
I can’t stop thinking about that scene in Ed Wood where Orson says “ they want Charlton Heston to play a Mexican” Haha
Orson Wells was an incredible director, writer, and all around artist. I think Hollywood was afraid of his ability. An incredible classy and humble person. Coppola, Spielberg, Depalma, and other such directors couldn't touch Mr. Wells directory genius. Mr. Wells was so articulate and to the point.
Seems to me he suffered a drastic loss of his sense of irreverence and his sense of humor somewhere along the line. It's something I don't like to see happen to people and I fear that it has occurred in myself in a gradual and subtle way.
*Welles
What a genius.
Thanks for this superb insight to an extraordinary man. He is amazingly articulate. Great stuff.
My grandmother knew him very well. To escape Hollywood he stayed in the Aran Island just off the Irish coast. She was working in a bed and breakfast where he stayed. She knew Irish culture and he became fascinated by this. Every Christmas he would send her a card and on her birthday as they were friends. One year he wanted to pay for her and my grandfather who was a light house keeper a return trip to America which was a big deal back then. When he passed away the island shut down for a day and light bonfires in his honour.
With TH-cam in the way the world is today is fantastic to research the back stories and go back over the films and hear about uncut version even the cars are beautiful to see the first example Of a real rat rod the coops with the fenders removed in the way they rode them and even that beautiful Chrysler convertible
The amazing opening shot was at Venice Beach, CA.
The recently reissued TOUCH OF EVIL on DVD that restored Welles' director's cut resulted in a stunning improvement in the film. It was like watching it for the first time. You would have thought the executives would have trusted him and the cast with their original version. Sadly that was not the case.
one of my all time favorites. this film had everything. a defining film. study this film.
Masterful! What tension and excitement with knowing that a bomb is going to explode....!
all His Life he was so far advanced! I love all of him! Awesome well done...
He was too intelligent and intellectually superior for shallow idiotic Hollywood.
Thank you for posting.
Great!
Great interview.
Outstanding !!
A guy like Welles would be "ahead of his time" in any time he was born in. But our times is FAR WORSE for artistry than it was in his times.
great movie with Charlton Heston Being the weakest link playing a MEXICAN ! I still LOve it !