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Orson Welles by Joseph Mcbride — book cover
Film History & Criticism

Orson Welles

by Joseph Mcbride
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Overview

Orson Welles (1915–1985) revolutionized the art of filmmaking with his first feature, Citizen Kane, made when he was only twenty-five. This landmark study challenges the conventional wisdom that regards Welles's subsequent career as a long decline from that early peak, demonstrating that Welles continued to create audacious, profoundly moving, and richly varied films throughout his tumultuous life. Tracing Welles's development from his playful beginnings as an amateur filmmaker in the early 1930s to his masterly artistic summation in such late works as Chimes at Midnight, The Immortal Story, and F for Fake, the book brilliantly synthesizes Welles's wide-ranging body of work into a thematic whole while providing in-depth analyses of the films he directed.Joseph McBride's passion for Welles's work and his groundbreaking scholarship made the first edition of Orson Welles a landmark study and a major influence on subsequent Welles critics and biographers. Out of print for almost two decades, Orson Welles has now been revised and expanded, with new sections on important films and restored versions that have come to light since the book's original publication in 1972, along with an introductory essay and an extended portrait of Welles at work on the still-unreleased Hollywood satire The Other Side of the Wind (in which the author played an important role). The whole adds up to a work of film criticism that will stand as a model of the genre.

Synopsis

"Orson Welles (1915–1985) revolutionized the art of filmmaking with his first feature, Citizen Kane, made when he was only twenty-five. This landmark study challenges the conventional wisdom that regar"

About the Author, Joseph Mcbride

Joseph McBrides's many books include John Ford (with Michael Wilmington) and Orson Welles, Hawks on Hawks, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success, and The Book of Movie Lists. His film scripts include the cult classic Rock146 n146 Roll High School and five American Film Institute Life Achievement Award television specials. He lives in Los Angeles.

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Book Details

Published
March 1, 1996
Publisher
Da Capo Press
Pages
328
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780306806742

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