Orson Welles: The One-Man Band

Orson Welles: The One-Man Band (1995)

*** (out of 4)

This is an interesting documentary from Oja Kodar who served as Orson Welles life partner. This 60-minute documentary takes clips from various unfinished films by Welles and presents them as parts of his work that simply for one reason or another never got finished. Throughout all the clips we get some stuff from Welles giving interviews where he talks about his craft. One such clip comes from his AFI Lifetime Achievement award and another comes from a Q&A he was giving and he gives an interesting answer about his unfinished films including DON QUIXOTE. We get clips or notes to films such as THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND, MOBY DICK, THE DEEP, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, ONE-MAN BAND, The Orson Welles Show, THE DREAMERS and a bizarre extended trailer for F FOR FAKE. Needless to say, the ones who will enjoy this the most are fans of Welles because they'll get a chance to see all of this footage, which went pretty much unused for years. I'm sure the success of IT'S ALL TRUE helped get some of this out there. While there's nothing ground-breaking in terms to the quality of the film, I think it remains entertaining as long as you don't mind watching this footage of Welles. I must admit that I thought it was rather sad watching this thing and seeing such a great artist doing stuff that would never come together and eventually sit on a shelf for decades. Kodar is shown on-camera as she shows off some items of Welles as well as some of the paintings that he did. Of course, a more detailed documentary about the life of Welles is certainly something that we need but until then this here is a nice introduction to the work he never completed.

After watching Orson Welles' first film, the experimental short The Hearts of Age, on UbuWeb, I decided to see the other one under his name there called Orson Welles: The One-Man Band. This documentary was directed by Vassili Silovic with the cooperation of Oja Kodar who takes us through her and Orson's house in search of his unfinished films and other stray materials. Among the most fascinating of those: scenes of The Other Side of the Wind like that of a female reporter interviewing a narcissistic director played by John Huston and his associate played by Peter Bogdanovich or a car scene with a young woman making love to a young man while the driver is being nonchalant through it all, Welles doing a monologue of reading "Moby Dick", and scenes of The Dreamers featuring compelling turns by both Ms. Kodar and Welles. There's also some funny scenes like that of Welles portraying Winston Churchill or the rejected F for Fake trailer where he claims his "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast wasn't a hoax after all! And then there's his acceptance speech at the American Film Institute honors, his performing with Muppets, and some partially funny moments from his Londan-based endeavors that were also fascinating to watch. There's others I haven't mentioned but I'll just say I heartily recommend Orson Welles: The One-Man Band for any of his enthusiasts out there. P.S. I recognized Charles Gray on The Merchant of Venice clips from his work in The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the Bond films, You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever.

This is a loving film essay on Orson Welles and his unfinished films. Its an interesting look at the man who was just trying to make the films he wanted to on his own terms. Made with the assistance of Welles' longtime companion Oja Kodar this film lets us see a number of his unrealized projects for the first time. Its a treat for anyone who has been interested in Orson Welles and heard stories of these lost treasures; or for any one curious to what end he was putting the money got from his numerous film and television roles. While I'm not sure what I would have thought of some of the films (The Dreamers for example) I find that I'm very interested in where he was going with other (his Moby Dick, which consisted of him simply reciting passages from the book is an interesting idea). I especially loved some of the short humorous bits that Welles put together, his Churchill film is very funny, as his is bit with two English tailors. As a person who has been very critical of Welles of late, due in large part to extreme disillusionment with his Don Quixote (which I found to be a crashing bore) I find that this film re-awakened my respect for the man. Its not a perfect film, most of the pieces we see only awaken a desire to see more of the unfinished films and at times it seems to go on too long. Still this is a must see if you're interested in Welles or cinema, especially its lost treasures.

Gary Graver and Oja Kodar were Orson Welles' constant companions during the last years of his life. Graver was his photography director for American films and Kodar was his live in girlfriend. In One Man Band, the focus is usually on the films Oja performed in. The secondary message seems to be Oja wants fame and recognition because she was Welles' lover and wants to use him as a stepping stone to promote her own success. Shown is an extended promo for F for Fake where Oja is prancing about semi nude or in sexy clothes every minute of the ten minutes or so of the rejected trailer. The film in fact was a boring comparison of a famous art forger and Clifford Irving who faked Howard Hughes' biography. My main disappointment is that more of Welles' legendary unfinished film was not shown, The Other Side of the Wind. The scene shown is a short semi nude clip featuring Oja again. Gary Graver was said to have a complete working print of the movie, but his documentary featured little or nothing from it at all. A truckload of films are retrieved, but Oja claims to have just a few scenes. This is very hard for me to believe, indeed. A complete film from either Graver or Kadar kept separately from the negative stored in a vault in France seems to have vanished.

A hugely enjoyable look at the films that were never completed by Hollywood's infant terrible, Orson Welles - while he was appearing in second-rate films (or taking tiny cameos in good films) he was chasing his dreams of making films like Moby Dick, The Merchant of Venice, and others.

Here we see clips of what is left and see how the failed projects developed, grew, and ran out of money. We also see surprisingly funny stuff such as the One-Man Band segment, alongside more serious stuff like The Other Side of the Wind.

As well as his lost work, this film gives an opportunity to bring sundry TV appearances together - Orson with the Muppets, doing magic tricks and recitations, and so on.