Sun., Jan 11, 2004, 7:00 pm ET
Orson Welles: The Stories of His Life
By Peter Conrad
By Allison Burnett
If you are one of those who can't get enough of Orson Welles, then Peter Conrad's "Orson Welles: The Stories of His Life" might very well cure you. It is hard to imagine a book making more of Welles and his career, and doing it in a way that is more tiresome and overblown.
Conrad's approach, certainly a worthy one, is to explore his subject through the sorts of roles to which he was drawn and to which he repeatedly returned. Conrad sees these roles, whether Welles actually wrote them or not, as expressions of an ongoing autobiography, each a reflection of some essential element in Welles's nature and psyche. Among the more than a dozen archetypes that Conrad examines (devoting a chapter to each), are Faust, Falstaff, Mercury, Peter Pan, Mr. Poet, Sacred Beast, and Quixote.
Conrad's analysis is, however, taken to extremes that would be deemed preposterous anywhere but in the halls of academia. Conrad, who, since 1973, has taught English at Christ Church, Oxford, embarks on flights of "cultural free association" which have little to do with Welles, and which bestow upon Welles's work an undeserved profundity and complexity of intention.
Sometimes it's hard not to laugh. Conrad writes: "After Hiroshima, President Truman boasted that the bomb was brighter than the sun, and more toxic. That impending calamity overshadows 'The Lady from Shanghai' as the characters walk through the searing Acapulco sun." In fact, the only calamity in the film is Welles's horrendous Irish accent.
Just in case you thought "Citizen Kane" was about William Randolph Hearst, or even about the spiritual bankruptcy of the will to power, Conrad sets you straight: "(A)bove all it is a film about Welles making a film, and about our watching it." One can only imagine what Herman Mankiewicz, the acid-tongued co-author of the film, would have had to say about that.
Were you aware that the United States enjoyed a version of the Italian Renaissance? It must be true, because Professor Conrad writes: "Welles's critique of the Renaissance was an act of self-criticism. It also counted as a gesture of filial rebellion, because he had been born during the Renaissance, at least the American version of it."
According to the author, our Renaissance occurred between 1865 and 1914. Why is this never mentioned in history books? Does that make Bret Harte our Leonardo da Vinci?
There seem to be three camps among cineastes. The first sees Welles as a manifold genius. These fans would have had no argument with Welles when, late in life, he introduced himself as "an author, composer, actor, designer, producer, director, scholar, financier, gourmet, ventriloquist, poet." The second sees Welles as an actor, egotist, poseur, glutton, and occasional buffoon. The third camp moves between the two camps, depending on which Welles movie they rented last.
Conrad's book might be just the thing to bring everyone together. The reader's credulity is strained so often and so violently that one can imagine all three camps reaching the finish line equally hobbled.
Allison Burnett's novel, "Christopher," was recently published by Broadway Books.
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