Orson Welles: The One-Man Band

1995
7.5| 1h28m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 08 October 1995 Released
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Budget: 0
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Orson Welles' archives of unfinished/never released movies and the last years of his life from the perspective of Oja Kodar (life and artistic partner of Orson Welles in his last years).

Genre

Documentary

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Director

Oja Kodar, Vassili Silovic

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Orson Welles: The One-Man Band Audience Reviews

Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Jeanskynebu the audience applauded
Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.
BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
Charles Herold (cherold) This is some clips of unfinished Orson Welles films along with some interview footage of him and his ex lover and some pretentious filler. This includes a fascinating scene from The Other Side of the Wind, some interesting bits from The Dreamers and The Deep, some Moby Dick monologues and some comedic nonsense that is like some weird old guy's home movies.Oja Kodar is engaging as she talks about her time with Orson, but she's apparently also been a major impediment to the finishing of The Other Side of the Wind, and one suspects that a lot of the intent of this film is to put Oja in front of the public, since she Welles was never able to make a star of her. (On the bright side, I think Netflix has managed to get the project of finishing the film going again; hopefully they'll finally do it!)While there are some terrific moments, the presentation is lacking and some of Welles' material is shockingly amateurish.
gavin6942 Orson Welles' archives of unfinished/never released movies and the last years of his life from the perspective of Oja Kodar (life and artistic partner Of Orson Welles in his last years).What is Orson Welles? Is he a visionary, an artist, and a constant creator? Yes. This is a man who was only 26 when "Citizen Kane" was made, and continued to make brilliant work for decades. Perhaps some day we will see more of it (rumors abound that "lost films" will turn up).Why does this film have Muppets? Because it should. And why is the narration in German? This is a bit of a shortcoming. Because so much of it is in English, having the voiceovers in German does not seem to make a lot of sense. At the very least, it could have multiple sound options. (Subtitles are preferable to dubbing, but this would not even be dubbing because the narrator is never on screen.)
didi-5 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.
Michael_Cronin When Orson Welles died in 1985, he left behind him several masterpieces, several interesting failures & countless performances in films of varying quality. He also left a massive amount of unfinished work & the legend of a great filmmaker who peaked early & spent the rest of his career struggling to finish projects, most of which remain incomplete.I'm not sure if this documentary debunks or cements that image, but it doesn't really matter, because the real image one is left with is of a filmmaker as a true artist, experimenting with different techniques & ideas as soon as they occur to him, often abandoning films as one might throw away a rough sketch that doesn't quite work. He carried his editing table around the world with him as a painter might carry his brushes & paint.The real joy to be had here is in seeing these rough sketches - short comic skits, recitals from Moby Dick & Shakespeare, screentests & so on. Even more tantalising are the brief glimpses of larger projects which were unable to be completed - The Deep, The Other Side Of The Wind & The Merchant Of Venice. There's several appearances by Welles himself in various forums - talking at a university, performing magic & chatting with the Muppets.Oja Kodar, Welles' longtime companion & collaborator, takes the viewer through this previously unseen body of work & gives a picture of the filmmaker that is in marked contrast to the commonly held image of Welles as some kind of burnt-out megalomaniac.Underlying this film is a deep sadness at the fact that Orson Welles could have achieved so much more, had he been given the chance & not run into so much bad luck, but it is wonderful that some of his 'lost' films have been allowed to see the light of day.