Orson Welles: The One-Man Band

Orson Welles: The One-Man Band

1995 ""
Orson Welles: The One-Man Band
Orson Welles: The One-Man Band

Orson Welles: The One-Man Band

7.5 | 1h28m | en | Documentary

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).

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7.5 | 1h28m | en | Documentary | More Info
Released: October. 08,1995 | Released Producted By: , Country: Budget: 0 Revenue: 0 Official Website:
Synopsis

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).

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Cast

Oja Kodar , Orson Welles , Ingrid Bergman

Director

Thomas Mauch

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Reviews

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.)
Michael_Elliott 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.
dbborroughs 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.