Book review: My Lunches With Orson, edited by Peter Biskind
Seventy-two years after his Citizen Kane reinvented American filmmaking, director, actor and bon viveur Orson Welles is still the towering figure of Western cinema. This collection of conversations Welles had with filmmaker Henry Jaglom, recorded with his consent in the early 1980s, provides an entertaining read that contains cheerful insights into the great intellect of the ageing, portly film legend.
edited by Peter Biskind
Metropolitan Books
Richard James Havis
Seventy-two years after his Citizen Kane reinvented American filmmaking, director, actor and bon viveur Orson Welles is still the towering figure of Western cinema. This collection of conversations Welles had with filmmaker Henry Jaglom, recorded with his consent in the early 1980s, provides an entertaining read that contains cheerful insights into the great intellect of the ageing, portly film legend.
The best way to get to know a man such as Welles is to get to know his work. Of course, it's well-known that Charles Foster Kane was modelled on newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, but Welles' own personality - his pride and his hubris and, indeed, his genius - permeated the character. Then there's Welles' rambunctious side, the Sir John Falstaff of his loose Shakespeare adaptation Chimes at Midnight. In the face of such majestic, all-encompassing portrayals, conversations like those contained in My Lunches With Orson simply sketch in some details about him. But they do so with charm and conviviality.