All language subtitles for Orson Welles, the One-Man Band - 1995 (only non-english parts).english

One of Orson Welles's
most famous tricks:

his silhouette.

A disguise,
an abstraction of his self

or simply a game.

Maybe it was too good a trick.

Welles, the person, disappears
behind his own outline.

At some point, he becomes
merely a stylized shadow of himself.

Toward the end of his life,
criticism of Welles was getting louder.

"Burned-out genius,
half-extinct volcano. "

The Welles legend
took on a life of its own.

1975, ten years before his death,

Welles returns to Hollywood.

The American Film Institute
is honoring its prodigal son.

For decades, Hollywood
has shown no interest in him.

But now, to everyone's surprise,
he receives the Life Achievement Award.

Welles's early career
took off like a rocket.

First, a wunderkind,
then a successful director on Broadway

and controversial radio producer.

At 23, he was an author,
director, actor and journalist

and excelled in all.

Hollywood was calling.

Citizen Kane catapulted
the 26-year-old to worldwide fame.

But everyone's favorite
was becoming a burden.

Hollywood thought him too profligate,
rebellious and eccentric.

Before long, no one in America
wanted to hire him anymore.

He chose to go into exile
in Europe.

But European producers, too,
were cool to him.

With each film,
his work became more difficult.

The few things he completed
were admired by the critics,

but ignored by the public.

Many of his projects
were never realized.

For Welles, returning to L.A.
did not mean retirement.

He was determined
to reconquer Hollywood.

He brought with him clips from a new film
that he wanted to finish in the U.S.

Welles showed clips from his new film,
The Other Side of the Wind,

his most ambitious film in a long time.

For him, it's as important
as Citizen Kane.

When Welles died in L.A. in 1985,

The Other Side of the Wind
remained an unreleased fragment.

Obscure legal problems have prevented
the release of the film to this day.

That new beginning Welles had planned
never happened.

In fact, his reputation as a has-been
who couldn't finish films was reinforced.

For some, his glory had always been
nothing but a brilliant scam.

Others saw him as a fallen giant.

Who are we to believe
about his final years?

Oja Kodar.

For 20 years, up until Welles's death,
she was his partner in life and work.

He left his personal archives of
unreleased films and fragments to her.

The more she hesitated to release them,
the further they fell into oblivion.

It was always believed that
Welles couldn't finish what he started.

In total,
he completed only 12 movies.

Almost all of them were edited
and mutilated by producers.

The Magnificent Ambersons,
Mr. Arkadin,

A Touch of Evil,

almost none were released
in the way Welles intended.

As for all his other projects,

only rumors, traces
and speculation.

The trailer for F for Fake
was rejected by U.S. film distributors.

Too long, too extravagant.

Hero, tragedian, megalomaniac.

Welles was often confused with
the great roles he loved so much.

Amused, he made use of these cliches
and played with them.

Lord Plumfield versus Welles.

A small puzzle in two parts
on two planes of time.

Years later, he completed this sketch
with additional shots

in which he played the part
of the journalist himself.

He shot these scenes in a corner
of a park near Paris.

This house would serve him
as a studio for several years

a small film studio where he could
work on new projects independently.

No one knows when or why Welles decided
to read solitary chapters of Moby Dick.

The fragments in Oja Kodar's archive were
seemingly created without a clear plan.

Welles followed his own system

continuing his numerous parallel projects
as the opportunity arose.

Welles's creative life was similar
to that of a vagabond.

He went where the films
he appeared in took him.

Not all of these roles
were rewarding.

With the steep acting fees he charged,
he funded his own projects.

He'd take the money and
return to the sets of his films.

As a director, he wouldn't
chase after locations for his films,

but like a nomad, he made sure the films
came along in his carry-on luggage.

No matter where he found
images and motifs --

a take here, or a shot for
a different project there --

they only served as a backdrop
for his own universe.

Over the years, his work became
a patchwork without any chronology.

Any method would do if it helped him
wring his own visions out of the world.

Spain is more than just
a stopover on his travels.

He spent 30 years trying
to complete his Don Quixote.

A close friend to many matadors,
he was passionate about bullfighting.

As a young man,
he had even ventured into the arena.

It would become
a life long passion.

Traveling, shooting
and then some more traveling.

A window frame against a landscape,
and a new idea was born:

a short humorous skit
on Winston Churchill.

Schwarzwaelder Torte, Guglhupf,

Burgtheater-Linzer, Topfenschnitten,

Kaffeecremetorte, Nusstorte,

Erdbeercreme, Italienischen,

gemischte Kognakfruechte, Streusel

Wurfelkugel

and Sachertorte.

Welles loved making up stories.

But simply touch his life story,
and legends invented by others come up.

They become inextricably mixed up with
his own overgrown story.

For example, a fire is said
to have destroyed his house in Spain.

He's said to have lost
his dearest childhood keepsakes,

photos, letters, documents
and unfinished films.

But his house is still standing,
undamaged, in Madrid.

Fact cannot be separated
from fiction.

The Deep.

There was also a lot of doubt
about that project.

With this thriller,
paid for out of his own pocket,

Welles hoped to reach a large audience.

Welles gathered together
some of his actor friends.

Oja Kodar, Jeanne Moreau,
Michael Bryant, Laurence Harvey.

He was working in Dalmatia
and used the Adriatic for the Pacific.

As many times before, financial problems
forced him to stop production.

It was decided to postpone
production until the following year.

The death of Laurence Harvey ultimately
made it impossible to complete the film

with only a few scenes to go.

About the same time,
in the Mediterranean,

Welles started work
on The Merchant of Venice.

He brought back some images
from the carnival to set the scene.

The Merchant of Venice was to be a short
TV adaptation of the Shakespeare play.

His financing seemed in order,

but there were tax problems,
and his backers pulled out.

Once again, he tried
to complete it on his own

to prevent yet another project
from being left incomplete.

So, he left expensive Venice.

A small town on the Dalmatian coast
had to stand in for the lagoon city.

The window frame hits the road again,

and wooden puppets fill in form asked
carnival goers lying in wait for Shylock.

Welles managed
to complete the shooting

and was ready to begin editing.

He thought he'd finally done it,
but then the negatives disappeared.

The circumstances of the theft
were never fully cleared up.

Years later, somewhere in the world,
Welles would take out his camera again

and rerecord his Shylock monologue,

the monologue that would forever
be missing from his Merchant of Venice.

By then, Welles was used to being asked
about his unfinished projects.

As usual,
he'd reveal only half the truth.

This reputation
was a heavy burden for him.

When his troubles with
The Other Side of Wind became known,

his long-time doubters
felt vindicated.

As long as it was a matter of honoring
the director of Citizen Kane,

Welles was welcome anywhere.

But as soon as he he tried to launch
a new project, he faced rejection.

Screen tests,

a commercial for Japanese whiskey.

Welles sells his voice, his face,
and his legend.

Part of his strategy
of self-financing.

For the public, though,
it's his final admission of defeat.

Working to be able to work,
that's the price of freedom,

or, as he put it,
"my contradiction in myself. "

His remaining years in Hollywood
didn't change anything about that.

A stone's throw
from Hollywood's dream factory,

he worked on a new project
with Oja Kodar, The Dreamers,

based on two novellas
by his favorite author, Tanja Blixen.

Pellegrina Leoni,
played by Oja Kodar,

is defeated by the unrealizable
dream to live more than one life.

Welles himself played Marcus,
who tells her story after her death.

The Dreamers
remained but a dream.

A blurred vision from which
Welles wrung a few scenes

as if he wanted to substantiate
the last lines of the script.

"There are only two questions
an intelligent person should consider:

Why did God create the world,

and what will I do next?"

He drew up new plans.

The Big Brass Ring,
a story set in American politics.

The backers wanted big stars,
but all negotiations with actors failed.

The Cradle Will Rock was to follow up
on a previous stage success.

The financing came to a halt.

King Lear failed because of false promises
from the French producers.

One disappointment after another.

And Welles?

He lit a cigar
as if nothing had happened

and returned
to his beloved magic.

As a little boy, Welles was told
by a Chinese sage,

"Be careful when you behold
the new moon.

It is so fragile that your gaze
must be completely pure.

I fit is not,
your fortune may turn bad. "

He would often recall
that advice later in his life.

Perhaps he'd failed
to heed it one day.

What about
The Other Side of the Wind ?

Oja's archive contains only short clips
from this late, major work.

It is said that Welles himself
produced a three-hour version of it.

To this day, the legal problems
surrounding it have not been resolved.

It is doubtful
it will ever be released.

In one of his letters, Welles wrote,

"This film has never been released.

For me, professionally,
it was fatal.

In Los Angeles, everyone only
talks about 'crazy old Welles. '

Today I must start over from scratch,
not easy at my age.