Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles

"Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles" is a documentary from 2014 about the great filmmaker, actor, magician, and personality. I must have seen and read everything there is on Welles, if that's possible, and this particular documentary borrowed heavily from the best there is -- the BBC interview with Welles, which was one of the best things I've ever seen.

Of interest here were the photos of him as a young boy, and interviews with Micheál MacLiammóir, Norman Lloyd, comments by Julie Taymor, his daughter Beatrice, and so many others, some of whom I had not seen interviewed before.

Welles was, to say the least, a complicated man. He couldn't deal with the studio constraints, but without them, he often floundered. Spielberg was interviewed here, and I remember very well from one of the books on Welles that he went to dinner with Spielberg with the idea that Spielberg could help him find a distributor for one of his movies.

When he came home, the interviewer called him, and he said, they only ever want to talk about Kane. Kane was a blessing and a curse. I think some of the people interviewed didn't give him credit for the fact that he was just as talented as he had always been, but the business had become so much tougher.

Documentaries about Welles are always worth seeing. He was one of the most charismatic and interesting people who ever lived, and he'd probably tell you that himself. And the people around him seemed to adore him. So really, as much as I have liked other documentaries better, this one is worth seeing too.

MAGICIAN is a dud - a less than mediocre run-through of the life and career of the legendary entertainment figure Orson Welles. I caught a theatrical screening Saturday that proved to be a complete waste of time.

Contrast this loser with the 2007 documentary SPINE TINGLER!, which informatively and entertainingly profiled schlockmeister William Castle. Unlike Welles, Castle is a mere footnote in film history, but the portrait of him was lively, to the point, and even created an emotional connection (bordering on pathos) when looking at his declining years and premature death - the elements sorely lacking in MAGICIAN.

Director Chuck Workman is famous and lauded in some circles (not mine) for his career in compilations (more accurately excerpts) -often responsible for the abbreviated Academy Awards show's highlight reels of great moments in film. I find him to be a master of trivializing, taking works of art ranging from a classic Bugs Bunny cartoon to any number of great feature films and extracting a cute or memorable moment from each, then juxtaposing them together for generally idiotic effect (e.g., a montage of famous screen kisses). I'm old-fashioned: I like to sit through an entire cartoon or movie, even endlessly long ones like BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, THE DECALOGUE or SHOAH. My dreaded "high-brow" satire would be a Saturday Night Live tribute to Jacques Rivette by Workman (or perhaps Tom Schiller, pick your poison) consisting of fleeting clips from his brilliant but notoriously long feature films.

And so it is not surprising to me that Workman trivializes Orson Welles' life and career. Most of MAGICIAN consists of old interviews with Welles or other deceased witnesses, ranging from Sydney Pollack to John Houseman. Ken Burns has made a career treating subjects for whom living witnesses are few or nil but through eloquent narration and sometimes readings by talented actors has brought them to life. Where Workman does have a live testimonial the results are - you guessed it- trivial: Welles biographer Simon Callow is a terrific actor and erstwhile director himself, but his comments are unenlightening; Welles' longtime companion Oja Kodar (who I saw give a highly educational talk on Welles decades ago when she presented excerpts of his unfinished films including THE DEEP and THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND) is totally wasted in an interview that makes her out to be a flake; Welles experts Peter Bogdanovich and Joe McBride plus recently deceased Paul Mazursky briefly have minimal information to contribute; and Francis Coppola's longtime editor Walter Murch is strictly footnote material discussing the "improvements" (this seems to be a cottage industry) in Welles' TOUCH OF EVIL that have been made by re-editing the Universal re-edited picture. Perhaps meant to insult on purpose, Workman even works in comments by Wolfgang Puck (!) concerning Welles' famous appetite. Thanks a lot, Chuck.

To further trivialize matters, Workman insists on including numerous film homages to Welles, such as clips from DAY FOR NIGHT, ED WOOD and the TV movie about KANE starring Liev Schreiber. There is more junk like this than attention to Welles' voluminous screen acting career which gets short shrift other than references to how "in demand" he was. The controversy regarding Welles vs. Herman Mankiewicz in apportioning authorship to CITIZEN KANE (screenwriting-wise) is obfuscated rather than clarified by this worthless documentary.

For someone who knows little to nothing about Orson Welles the film hits the familiar clichés -his boy wonder achievements dating back to childhood and growing up in Woodstock; mercurial milestones in theater and radio, triumph and fall in Hollywood and latter years as true independent filmmaker. For me it amounted to a mass of generally misleading information (frequent claims that FALSTAFF not KANE is his true masterpiece) and significant omissions (his Kodar period sloughed off and his long collaboration with the late talented pornographer Gary Graver (more famous as Welles' cameraman) ignored.

No need to worry - I suspect another filmmaker, perhaps even Burns or his brother Ric, will conjure up a suitable treatment of the renaissance man Welles. In the meantime MAGICIAN instantly belongs on the scrap heap of bad movies which, to paraphrase Theodore Sturgeon in his famous quote about science fiction, make up 90% of film history ("but then 90% of everything is crud").

Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles (2014)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

This is certainly a highly entertaining documentary that takes a look at the career of Orson Welles. It features archival interviews with the director as well as archival and new interviews with a wide range of filmmakers including Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Richard Linklater as well as actors like Charlton Heston and Welles' two surviving daughters.

I've read a lot of negative reviews aimed at this film and while I understand where they're coming from, at the same time I think they're being a bit harsh. Yes, this film could have gone more into the mind of Welles and it could have focused more on his personal life. It could have done a number of things but I think it's best to judge what's actually here and not judge what isn't here or whatever we might have wanted the documentary to be about.

I really thought the film did a good job at giving a quick look at the work of Welles going back to his childhood to his radio work to his movies and of course the projects he was doing at the end of his life. I thought the archival interviews with Welles were great and I really liked how they pretty much helped the legend tell his own story. The film clips are wonderful and it was just a great way to get introduced to the man and his films.

If you're already familiar with Welles then you might not learn anything "new" here but this is still a highly entertaining documentary and one that's certainly worth watching.

I was moved to review this because the one review on this page completely tore it apart. The way the reviewer wrote made me think that this person had an intense personal dislike of Chuck Workman, for some reason.

So, I thought I'd look at this reviewers other reviews. And guess what? Almost all porn.

So, let's just stick to the subject at hand: Orson Welles.

I first became aware of Welles when I was taking a film class in college. "Citizen Kane" amazed me, not surprisingly.

Welles says, in "Magician," that Gregg Toland, the great cinematographer, came to Welles and said that he (Toland) wanted very much to work with Welles on "Kane." Welles said, "Why? I've never directed a film before." And Toland said, "That's why."

It was uncharted. Anything was possible. And, indeed, it was.

I would encourage any Welles fan to see this. It was well worth it.

If you want a film that explores the work of Orson Welles, this film is well worth seeing. However, if you want to see a film about Welles himself and explores his psyche, then you should look further. I knew about most of his film projects but wanted to know what made him tick...what made him so successful but so self- sabotaging (both in films and in his relationships). Sadly, the documentary has very, very little to say about this and instead talks about his genius in a way that almost seems like supplication- --as if to even talk about his faults or psychological make-up was somehow sacrilege. I wanted deconstruction--the film just gives us adoration.

So what question did I want to have answered? Well, most importantly why he never completed so many of his films and how this might be related to his personal life. A genius in some ways but also an incredibly flawed man who made a mess of so much promise.

If you ever find a film that DOES explore Welles' psychological make-up, drop me a line. But a film that ONLY talks about his work but doesn't criticize or analyze it is interesting...mildly...but nothing more. To me, NOT to talk about his psychological state is like doing a film all about George Washington and never mentioning the Revolutionary War!