The Filmmaking Shaman: Orson Welles and Magic.
I wonder if there’s something written about Orson Welles and his view on magic? Not magic tricks — and he was very talented in that — but the other kind of magic? It seems he had some ideas about it, and both F for Fake and The Other Side of the Wind have some very interesting ideas about reality and how to change the perception of it. What is real? What is truth? What is reality anyway? I’ve watched F for Fake numerous times over the years and I’m still not sure what’s real in it or not, which makes me thing that Welles succeeded in what he was trying to do — to question our existence and make us look beyond those complex movie sets we call life.
Welles was a master magician as he was so aware of how to manipulate his surroundings and shape his own past and present into what he wanted. He might not have been a successful filmmaker looking at it commercially, but some of his films gave a ritualistic feeling to them. The Other Side of the Wind, carefully restored by former co-workers and friends, is an excellent example of that, especially if you watch it as a double feature together with the documentary They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead. The Other Side of the Wind was an experiment, constantly transforming to fit his own existence, and maybe even try to — in a quite bitter way — change what was happening around him. As a piece of art it’s very successful, but if the ritual itself — made over many years — worked I’m not so sure. At least not during his lifetime. But it’s like I’ve always said, one have to build monuments of oneself, piece that will last and understood long after dying, and Welles did that. He didn’t have the pleasure of saying here among the living to appreciate his works, but he for sure will live on for an eternity through what he did.
I think Orson Welles had to do what he needed to do. He couldn’t conform info what others expected of him, and that alone is something very powerful. He was a storyteller, a one man Greek choir, a magician of some sorts. Jess Franco was another one, who felt I had to make movies — good and bad — just to be able to cope with this life. He didn’t even like much of what he did, but that wasn’t the point. Sometimes the ritual of making a film is more important than the quality as a whole. Jodorowsky is still one, very aware of that his films are rituals and that they’re there to change the audience. Kenneth Anger did his own things, high and low in quality, but he did them for his own sake — and now he’s sitting there, as the grand old wizard of movie occultism. All of them worked/works with different techniques, and that they’re here with us — in one form or another — is proof that what they did worked.
Personally I think Welles never wanted to finish his movies. He needed them to go on, to keep himself alive and well — and continue to affect his and the reality of others with different levels of reality manipulation. Did he run over people on the way? Yeah, that’s obvious — but sometimes you need to go your own way to be able to survive. It’s not always a pleasant way of living, but looking at it now it seems like that was what he needed — in his own little bubble of art and magic. Just look at him, he had the aura of something with knowledge — with the usual tropes of beard and cigars and mysterious eyes, a shaman of filmmaking. It’s all about presenting yourself as you want to be, and you’ll become just that.
“Art, Picasso said, is a lie — a lie that makes us realize the truth. To the memory of that great man who will never cease to exist, I offer my apologies and wish you all, true and false, a very pleasant good evening” — Orson Welles, F for Fake.
