The Eyes of Orson Welles examines the actor, director, writer, producer, (private) painter, magician, newspaper columnist and commentator and political activist through the aspect of Welles he himself least regarded -- his drawings and paintings -- and the result is marvelous.
Mark Cousins' take on Welles is therefore unique and refreshing, for aside from music -- which Welles knew deeply but never actually performed publicly after his 10th birthday so therefore is a dead end -- drawing was something he did even before he learned how to write and practiced all of his life, making it something so deeply fundamental to the man and his art that Cousins' examination of it opens Welles in a way never before seen. That's damn difficult to do and a feat, if not a triumph, given how hard it is after all these decades of Wellesian examination to do something original.
People here have rapped Cousins for his somewhat elliptical narrative, but to me, that criticism is off the mark, pun intended. Cousins' personal essayist approach relieves the film of the dry structure of biographical narrative, and his fancifulness shows that Cousins is engaged with his subject. Besides, Cousins' camerawork is lovely. His shots of the places Welles has traveled, and his connection of Welles to those places through Welles' work, bring the cosmopolitan, wandering gypsy that was also Welles -- so many Welles' there were! -- alive in a way few have.
It is a work so thoughtful that I find myself returning to it repeatedly just to be transported on the journey that Cousins takes us into this brilliant, troubled, endlessly fascinating man. Thank you, Mark, for such a great, illuminating ride.
Mark Cousins' take on Welles is therefore unique and refreshing, for aside from music -- which Welles knew deeply but never actually performed publicly after his 10th birthday so therefore is a dead end -- drawing was something he did even before he learned how to write and practiced all of his life, making it something so deeply fundamental to the man and his art that Cousins' examination of it opens Welles in a way never before seen. That's damn difficult to do and a feat, if not a triumph, given how hard it is after all these decades of Wellesian examination to do something original.
People here have rapped Cousins for his somewhat elliptical narrative, but to me, that criticism is off the mark, pun intended. Cousins' personal essayist approach relieves the film of the dry structure of biographical narrative, and his fancifulness shows that Cousins is engaged with his subject. Besides, Cousins' camerawork is lovely. His shots of the places Welles has traveled, and his connection of Welles to those places through Welles' work, bring the cosmopolitan, wandering gypsy that was also Welles -- so many Welles' there were! -- alive in a way few have.
It is a work so thoughtful that I find myself returning to it repeatedly just to be transported on the journey that Cousins takes us into this brilliant, troubled, endlessly fascinating man. Thank you, Mark, for such a great, illuminating ride.