CANNES CLASSICS – This is Orson Welles by Clara and Julia Kuperberg

 

For the centenary of his birth, we wanted to create something to celebrate the man. We wanted to concentrate on the character rather than the filmmaker. Because of that, we interviewed only people who knew him and not film historians or critics. Only people who were close to him, like his daughter or people with whom he worked. The sole exception was Scorsese, as there was no way we could do without his input.

 

We were expecting to find a rather megalomaniac character, given the interviews we saw with him as a young man, but we discovered a lovely and rather touching character. A funny man, full of tenderness. And we wanted to focus on his humour, such as when he tells his story is about magic.

Our idea was to make him an integral part of the film, to act as if we had interviewed the man himself. That’s why we didn’t seek huge numbers of sources. 

 

Citizen Kane was a masterpiece, and yet Falstaff was his favourite film. As his daughter said to us, Falstaff was far from perfect because he didn’t have all the technicians and pyrotechnics of the American studios, and yet it’s a real little gem. When you see the film, you understand why it was his favourite. It  had everything he loved. He himself was both Shakespeare and Falstaff. The final scene is a metaphor for the career of Orson Welles, which he saw as a series of failures. In reality, it’s the film he would’ve carried off to paradise with him!

 

Charlotte Pavard