Book Review: Youssef Ishaghpour - Orson Welles, cinéaste, une caméra visible I

Popular productions such as cinema can say a lot about society, the collective consciousness of a given place and period, as well as the collective unconscious. Since the U.S. is experiencing it's first Pluto return, I thought that this review of a French book would be a good reminder of the considerable socio-cultural legacy that the country has built over the 20th century, which it seems to be in danger of losing sight of: Youssef Ishaghpour, Orson Welles, cinéaste, une caméra visible I (Mais notre dépendance à l'image est énorme...), Éditions de la Différence, 2001, a monumental 3-volume work by an erudite and prolific Iranian-French film and art historian.

Youssef Ishaghpour

The book is a massive compendium of essays examining various aspects of Welles' career - there are two other large volumes - dealing more specifically with Welles' career chronologically. This post is a brief summary of first two sections of this book - the other sections deal with Welles and film theory, Welles as public figure, actor, and director, Welles in theatre and radio, and ends with an analysis of Welles' Heart of Darkness project. The broad, eclectic, dense erudition can be quite daunting, but I feel that an English translation of the first two sections of this book would make for a useful, viable, interesting tome, of interest well beyond the film theory field.

This impressive tome begins with a 30-page general intro - then a 60-page general intro on art and history as it relates to the modern world. Then he begins a section on Welles and modernity.

Welles and modernity

Starting with the the notion of individualism as it was in the Renaissance, referencing Ernst Cassirer - Modern individualism begins, he says, when there's a break from the Renaissance notion of individualism, a crisis that can be seen in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, the first great theatrical role for Welles... He mentions Cervantes and Shakespeare in the next section - (and talks about Warhol in the following section) in a part on Mannerism and Baroque periods of art. He cites Erwin Panosfsky among several others. 

He makes a case for Welles being an exponent of a Mannerism perspective. Looking at artists like Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Vermeer, El Greco, one can see a number of 'cinematic' effects that they use. (i.e. chiaroscuro lighting, various compositional elements that emphasize certain dramatic and emotional points, ...) The rest of the section basically outlines the development of modernism from the Renaissance to the present. He cites such authors as Descartes, Kant, and Heidegger and touches on such modern notions as representation, subjectivity, reflexivity, capitalism, the enlightenment, individualism, the autonomy of art, art and the marketplace, the commercial promotion of genius as begun in the romantic period via Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Carlyle, etc.. the notion of the 'Byronic hero' and Lord Byron are examined... 

'Welles' in America 

Moby Dick, Herman Melville

This section is 'a study of the American zeitgeist during Welles' lifetime. It begins with a comparison of a Norman Mailer article on JFK, followed by a discussion on the Puritan notion's of individualism and success in America and a segment on the Age of enlightenment, mainly citing Harold Laski, moving on to the transcendentalist movement with Emerson. There's a substantial passage on Melville, with some interesting comparisons between him and Welles. There's a section on Walt Whitman, all of these brief segments serve to illustrate the development of the American zeitgeist via it's literary and cultural exponents. Henry James is used to illustrate a period that Mark Twain had termed 'the gilded age' , the age of the robber barons, business moguls, mentioning as an example Theodore Dreiser's novel, the Financier. This is followed by a section on the cinema and the writer's known as the 'lost generation', starting with Dos Passos, comparing the structure of U.S.A. with Kane. Then a section on Fitzgerald and Hemingway that are more direct comparisons with Welles' career. Then a section on Faulkner which notes a structural similarity with Absalom! Absalom! and Kane. Then we arrive at the period where Welles' career begins with a section on the great depression and the New Deal that goes into the efforts of Roosevelt, Henry Wallace, & Keynes to counter the monopolistic tendencies of capitalism.

Antifascism and the Popular Front  

The next 40 pages or so deals mainly with Welles' theatre period wherein is discussed the fear of the threat of fascism following the depression and subsequent growth of the Popular Front movement and Welles' involvement. Welles political activism his status as artist representing political values is touched upon. The Work Progress Administration and the Federal Theatre Project are examined - Lewis Mumford and James Agee are mentioned. Discussion of Welles' relationship to the communist movement and to Archibald McLeish are dealt with along with an account of The Cradle Will Rock and Welles' relationship with Marc Blitzstein and how the political elements in Buchner's Danton's Death served to alienate the various very political conscious factions of the Mercury Theatre audience. The Welles radio episode, 'His Honor, The Mayor' is discussed - The political strictures of Hollywood and how most of Welles' stories would be considered too controversial to film. It is noted that Welles arrived at a very favorable time - i.e. a motivated and attentive public, a militant press, and state sponsored organization and how his arrival in Hollywood marked a different period with less favorable conditions and how the Magnificant Ambersons, It's All True, and The Stranger reflect that situation. The Lady of Shanghai is viewed as a commentary of Welles' alienation from Hollywood and the notion of estrangement i.e. the alienation of the American intellectual.

Estrangement - the alienation of the American intellectual 

Orson Welles painting

In 1947, Welles, who had been called the Emperor of the United States a decade earlier is now being called America's youngest has-been. Welles' problem is seen as having tried unsuccessfully to bring intellectual and artistic content to the the mass market context of Hollywood, which left him alienated from both Hollywood and  American intellectuals. He cites an interesting book, 'The New radicalism in America 1889-1963', by  Christopher Lasch. There is much mention of the New York School, i.e. the avant garde of American intelligentsia of writers and painters. The romantic notion of the artist in isolation and rebellion i.e. art for art's sake, the purity of the artistic vision is discussed. Welles is in a paradoxical position between art and mass communication. Jackson Pollock is celebrated for the same excentricities that Welles is reproached for. Welles liberal radicalism partly explains his estrangement from American intellectuals.  

Joseph Conrad

Between popular and elite culture  

Prior to the 20th century, there did not exist the pronounced opposition between high and low culture, i.e. Shakespeare was still appreciated by all classes. By embracing elements of high and low culture, Welles was unable to interest either sides. He is compared to Joseph Conrad in that respect. The separation of art and the cultural industry is examined in relation to Welles' career. MacBeth is seen in terms of contemporary political and cultural climate.  

Welles political commitment- Wallace and the defeat of the Liberals 

Welles works are seen as meeting ground of contradictions that are in opposition (Sovereignist and democratic tendencies, etc.). The decline in Welles' career is compared with the political decline of the Liberals and Henry Wallace. Themes in Othello and the contemporary socio-political climate are examined. Welles' political writings are examined, mainly his articles for the Free World. The question of the Liberals relationship with communism and the Soviet Union and Wallace's founding of the Progressive Party are discussed. Welles' support of the United Nations and how his political values are present in Touch of Evil, with mention of Welles' 1952 'Dialogue of the XXth century' article.

 Maccarthysme  

This section begins with Welles' 1947 departure from the US due to reasons of income tax problems and suspicions of communism by the FBI and and the California committee for Un-American activities. Hearst was a strong MacCarthy supporter. The communist witch hunt period is examined in some detail. Touch of Evil and The Trial are seen partly as a commentary on that political climate. 

'The age of conformity' and the birth of the counter-culture 

Chimes at Midnight

This part begins with Welles' denunciation of Henry Luce's Life Magazine manifesto and the decline of the American intellectual is examined, with a quote from Christopher Lasch's 'The Agony of the American Left' among others. The rise of the beat generation and the counter culture movement is touched upon - Chimes at Midnight and the figure of Falstaff is considered as a reflection of this period. Communication and Welles ' dual image of media personality and artist is discussed. The author identifies the end of the modern period with Andy Warhol's Campbell Soup prints (ironically establishing a link with Welles' Campbell-sponsored radio series). The problems of the post-modern mass media consumer society are examined, including the position of art in mass production marketplace as exemplified by Warhol. F for Fake is seen as a reflection of this period.