A documentary about one of the most legendary men in all of cinema could go one of two ways: on one hand, the filmmaker has an enormous archive of material to pull from, but on the other, is there really anything left to say about Orson Welles that hasn’t already been said a thousand times? The new documentary Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles by Chuck Workman is a light-hearted, but nifty little film recounting the career of the big man himself.
For years, Workman has cut together many montages for the Academy Awards. In Magician, he implements a similar ‘clip show’ style. The film’s most entertaining clips are snippets of Welles’ speaking at various events and interviews. Documentarians should always tread lightly when it comes to talking heads, as too much of this can quickly become dull, but luckily, Workman brought together some of the most distinguished scholars to discuss Welles, including biographers Joseph McBride and Simon Callow, and renowned critic Jonathan Rosenbaum. The most sentimental bits of the film come from a conversation with Welles’ partner Oja Kodar, who emotionally recounts the sacred time she spent with the Magician.
Workman’s Magician isn’t the defining Welles’ documentary, as it is rather short and not packed with too much information, but it’s a nice place to start for filmgoers who don’t know much about Welles.
Magician begins with Welles’ youth and personal growth as a young man, but grazes through this semi-quickly to make its way up to his successful cinematic years. To the everyday film-goer who shares an average interest in Welles, the information provided here will seem fresh, relevant and fairly entertaining. However, due to the ‘highlight reel’ nature of the documentary and swiftness at which it glances Welles’ career, any film school veteran or hardcore cinephile nerd will find much of the information repetitive and simple.
In many ways, Magician barely scratches the surface, which isn’t surprising considering the scope of its subject. While the film contains a few ‘exclusive’ interviews, it uses a large amount of old footage of Welles’ which has long been accessible via YouTube. The film also touches on Welles’ many unfinished films like Don Quixote, as well as some of the leading factors as to why he was somewhat troubling to the studio system in his later years.
Workman’s Magician isn’t the defining Welles’ documentary, as it is rather short and not packed with too much information, but it’s a nice place to start for film-goers who don’t know much about Welles. It’s essentially a highlight real, but a pretty good one at that. The film leaves the viewer with the concept of Welles as a mysterious and brilliant man, who was somehow living in a creative space decades ahead of his time. We do see some canonical clips from films like Chimes at Midnight and The Third Man, but most of all, we get a very flattering and touching portrait of Orson Welles- one of the most influential men to ever set foot in Hollywood.
Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles is in theaters today.
