The seemingly unstoppable momentum that culminated in what many regard as the greatest movie of all time was the basis for ‘The Road To Xanadu’, the compelling first volume of Simon Callow’s four-part biography of Orson Welles.
Prior to Citizen Kane, Welles brought his radical vision and insatiable creative energy to bear on innovative radio broadcasts and ground-breaking theatre productions.
Having achieved so much at such a young age, the remainder of his career was, by common consensus, anti-climatic. Welles himself joked of his movies that he started at the top and had been working his way down ever since.
Volume 2 of his story is therefore an attempt to explain what went wrong when this larger than life actor, writer and director seemed to have the world at his feet.The seeds of the downfall were apparent even when Welles was at the height of his success and notoriety. Callow’s admiration for the man does not blind him to his many faults. He shows how he could be both an inspiring leader and an infantile tyrant. Of his screen roles he writes that Welles was “an extraordinary presence but rarely and engaged actor”.
In all his pursuits, both personal and professional, Welles’ self-centred obsessions and verbal exuberance led to periods of fearless creativity interspersed with a casual recklessness that frequently made him his own worst enemy.
Callow calls him a “born over-reacher” with a frustrating habit of abandoning projects at critical points. When colleagues or producers edited or, on occasion, re-shot film sequences, Welles felt betrayed but his ego was so large and self-belief so unshakable that he never truly learned from his mistakes.
On the one hand, he craved public attention and adulation yet steadfastly refused to compromise to satisfy popular taste.
Hello Americans therefore mostly documents magnificent failures and unrealised dreams. Like so many of the Shakespearean characters that fascinated Welles throughout his life, this is story of soaring ambition undermined by human frailty. A fascinating read.
