Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles

David Thompson has written a biography that for the most part seems objective on all accounts. While acknowledging Orson Welles's great genius, he doesn't gloss over the major flaws in his character. Like the tragic figure in Citizen Kane, Welles's seemed to fall because of his own arrogance and indifference to others around him. As a young man in his twenties, Welles seemingly has the world on a string, but either because of ego and the aforementioned arrogance, never seems to learn the important game of diplomacy, whether it be with film executives or some of his talented inner circle. Like a good novel, this biography is an interesting read. It moves along at a nice pace, and the information surrounding Welles's early days in theater and radio are fascinating. The fascination only increases once Welles and Company set off for Hollywood. After inking one of the all-time sweetheart deals that a film studio ever put together, Welles just seems to take it all for granted. He's either alienating friends and executives or just plan goofing off. As a history of the entertainment industry, this book is terrific. As a history of someone who for unknown reasons squandered opportunity after opportunity it's both frustrating and sad. What would American film be today had Welles been a more disciplined individual? We'll never know, but Rosebud helps give us a glimmer of what might have been.

This is that rarest of birds, a celebrity biography that's actually a good book. Thomson is an insightful, elegant writer and a solid film (and film industry) critic, and his skills are fully at work here, as he resists both of the the strong responses that Welles usually elicits: hero worship, and the urge to debunk. Obviously long fascinated by Welles, Thomson manages to be as objective as possible (though I think he errs on the side of generosity with regard to some of Welles's post-Kane films). Thomson even manages to say something original and interesting about Citizen Kane, which alone would make the book worth a read. The real trouble with a biography of Welles is how to deal with the last two thirds of the life of someone who reached his peak at 26. That's a lot of anticlimax to deal with. Peter Guralnik faced a similar problem in his massive, two-volume Elvis Presley biography---how to write meaningfully and accurately about post-Army Elvis without boring people to death. Thomson deals rather more successfully with post-Kane Welles, mainly because he doesn't go into as much detail. Admittedly the later parts of the book become a bit of a blur; but throughout the book one gets the strong sense that Thomson has a firm grasp (as much as anyone can) of the enigmatic Welles---has his number, so to speak. Yet he is neither cruel nor fawning. This is THE Welles bio to read.

In his introduction to the Biographical Dictionary of Cinema, the (Cliche!) greatest book ever written on the cinema (because it values humanism and impressionism over sterile science and yet still produces comparable insights. Compare his entry on Sirk and all those deadly 70s Screen articles on the melodrama), David Thomson hoped that readers would wrestle with the book, and make their own impressions sharper. This is certainly the case with his (cliche!) astonishing, yet maddening Orson Welles biography, Rosebud. The book is astonishing in its insight, human sympathy, narration; in it's commingling of hoary legend and hard-won facts to create a vivid, yet satisfyingly elusive portrait of America's greatest (along with Hawks!) filmmaker. THe device of the dialogue with the imaginary publisher is wonderfully unstuffy, and helps qualify some of the sternness in the 'main' sections. It's formal mirroring of and continual alluding to Citizen Kane cements the power of his biographical interpretation of that masterpiece. Having read the book, it is evident why Kane is the greatest, why it's such a rich and everlasting work. His analysis of the opening scenes are the best ever written, and almost make you long for a complete study. Most astonishing however, no less so for being predictable, is the Thomson style, the complete opposite of the Welles' aesthetic, graceful, playful, Nabakovian, allusive, yet similarly moving and melancholic. What irritates about the book is the tendency to moralise and judge Welles, as if we were all perfect. It's one thing to criticise the work (and although some of his verdicts seem capricious, it's refreshing to see Macbeth, THe Trial adn F For Fake get their due), the repeated harping on Welles' failure as a human being grate (although I may be too adoring of the monster for my own good). This callousness softens towards the end, and when THomson confesses that his own personality is too close to Welles, and that he has been a shaping influence on his life, all becomes clear and (a la Thomson!) forgiveable.

Simply the definitive account of the greatest american talent in cinemas history. From the glory of Kane to the despair of daytime commercials, Thomson treats the subject with equal measures of admiration, pity and despair. A great story well told. As Kane said "if I hadnt been rich, I COULD HAVE BEEN A TRULY GREAT MAN "

David Thomson and Simon Callow both released biographies of Orson Welles at about the same time, and it seems the two will be perpetually linked in reviews. Certainly Callow's book is the more deeply researched, but it is Thomson's which tries and succeeds to get into the soul of the elusive Welles. Free from the overwhelming piles of research which make Callow's book exhausting, if still fascinating, Thomson is free to pick and choose which details he wishes to emphasize, and he does a marvelous job of it. Thomson's account of Welles' final years, for example, with its use of choice anecdote and observation, is brief and heartbreaking. His insights into the films are immensely interesting as well. Even if I did not agree with them all, they did have the effect of making me go back to the films themselves to have another look, which is perhaps the ultimate compliment one can pay Thomson. "Rosebud", unlike Callow's book, is written by someone who genuinely admires Welles. Thomson doesn't fail to point out Welles' shortcomings and failures, but his critiques are free of Callow's sniping. Thomson refrains from gossip, doesn't weigh himself down with trivia, and in the end, has written the one truly indispensible biography of Welles.