Orson Welles interview oleh Leslie Megahy - Stories of His Life - part1

Yang mengaku suka film, harus tahu siapa itu Orson Welles. Orang yang dikatakan sebagai sutradara terbaik dalam sejarah, paling berpengaruh di abad 21. Karya pertamanya yang ia garap ketika ia masih berumur 25 tahun disanjung sebagai film terbaik sepanjang masa. Belum lagi karya-karyanya yang lain yang tidak kalah luar-biasa seperti Touch of Evil, The Lady from Shanghai, Macbeth.

Berikut adalah interview oleh Leslie Megahy yang saya ambil dari youtube.com. Karena tidak ada subtitle, saya sertakan tulisan dari interview ini, namun masih dalam bahasa inggris. Saya harap interview ini bisa memberikan inspirasi.

Intro: And before that on we'll see Orson Welles tells his own story of his greatest achievement, and also frustration on a career extending well-beyond cinema.



v.o
In 1944 Orson Welles was 29 years old. He was to work his own particular magic for another 40 years. In Las Vegas in 1982, Orson Welles spoke to us about his life and work, his major triumph, and his biggest disappointment.

OW
I've never had a friend in my life who want to see a magic trick, you know. I don't know anybody who wants to see a magic trick. So I do it professionally. That's the only way I got a way to perform, you know. There are people in world who'll say, 'show us a trick', you know. I went once to a birthday party for Louie B Meyer, with a rabbit in my pocket, so I was gonna take it out of his hat. All came, Judy Garland, Danny K., Danny Thomason, everybody you've ever heard of, and then Al Johnson sang for 2 hours, and my rabbit was peeing all over me. And the dawn starting to rise on the Hill Chris Country Club as we said good night to Louie B Meyer, and nobody ask me to do a magic trick, with the rabbit and I went home. Unsung.


(laughing together, haha



LM
What make a good magician? You said seriously?


OW
Seriously. 
What makes a good magician? Is a man who can get that rabbit out in time.


(laughing)


(Welles' clip/radio show's shown)


OW
Is that sync? My goodness, I've never saw that before. It's wonderful. Technology is finally reached the movies, after 40 years of paralysis.


LM
I was interested in a phrase you used to (somebody), 'when you arrived in Hollywood you have the confidence of ignorance'. Can you tell me what that meant?


OW
Well, it's pretty much like my beginning in the theater. I had the confidence of ignorance. Not knowing anything about it. There's no basis for fear If  you're walking along the edge of a cliff, and you don't know it's the edge of the cliff, you have perfect confidence. I didn't discover the cliff in theater and film after I've been in it for a while.


LM
What happens then when ignorance turn to experience?


OW
Then you have to be careful not to listen to anybody. You have to remember your old ignorance and ask for the impossible with the same cheerfulness that you did when you didn't know what you're talking about.

LM
It does seem that you try recreate a sort of innocence in your approach to every single film.


OW
I like that very much. I think that's true.

v.o
Since the 1940's, Welles has been written about in more or less conflicting details. And if his biographer got it right, an expert magician and water-colorist by fall, a musical virtuoso at 3, a theatrical impresario, a scholar of Shakespeare and nature, a substitute for study by astonished child psychologist.Perhaps Welles the consummate storyteller playfully encourage the use of other legend about him. But there's no doubt that the your George Orson Welles from Wisconsin was a prodigious child.


LW
Did you play the King Lear at the age of 9?


OW
No. Certainly not. It's one of those exaggeration. I played Mary the mother of Jesus at the age of 13. But no, didn't touch King Lear until later on.


LW
How much of this whole business of child prodigy is...?


OW
The musical part of this is true. I was one of those abominable little creatures, you know, with a baton, and I played the violin. Then I played the piano. There's nothing more hateful on earth. I was one of those. My mother was a professional musician, died when I was 9, and I stopped playing immediately. It's kind of trauma, traumatic shock from her death, combined with, I think, essential laziness and delight having not have to do all those scales, and abandoned my career in music. That what I was supposed to be destined for.


LW
And all the other stuff about being studied as a child prodigy...?


OW
Yes, I was sort of. I was spoiled in a very strange way as a child. Everybody told me, from the moment I was able to hear, that I was absolutely marvelous. Never heard a discouraging words for years. I didn't know I was ahead of things. I paint then everybody said nobody ever seen such paintings! I played, anybody never played like that! It seem to me there's no limit to what I can do.


v.o.
In his early teens Welles decided to leave America and go on his travels. He took his brushed and canvasses, he decided to be an artist. In a moment of autobiography on his film F for Fake, he describes the turning point in his life.


(Welles' clip is shown)


Interview part 1 end