OW
...being a director.
v.o.
Welles acted for the first time for John Huston in 1956, playing Father Maple in Huston's Moby Dick, a project Welles himself once wanted to direct.
JH(John Huston)
I was having trouble writing Father Maple into the script. It was become some kind of stumbling block for me, a blind area. I tried, it didn't satisfy me. I tried again, it didn't work. I told Orson. He said, "Let me take look at it!" He was expert, he wa a fine writer by the way. We had a congregation there to church. Orson had a difficulty getting up into the pole. Finally he made it. He got up there, turn pages, whispered lines, finally he said, "John, I never been so nervous. Could I have a drink?" I said, "What'd you like?" "Brandy". So I get it for him. He drink it 3 to 4 times, then I said, "Should we have a rehearsal?" He said, "No, let's just try and shoot it!" So we started the scene. Orson went through all that 6 pages, he was superb. And beautiful rendering that was.
(Moby Dick is playing)
LM
Have found yourself turning down really substantial part, because you want to get on with directing?
OW
No, I haven't been off with them. I'd have sold my soul to play The Godfather first. But I never got those part. It was offered to me, that's all.
LM
Why have you accepted Sonny part, no matter what have you done them in the end. Is it due of bad script?
OW
To live. I have to live, if you're going to try to finance movie and live, you have to earn your money somehow. I've done most of my movie that I didn't want to make. I never done a movie that I disapprove morally. The last part I was offered, I refused it on moral ground, and yet there I'd be playing a leading part in a 8 million dollar picture. I'd be nice to do that. But I didn't even have a moment of doubt of not doing it. Same thing with political reason. I turned down a lot of things because those kind of reasons. But no great parts. I haven't a had a great parts offered me, only a few good ones, in all those years. They hired me when they really had a bad movies and they want a cameo that will give a little class. So every time I do one of those things, I ask for something more for me as an actor. Kind of a liquidation when you do that, that's why I hope to avoid it. Looks if I have a chance to direct a couple movies, and I have got couple of good story I've written for myself. That's the only way I know how to get them. I played all the great parts in the theatre by running...you know there is an old saying in Yiddish theatre, "The star is the one who own the store." So, my story have been rather small establishment, but I was the star because I own it.
(F for Fake's playing)
v.o.
In his later years, Welles most sale-able commodity was himself, his own personality, and his unrivaled skill as a story-teller.
(F for Fake's playing)
LM
In F for Fake you describe yourself as an chariatan.
OW
Yes, well I describe myself as a chariatan, in order, it was a complete trick, because I don't regard myself as a chariatan. I said I was a chariatan in order not to sound pompous talking about all the chariatan that were in the movie. That's why I did the magic and so on. I thought by saying I was a chariatan that'd keep me from looked like a some superior moral judge of trickster. A lot of very serious film writers have taken that up and written great length Orson Welles as chariatan, from his own lips and all that. But that was the trick too, it was all a trick.
(F for Fake's playing)
LM
You have that film quality as well. I mean you got that film from another source?
OW
Yes, BBC.
(F for Fake's playing)
OW
I rushed over to BBC to look at it and bought the film. When I finish F for Fake I thought I had discovered a new kind of movie, and that is the kind of movie I want to spend the rest of my life doing, and the failure of F for Fake in America, and also in England, was one of the biggest shock in my life, because I though I was on to something.
(end of part15)
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