Me and Orson Welles

I think I might have heard the name of this movie once prior to seeing a friend's Facebook status about going to see it; I had a glance at the movie's page on Wikipedia and decided that, as there wasn't anything else on that I wanted to see, it'd be this week's film.

The film is set in 1937 as Welles, prior to his rise to fame via his radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds or Citizen Kane, was attempting to get his Mercury Theatre company up and running by staging a production of Julius Caesar. Theatre-loving high school student named Richard (High School Musical's Zac Efron) turns up at the theatre and gets himself cast in the show and, as they rehearse the erratic and headstrong Welles takes him under his wing. He skips school to take part in the show, has a fling with Welles' assistant Sonja Jones (Claire Danes), helps another girl, Greta (Zoe Kazan), get her short story published in the New Yorker, and despite having a falling out with the tempestuous Welles over the girl, retains his place in the cast to experience the opening night of the production which would go on to set a still unbroken record of performances of that play.

It's light-hearted and entertaining, and – since most of the action takes place around the theatre during the rehearsals - a great (and accurate) look at theatre culture; it features other notable people from the era, including actors John Houseman and frequent Welles collaborator Joseph Cotten.

But the best part by far is film newcomer Christian McKay's portrayal of Orson Welles. He simply dominates every scene he's in; his ability to convey Welles' legendary combination of genius, unpredictability and temper is captivating.

Plus it's given me this overwhelming urge to learn more about one of the entertainment world's most interesting characters. Really, there have been few people who had as much impact on so many facets of popular culture – theatre, radio and film – as Welles did in the first half of the twentieth century; that he wasn't able to maintain this throughout his long (50 year) career makes him even more intriguing.

Since I love reading, and reading biographies of interesting people¹, the logical thing to do would be to track one or two down. Not hard to do – the internet is a wonderful thing – and it seems that legendary English stage and film actor Simon Callow¹ (who I – sadly – didn't get to see in Waiting for Godot earlier this year; he didn't come over with the production) has written not one but two – with a third on the way – Orson Welles biographies.

I can't really spare the time to read them anytime soon – I probably shouldn't even be wasting valuable line-learning time writing this – but as soon as my current show's over, I'll be tracking them down.

¹Some of the people whose lives I've learned more about from books about them include Clint Eastwood, Kenneth Branagh, JRR Tolkien, Stephen Fry, Jodie Foster, Ian Fleming, J Edgar Hoover, assorted Kennedys, Pink Floyd, The Doors and Stanley Kubrick, to name a few.
²Most well-known for Four Weddings and a Funeral and a quirky English television show from the 80s called Chance in a Million, which co-starred award-winning actress Brenda Blethyn - who I may or may not have written about being lucky enough to meet some years ago.