Ryan McNeil
My Lunches With Orson: Conversations between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles edited and with an introduction by Peter Biskind
Hardcover: Metropolitan Books, 2013 – eBook Available
They say there is a danger in burning too bright too fast. Think about any teen idol who turns into a cautionary tale of sex and drugs before their twentieth birthday.
That danger doesn’t only come with fame, but likewise with talent. It applies to every author who struggled to write their second book after the barn-burning success of their first. It applies to musicians who struggle to balance creating the music with performing and selling the music. And it happens to directors who are so unbelievably talented that they are given carte-blanche by a major Hollywood studio before their thirtieth birthday.
Of these talents that soar into the sky, much is said about the flight up. Much more is said about the fall back down. Few, however, get to talk about life has become years after that crash-landing.
Sometime in the early 1970’s, director Henry Jaglom approached Orson Welles completely unsolicited about taking a role in his film, A SAFE PLACE. After eventually convincing Welles to play the magician who would drift in and out of the film like a Greek Chorus, the project was filmed, and the two men became friends and would often meet for lunch. Years later, Welles allowed Jaglom to record their conversations (so long as the recorder stayed out of sight). What Jaglom ever intended to do with them isn’t specified.
Many years after Welles passed away, Jaglom was approached by author Peter Biskind as he worked on his book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. It was during those discussions that Biskind learned about these tapes that Jaglom had. He urged the director to do something with them.
My Lunches with Orson is that “something”
Listening to Welles speak about everyone and everything, the reader is left without a clear understanding of the speaker or the subject.
Welles himself is well-educated and well-spoken – this is undeniable. He can speak with authority on politics, religion, film, theatre, history, and probably knows how to design a longer-lasting lightbulb. However, whether he didn’t feel like getting into depth on any of it, or Jaglom couldn’t make him dive any deeper, Welles seldom spends more than a moment or two on any one topic.
Given the setting, this makes sense. Think about what you discuss with your friends over lunch: How long do you spend on any one subject?
When it comes to Welles though, we want to know more. Anytime he begins speaking about his strained friendship with Peter Bogdanovich, our ears perk up, but Welles never lingers and we are left with wanting more. He pulls the same trick when discussing Buster Keaton, Alfred Hitchcock, Casablanca and many more subjects.
Ever the showman, he leaves us wanting more.
Speaking of that showman, it’s also hard to get a handle on the man behind the myth. Welles confesses on many occasions that he is thin-skinned…and yet he speaks with such callousness and bravado. Listening to him talk about the projects he’s working on, he sometimes seems to have such a clear vision of what he wants to do – but he’s never able to convince anyone else to come along for the ride.
By the time these lunches are happening, Welles has become a Hollywood paradox. He’s a man that many respect and even adore. He’s also a man that nobody trusts, and few will work with.
Welles seems to know this about himself. For all the authority and ferocity we sense in his voice when he discusses the past, we’re left with confusion and self-consciousness when discussing the present.
Don’t even bother bringing up the future to him.
The only shortcoming to a book like this is its veracity – that’s not a criticism, mind you, only a shortcoming to its overall effect. Because Welles became so used to his conversations with Jaglom being recorded, he never once held back on anything or anyone. These discussions weren’t a planned biography – these discussions weren’t planned at all. What that means is that Welles can’t be held accountable for what is and is not accurate. That leaves these topics less like a memoir, and more like gossip in certain places.
Maybe it’s true that Charles Laughton was afraid of being outed as a homosexual, and maybe it isn’t. We certainly can’t argue the point with Welles now.
The main reason I bring it up, is because it leaves the reader with an air of skepticism after a little while. Is Welles shedding light on the faces and places he knew throughout his curious career, or is he dishing to a friend over lunch? At one point, he quotes John O’Hara as writing CITIZEN KANE “is not only the best picture that has ever been made, it is the best picture that will ever be made”. Several chapters later, he admits that he misremembered.
Work with us Orson.
As I return the book to the shelf, I felt slightly saddened by the vast array of ideas in Orson Welles’ head that never saw the light of day. Throughout this book he mentions films like KING LEAR, THE DREAMERS, and THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND as films that he has at various stages of readiness, and over the three years these conversations happened, none of them ever got any closer to being done. Those are just the ones he mentioned, the projects he dabbled with but left incomplete are in the dozens. Listening to him speak without reservation to Jaglom, it’s easy to understand why.
Here was a once-great talent who got too much too fast. He was given the keys to the car on his sixteenth birthday and promptly wrapped the car around a tree. However, that sense of entitlement never faded, and because of that, he never played well enough with others to get handed the keys ever again.
Such a pity.