A Filmmaker's Guide to the Best Performances: Orson Welles

The ultimate filmmaker, Orson Welles' name is synonymous with cinema and has this aura attached to it of a legacy that nobody would ever forget. From his own films such as "Citizen Kane" (1941) he made at 25 years' old, becoming known as one of the greatest films ever made to his performance in "The Third Man" (1949) - Welles is a man of incredible and undeniable talent. A true visionary of the film culture who provided us with an incredible amount of work to read and watch for the rest of our studies.

Background

Orson Welles was born in Wisconsin, USA in 1915. His parents separated when he was young and moved to Chicago in 1919. His father became a raging alcoholic and his mother was a pianist. Orson Welles is thought to have had learning difficulties. His mother would die of hepatitis in hospital in 1924. Welles was only nine years' old and it was four days after his birthday. Welles stopped playing the piano his mother taught him after her death and spent the summer with a family called the Watsons in a private art colony in Wyoming, New York. He then went to live with his father in Chicago. Welles attended school for a while but then his father ceased all kinds of work and took the boy to Jamaica with him for some travelling. They came back and settled in a hotel owned by Welles' father, but it burned down and they took to the road again.

Welles went to school in Wisconsin for a while, attending the fourth grade and then went to a school in Illinois - it was here that he was creatively enriched by his headmaster, Roger Hill. When Welles was 15, his father died of heart failure. A man called Maurice Bernstein, who worked with Orson Welles' father, became the guardian for the child.

Welles went to get a scholarship to Harvard University and yet, Roger Hill suggested Cornell College. Orson Welles declined both and went travelling for experience instead. He came back and enrolled in the Art Institute in Chicago. Welles made his stage debut at the Gate theatre. In 1934, he would get his first job on radio. He was already being cast in a number of top Shakespeare plays throughout the American theatre scene. In 1938, Orson Welles would take to the radio and put the world in moral panic with his hyper-realistic reading of HG Wells' "War of the Worlds". This brought Welles instantaneous fame.

Since he did so much on screen, we will look at all of his efforts together. The top ten performances are dedicated to acting, directing, writing and anything else he was involved in. So, let us move on to the most important part of this article - here are the top ten best performances in a film by Orson Welles.

The Top Ten Best Performances in Film by Orson Welles:

10. Journey into Fear (1943)

9. Mr. Arkadin (1955)

8. Chimes at Midnight [Falstaff] (1965)

7. The Trial (1962)

6. The Stranger (1946)

5. The Lady From Shanghai (1947)

4. Macbeth (1948)

3. Touch of Evil (1958)

2. The Third Man (1949)

1. Citizen Kane (1941)

So there you are, the ten greatest performances by the amazing Orson Welles on screen. As a cinema legend, he pioneered some amazing techniques which are today, used in post-modern cinema. These include match-on-graphics on to photographs (see: Citizen Kane) and non-linear time structures. Even to the point of having an entire introduction filled with newsreel is unknown to this time. Citizen Kane (1941) some may think is overrated but the way it changed cinema forever is pretty much unequalled. Without Kane, there would be no real need to have these introductions that start at the end of the film. The great thing about that is that when it does go back to the beginning, you already know how it ends and you can therefore understand all the foreshadowing that happens throughout the film. In The Third Man (1949), Welles is a great and incredible actor, playing his part with a great amount of mystery and suave. It is like watching a man who is quite possibly far too big for the roles he tries to play. We won’t see another like him in acting until the likes of Marlon Brando, Al Pacino and Daniel Day-Lewis.

Happy 105th Birthday to Mr. Cinema Himself, Orson Welles