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- Died
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Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio. Noted for his innovative dramatic productions as well as his distinctive voice and personality, Welles is widely acknowledged as one of the most accomplished dramatic artists of the twentieth century, especially for his significant and influential early work—despite his notoriously contentious relationship with Hollywood. His distinctive directorial style featured layered, nonlinear narrative forms, innovative uses of lighting such as chiaroscuro, unique camera angles, sound techniques borrowed from radio, deep focus shots, and long takes. Welles's long career in film is noted for his struggle for artistic control in the face of pressure from studios. Many of his films were heavily edited and others left unreleased. He has been praised as a major creative force and as "the ultimate auteur."
After directing a number of high-profile theatrical productions in his early twenties, including an innovative adaptation of Macbeth and The Cradle Will Rock, Welles found national and international fame as the director and narrator of a 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds performed for the radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was reported to have caused widespread panic when listeners thought that an invasion by extraterrestrial beings was occurring. Although these reports of panic were mostly false and overstated, they rocketed Welles to instant notoriety.
Citizen Kane (1941), his first film with RKO, in which he starred in the role of Charles Foster Kane, is often considered the greatest film ever made. Several of his other films, including The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Lady from Shanghai (1947), Touch of Evil (1958), Chimes at Midnight (1965), and F for Fake (1974), are also widely considered to be masterpieces.
In 2002, he was voted the greatest film director of all time in two separate British Film Institute polls among directors and critics, and a wide survey of critical consensus, best-of lists, and historical retrospectives calls him the most acclaimed director of all time. Andrew Sarris in his influential book of film criticism The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929–1968 included him in the "pantheon" of the 14 greatest film directors who had worked in the United States. Well known for his baritone voice, Welles was also an extremely well regarded actor and was voted number 16 in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list of the greatest American film actors of all time. He was also a celebrated Shakespearean stage actor and an accomplished magician, starring in troop variety shows in the war years.
As director
Hopper/Welles
The Other Side of the Wind
Too Much Johnson
The Deep
Orson Welles Talks With Roger Hill
Moby Dick
One Man Band
It's All True
Don Quixote
It's All True: Four Men on a Raft
Unseen Lollo
The Dreamers
Orson Welles' Magic Show
The Spirit of Charles Lindbergh
Filming 'The Trial'
Filming Othello
The Orson Welles Show
F for Fake
An Evening with Orson Welles: The Golden Honeymoon
The Merchant of Venice (Rushes)
An Evening with Orson Welles: The Happy Prince
An Evening with Orson Welles: American Heritage, Vol. I – Selections from George Ade, Thomas Wolfe, Mark Twain
An Evening with Orson Welles: American Heritage, Vol. II – Clarence Darrow
An Evening with Orson Welles: Two Wise Old Men – Socrates and Noah
An Evening with Orson Welles: My Little Boy
The Merchant of Venice
The Immortal Story
Vienna
The Heroine
Chimes at Midnight
As actor
Proust Palimpsesto: Pastiches e Misturas
The Scorpion and the Frog
Human Nature in Eleven Parts
WeirdWorld
Othelo The Great
The Battle of Grovers Mill
Aliens Uncovered: Close Encounters
Jim Henson Idea Man
From Introduction to Orson Welles’s Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight
Looking Back Before You Leap
It's Pretty, but is it Art?
American: An Odyssey to 1947
Clint Eastwood: The Last Legend
Louis Armstrong's Black & Blues
The Welles Raft
Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street
Parkinson at 50
Tall Tales: The Ireland of Orson Welles
The Blinding of Isaac Woodard
The Real Charlie Chaplin
Morceaux de Cannes
Hopper/Welles
Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind
Emergency: Donald Trump’s "Touch of Evil"
The Other Side of the Wind
They'll Love Me When I'm Dead
The Eyes of Orson Welles
Jeanne Moreau: Free Spirit
The Magic History of Cinema
Embers & Dust