0:00:13 > 0:00:20Do you know what Shirley Temple's mother used to say to her before every take?
0:00:20 > 0:00:28For every take... This is God's truth. She used to say... "Sparkle, Shirley." You know?
0:00:28 > 0:00:33Well, I don't think I'm going to sparkle tonight, Michael!
0:00:33 > 0:00:40But I have my stick, and if you try one of those in-depth interviews... you ought to know that I'm armed.
0:00:40 > 0:00:47That was Orson Welles laying down the law. He liked interviewers to know their place.
0:00:47 > 0:00:52When we met, he looked with despair at the sheet of paper in my hand.
0:00:52 > 0:01:00"What's that?" he said. "My questions." "Throw them away. I'll talk instead. Much better."
0:01:00 > 0:01:07And it was. Who was I to argue with the man who, at 26, made and starred in Citizen Kane,
0:01:07 > 0:01:12and who followed that landmark with The Magnificent Ambersons,
0:01:12 > 0:01:16The Lady from Shanghai, and A Touch of Evil
0:01:16 > 0:01:21 to consolidate his reputation as one of the giants of cinema.
0:01:27 > 0:01:32Is that really your idea of how to run a newspaper!?
0:01:32 > 0:01:40- I don't know how to run a newspaper, I just try everything I can think of.- You've no proof of this...
0:01:40 > 0:01:47- Mr Kane...- Hello, Mr Bernstein. Can you prove it isn't? Mr Bernstein, meet Mr Thatcher.
0:01:47 > 0:01:54- Sir, a cable from Cuba...! - We have no secrets from our readers. Mr Thatcher is a devoted reader.
0:01:54 > 0:02:02- He knows what's wrong with each copy since I took over. Read the cable. - "Girls delightful in Cuba stop.
0:02:02 > 0:02:09"Could send prose poems about the scenery stop. There is no war in Cuba stop. Wheeler." Any answer?
0:02:09 > 0:02:16- Yes, tell Wheeler, "You provide the prose poems, I'll provide the war." - Right away!
0:02:16 > 0:02:23Orson Welles spent the rest of his life trying to avoid talking about Citizen Kane.
0:02:23 > 0:02:31He hated talking about any of his movies. But he loved talking. And there's much to say.
0:02:31 > 0:02:38He revolutionised American theatre. He terrified the nation with his War of the Worlds broadcast.
0:02:38 > 0:02:46He made cinema history. He was a political animal, a friend of FDR, a speechwriter and commentator.
0:02:46 > 0:02:51He married Rita Hayworth, had an affair with Judy Garland,
0:02:51 > 0:02:56and a deep and close relationship with Marlene Dietrich.
0:02:56 > 0:03:03He was a magician, a mind-reader, and a bullfighter. One friend called him "a multitude of a man."
0:03:03 > 0:03:11I found him the most fascinating talker of them all. These are the highlights of our 1974 interview.
0:03:11 > 0:03:16It was the time of Watergate and I asked his views on politicians.
0:03:16 > 0:03:24- I don't think politicians are natural crooks.- Not all of them? - No, I don't think MOST of them are.
0:03:24 > 0:03:31I think they are actors, and actors are neither men nor women. Actors belong to a third sex.
0:03:31 > 0:03:39Actors are actors, and one aspect of it is the political game.
0:03:39 > 0:03:42But that kind of acting is not lying
0:03:42 > 0:03:49as long as it...refers to and reflects and exhorts...
0:03:49 > 0:03:56the essential...commonly held ideals of a culture.
0:03:56 > 0:04:04Those performances are part of our culture, even though they are performances,
0:04:04 > 0:04:11even though some of the actors themselves may be cynical about their performance.
0:04:11 > 0:04:16- But what we have now cannot be excused in those terms.- Mm.
0:04:16 > 0:04:21But you said last time you wouldn't mind the job of President. And now?
0:04:21 > 0:04:26Well, they haven't been burning up the wires.
0:04:26 > 0:04:34- AUDIENCE LAUGHTER - No.- Eh... I'm really not in a position at this point in time,
0:04:34 > 0:04:39eh, to state that I am ready for candidacy for President.
0:04:39 > 0:04:46One thing that amused me about that, really, was...I was watching TV the other night,
0:04:46 > 0:04:53- and the vice-president designate... I can't remember his name...- Ford. - Ford. Gerald Ford.- Should be easy.
0:04:53 > 0:05:00- And...- Gerald is the tough part of it.- Eh, yeah... - We call him Gerry.- Gerry...
0:05:00 > 0:05:06And he was up before some preliminary Senate investigatory committee
0:05:06 > 0:05:14and said some extraordinary things about, "You can investigate me, my children, my bank manager..."
0:05:14 > 0:05:21I'd love to be there when you're President and they're investigating you.
0:05:21 > 0:05:29- I mean...- You mean me?- You. - Well, I've BEEN investigated over and over again by the Americans,
0:05:29 > 0:05:36- by all kinds of American committees and the FBI and everybody.- Really? - Sure. Sure. It's a... You know...
0:05:36 > 0:05:41It's one of our favourite indoor and outdoor sports.
0:05:43 > 0:05:50What else were we doing in the doctor's office during Ellsberg's trial but investigating?
0:05:50 > 0:05:55- Yes.- You know? My trouble, during the investigation period...
0:05:55 > 0:06:02When I was investigated a lot was during the anti-American McCarthy period, you see.
0:06:02 > 0:06:10And I never got to testify because I kept begging to be allowed to. This was a line nobody else took.
0:06:10 > 0:06:17And that stumped them. I said, "Oh, please let me go and explain why I'm not a communist."
0:06:17 > 0:06:22And earlier in the day, there was one Congressional committee
0:06:22 > 0:06:27run by a fella who ended up in jail for one of those minor crimes
0:06:27 > 0:06:32that seem to tempt our people in elective office...
0:06:32 > 0:06:40LAUGHTER And he was a strong patriot. He wrapped himself in the American flag
0:06:40 > 0:06:42as fully as it was possible to do.
0:06:42 > 0:06:50He had an UnAmerican - or whatever it was called - Affairs Committee long before McCarthy started.
0:06:50 > 0:06:55And he sent a few louts over to see me in my office in Hollywood.
0:06:55 > 0:07:00And they were particularly dumb, and they fell into a marvellous trap.
0:07:00 > 0:07:08They said, "Are you a card-carrying communist?" Of course, I've never been faintly pro-communist, but...
0:07:08 > 0:07:13but I am on the progressive side, as I imagine you've guessed...
0:07:13 > 0:07:20But I said, "Will you define what a communist is?" And this is where they fell in the trap.
0:07:20 > 0:07:25They said, "What do you mean?" I said, "I want to answer honestly.
0:07:25 > 0:07:32"How can I answer your question if you don't tell me what you mean?" "Well...what's a communist?
0:07:32 > 0:07:37"Well, I guess it's where whatever you make goes to the government."
0:07:37 > 0:07:41I said, "Well, I'm 86% communist."
0:07:42 > 0:07:45"The rest is capitalist."
0:07:45 > 0:07:50You see, that's the income tax that one pays in America.
0:07:50 > 0:07:53Have you ever been bugged?
0:07:53 > 0:08:00Oh, yes, but that was by Harry Cohn, the head of a studio. He bugged my office in such an obvious way...
0:08:00 > 0:08:04I had a radio programme in those days
0:08:04 > 0:08:12and I used to come into my office in the morning and say, "Good morning, everyone!
0:08:12 > 0:08:17"This is Orson Welles' office welcoming you to another day..."
0:08:17 > 0:08:24And at night I'd say, "Orson Welles signing off." And play a little music... Just like a radio show.
0:08:24 > 0:08:30Cohn got rather angry. He thought the buggee ought to take it seriously.
0:08:30 > 0:08:37- "Buggee". - And when I ran the federal theatres in the days of the WPA,
0:08:37 > 0:08:41we were all bugged, of course, and our phones were...
0:08:41 > 0:08:49It's hard to imagine anything more primitive than Watergate and the "disappearing tapes"...
0:08:49 > 0:08:56but it was so primitive then that you heard buzzing and screeching on the phone when they were listening.
0:08:56 > 0:09:01I put on Christopher Marlowe's Dr Faustus.
0:09:01 > 0:09:08And a Congressman got up on the floor and said that Orson Welles is producing and acting in a play
0:09:08 > 0:09:13by the notorious communist Christopher Marlowe.
0:09:13 > 0:09:20- Extraordinary. - But it took a lot of electronic work to get that information.
0:09:20 > 0:09:27The reason you've worked and lived for such a long time in Europe, then...
0:09:27 > 0:09:29- Not to avoid McCarthy.- No.- No.
0:09:29 > 0:09:34- It's been because the work's been there?- Yes. Really.
0:09:34 > 0:09:42And because I like living on this side of the Atlantic very much, but I like living in America too.
0:09:42 > 0:09:49I'm not a refugee, either politically or emotionally, from my country.
0:09:49 > 0:09:57I'm neither very hot about... nationalistically inclined, because I hate that in anybody.
0:09:57 > 0:10:04I hate... I do truly believe that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
0:10:04 > 0:10:10And I don't feel that way. But I'm very happy in America.
0:10:10 > 0:10:18- But it happens that America's not as happy with me as I am with it.- Why do you live in Spain at present?
0:10:18 > 0:10:25- I don't. I'm shooting a picture there.- But you spend a lot of time there.- Not as much as I did.
0:10:25 > 0:10:30Again, like the fruitpickers, I go where the work is.
0:10:30 > 0:10:35But I don't live in Spain at all. I don't have an establishment there.
0:10:35 > 0:10:40I'm old-fashioned and Spain is an old-fashioned country.
0:10:40 > 0:10:47But I hadn't been in Spain, when I talked with you, for a long time. And I've been there now.
0:10:47 > 0:10:54And in the last six months, it's joined the glory of the present world to such an extent,
0:10:54 > 0:11:02that you don't know if you're in LA or Madrid. A great deal of the grace and pleasure of life is gone.
0:11:02 > 0:11:08Are you still interested - I know you were in previous years - in bullfighting?
0:11:08 > 0:11:16Yes, but less... I'm interested in what I remember. I don't like it much any more.
0:11:16 > 0:11:20- Why's that?- Well... Two things.
0:11:20 > 0:11:25First of all, bullfighting, as somebody once said very well,
0:11:25 > 0:11:31- is indefensible and irresistible. - Hm.
0:11:31 > 0:11:36And, eh... It is irresistible when everything is as it ought to be,
0:11:36 > 0:11:40both with the beast, the sacrificial beast,
0:11:40 > 0:11:47and with the brave man who meets that brave animal for... a ritualistic encounter...
0:11:47 > 0:11:54- I'm not going to go into all that mystique which has been pretty worn out by now.- Mm.
0:11:54 > 0:12:02The fact is, it has become an industry which depends, for its existence, on the tourist trade.
0:12:02 > 0:12:08So it's become folkloric. And I hate anything which is folkloric.
0:12:09 > 0:12:13But I haven't turned against bullfighting
0:12:13 > 0:12:18 because it needs a lot of Japanese in the front row to keep going.
0:12:19 > 0:12:27I've turned against it for very much the same reason that my father was a great hunter and suddenly stopped.
0:12:27 > 0:12:32He said, "I've killed enough animals and I'm ashamed of myself."
0:12:32 > 0:12:40And I was a bad torerito myself, you know, and I've seen hundreds of bullfights, thousands, I suppose.
0:12:40 > 0:12:45And wasted a lot of my life, now that I look back on it.
0:12:45 > 0:12:52And although it's been a great education to me in human terms and many other ways,
0:12:52 > 0:12:57em...I begin to think that I've seen enough of those animals die.
0:12:57 > 0:13:01But WAS it a waste? Such an exciting...
0:13:01 > 0:13:03It WAS all of that.
0:13:03 > 0:13:11But wasn't I living secondhand, through the lives of those toreros who were my friends?
0:13:11 > 0:13:18- Yes.- Wasn't I living and dying secondhand? Wasn't there something finally voyeuristic about it?
0:13:18 > 0:13:22I suspect...my aficion.
0:13:22 > 0:13:26I still go to bullfights, I'm not totally reformed,
0:13:26 > 0:13:32and I can't ask for the approval of people who have good reasons to argue against it,
0:13:32 > 0:13:40and, by the way, almost all Spanish intellectuals have been against bullfighting for the last 150 years.
0:13:40 > 0:13:47Very few... Lorca is one of the few Spanish intellectuals who ever approved of bullfighting.
0:13:47 > 0:13:54Waste, waste, waste, you ask me. Waste because I wasn't doing anything.
0:13:54 > 0:14:02My little short period of doing it was just for the fun of it. As a kid, I never expected to be a Belmonte,
0:14:02 > 0:14:09and the rest of my life that I spent among bull-breeders and bullfighters was enormous fun,
0:14:09 > 0:14:14but what have I extracted from it that's of any value to anybody?
0:14:14 > 0:14:18What qualities in them attracted you to them?
0:14:18 > 0:14:26Well, you know, there are two kinds of people who "follow the bulls", as they say in Spanish.
0:14:26 > 0:14:31There are those who follow because they love the bullfighters,
0:14:31 > 0:14:39and there is a small minority who are interested in the bulls. I was always most interested in the bulls.
0:14:39 > 0:14:46That may seem incomprehensible - to be interested in the animal who is going to be killed.
0:14:46 > 0:14:53It's like the interest of somebody who is very keen and knowledgeable about horses.
0:14:53 > 0:14:58I am much more interested in bulls than in the men who fight them,
0:14:58 > 0:15:03even though some of my dearest friends have been bullfighters.
0:15:03 > 0:15:10You shared this passion with another famous American, Hemingway. Did you ever meet him?
0:15:10 > 0:15:17- He was a very close friend of mine. - Was he?- Yeah. I knew him on and off for many years.
0:15:17 > 0:15:24We had a very strange relationship. He was, eh... I'd never belong to his clan,
0:15:24 > 0:15:32- because I made fun of him, and nobody ever made fun of Hemingway.- Mm.- But I did.
0:15:32 > 0:15:37And he took it, but he didn't like me to do it in front of...the club.
0:15:37 > 0:15:44We met at the projection of a movie which he had made and which he wanted me to narrate.
0:15:44 > 0:15:50- And he had written the commentary. This is many years ago.- Yeah.
0:15:50 > 0:15:57And we hadn't seen each other. This was a dark projection room. And I was reading the text.
0:15:57 > 0:16:04And I said, "Is it really necessary to say this? Wouldn't it be better to just see the picture?" And so on.
0:16:04 > 0:16:12And I heard this growl: "Some damned faggot from an art theatre trying to tell me how to write...!"
0:16:12 > 0:16:14So I began to camp it up.
0:16:14 > 0:16:22"Oh, Mr Hemingway, you think that because you're so big and strong and have hair on your chest...!"
0:16:23 > 0:16:29So this great figure stood up and swung at me! So I swung at him.
0:16:29 > 0:16:34You have the Spanish Civil War on the screen,
0:16:34 > 0:16:39and these two heavy figures swinging away and missing most of the time...
0:16:39 > 0:16:47The lights came up and we looked at each other and burst into laughter and became great friends.
0:16:47 > 0:16:52Not a friendship that was renewed every year, but over many years.
0:16:52 > 0:16:57I saw him in the last year that he was entirely in control of himself.
0:16:57 > 0:17:04But we never discussed bullfighting because we disagreed profoundly on too many points.
0:17:04 > 0:17:08And he thought he'd invented it, you know.
0:17:08 > 0:17:12- He really did.- Yes...
0:17:12 > 0:17:19- Maybe he did!- His book, of course, is still...- Is superb. He's a great, great, great artist.
0:17:19 > 0:17:26I... My admiration for... I was enormously fond of him as a man too.
0:17:26 > 0:17:31- The thing you never get from his books is his humour.- Yes.
0:17:31 > 0:17:38There's hardly a word of humour in a Hemingway book, because he's so tense and solemn,
0:17:38 > 0:17:45- and dedicated to what's true and good and all that.- Mm.- But when he relaxed, he was riotously funny.
0:17:45 > 0:17:53I enjoyed being with him, keeping him company when he went duck-shooting in Venice in autumn.
0:17:53 > 0:17:59I have many strange memories of him like that. I was enormously fond of him.
0:17:59 > 0:18:03But as an artist, I think that it's really...
0:18:03 > 0:18:08There are few important writers, with the exception of Nabokov...
0:18:08 > 0:18:15who have not been influenced to some degree by him. I think it's impossible to write the same
0:18:15 > 0:18:21- as we did before he wrote.- Has he not become an old-fashioned figure?
0:18:21 > 0:18:28- He's come back again, I think. - Really?- I don't know about England, of course. Different countries vary.
0:18:28 > 0:18:33In America, he was in total eclipse for the last ten years.
0:18:33 > 0:18:39The sun is rising again, critically, for him. He's been dead long enough.
0:18:39 > 0:18:46- I think it's mainly true, isn't it, that writers do go into total eclipse right after their death.- Yes.
0:18:46 > 0:18:51- I wonder why.- He was ultimately a tragic figure, wasn't he?
0:18:51 > 0:18:58- His end was complete counterpoint to all that he stood for... - He was sick. He was sick.
0:18:58 > 0:19:05But he did talk about suicide, you know. His father killed himself with a gun in the same way.
0:19:05 > 0:19:11And he talked to me about it several times in a sort of obsessive way.
0:19:11 > 0:19:19But he was a sick man. He wasn't merely... He was not well mentally. He's not to be judged as himself.
0:19:19 > 0:19:26He didn't... The Hemingway we are talking about did not choose his death.
0:19:26 > 0:19:30- Yes.- He MIGHT have. But he wasn't that man.
0:19:30 > 0:19:35- Do you have any heroes? - Oh, yes, many.- Who are they?
0:19:35 > 0:19:42I suppose the great... There are... You know, in England, Churchill is the...
0:19:42 > 0:19:47I know he's a little out of fashion with a lot of young people,
0:19:47 > 0:19:50who send him up a lot.
0:19:50 > 0:19:55 And I'm an abject hero-worshipper of Winston's.
0:19:56 > 0:20:04- I think the greatest man I ever met was George Marshall.- Really?- Yes. The greatest human being.
0:20:04 > 0:20:06- Why was that?- I don't know.
0:20:06 > 0:20:14He just struck me as being everything I would like to be myself, or like everybody to be.
0:20:14 > 0:20:16- He was just...- Yes.
0:20:16 > 0:20:22One night, we were... We were at a big dinner, a banquet...
0:20:22 > 0:20:25All the brass. The war was still on.
0:20:25 > 0:20:33I was the only civilian who was going to sit on the... dias, as we call it in America.
0:20:33 > 0:20:41And there were the admirals and everyone else, and Mr Roosevelt was going to be wheeled in in a moment...
0:20:41 > 0:20:48And we were waiting. It was in the Mayflower Hotel. And a door opened...and a GI looked in.
0:20:48 > 0:20:56Just by accident, he opened the door, and he saw George Marshall, the highest ranking officer in the world.
0:20:56 > 0:21:00And he said, "You're General Marshall!"
0:21:01 > 0:21:09Now, Marshall didn't know anybody was watching this. I was. Everybody was having drinks and talking...
0:21:09 > 0:21:17He said, "Yeah, come in, son." And he went off in the corner with the boy, who was an ordinary GI,
0:21:17 > 0:21:22and sat talking with him for 15 minutes, and sent the boy home.
0:21:22 > 0:21:29- Now, there are not many generals of the army who could do that with simplicity...- Mm.
0:21:29 > 0:21:35And without the slightest hint of, eh...demagoguery or playing.
0:21:35 > 0:21:40He didn't think one of us was admiring him for being a human being.
0:21:40 > 0:21:47And he was such a human being that that little boy from the prairies of Kansas or wherever...
0:21:47 > 0:21:55instantly saw that he could talk to him without embarrassment. As he could never have talked to his major,
0:21:55 > 0:22:00- or to General MacArthur, you know? - Or Patton...- Certainly not Patton.
0:22:00 > 0:22:03Not unless he had his guard up!
0:22:03 > 0:22:10I asked you about heroes because I know that a lot of people would say YOU were their hero.
0:22:10 > 0:22:14I can't imagine why, but I LOVE hearing it.
0:22:14 > 0:22:19I sincerely can't see how anybody could make a hero of me.
0:22:19 > 0:22:24You have, many times, been called a genius...
0:22:24 > 0:22:26It's one of those words, you know.
0:22:26 > 0:22:34- I suppose there have only been two or three geniuses this century. We all know who they are.- Really?
0:22:34 > 0:22:39What - Einstein, Picasso and someone from China we haven't heard about.
0:22:39 > 0:22:44- So you don't accept the... - Oh, I accept anything I get!
0:22:45 > 0:22:49But, between friends, there aren't many of them.
0:22:49 > 0:22:57And I really wouldn't want to try to edge my way into an elevator that was for geniuses only -
0:22:57 > 0:23:00going up, you know!
0:23:00 > 0:23:07Well, we were talking earlier about "experts". Experts. That would be, eh...
0:23:07 > 0:23:11Film critics would call themselves experts, one imagines.
0:23:11 > 0:23:17Now, they judged a film of yours, twice running, Best Film Ever Made.
0:23:17 > 0:23:24That shows you how crazy experts are. No, it shows you how fundamentally sound film criticism is.
0:23:26 > 0:23:34No, I don't... I never talk about critics, because there isn't anything to be said about them.
0:23:34 > 0:23:39If they criticise you, anything you say is sour grapes.
0:23:39 > 0:23:46If they like what you do, you should shut up, you know? There's no way to criticise critics. They're immune.
0:23:46 > 0:23:53- Do they ever wound you?- Deeply. Yes. I can remember every bad notice I've ever had.
0:23:53 > 0:23:59I remember one I got when I was 18 in Salt Lake City, when I played Marshbanks,
0:23:59 > 0:24:04and I was described as "a sea calf whining in a basso profundo."
0:24:05 > 0:24:10I'm sure it's an absolutely accurate description of that performance,
0:24:10 > 0:24:18but it still goes through my head before I go to sleep at night, with a thousand other similar litanies.
0:24:18 > 0:24:25I have a misfortune which is that... It isn't out of modesty. It's, I suppose, some form of masochism.
0:24:25 > 0:24:31If so, it's the only thing that I'm masochistic about.
0:24:31 > 0:24:38But I do remember all the bad notices and I do forget, or take not very seriously, the good ones.
0:24:38 > 0:24:45- And you genuinely do not like talking about your movies? - No. Because it's done.
0:24:45 > 0:24:53You know that's true. My family has never heard me say a word about any picture I've ever made.
0:24:53 > 0:25:01I just find that very curious. Most directors, and actors especially - that's all they can talk about!
0:25:01 > 0:25:06I'm sure they can talk about other things but they LIKE to talk about...
0:25:06 > 0:25:14A lot of directors, actors - their idea of a happy night at home is to watch one of their pictures!
0:25:14 > 0:25:18And I can't think of anything more horrifying.
0:25:18 > 0:25:25Because you can't change it. What can you do about it? There it is. Forever.
0:25:25 > 0:25:29If you're a writer and you've written a bad chapter,
0:25:29 > 0:25:34if they bring out another edition, you might get to fix up that chapter.
0:25:34 > 0:25:39- There's nothing you can do about a movie. It's locked in forever.- Yes.
0:25:39 > 0:25:44You will talk generally about movies. About the industry.
0:25:44 > 0:25:49I'm not as interesting as I'd like to be. I don't see enough movies.
0:25:49 > 0:25:56I was just wondering about the changes you've seen in the industry since you started in Hollywood.
0:25:56 > 0:26:00Do you think it's still an industry, Michael?
0:26:00 > 0:26:08- Not an industry like it used to be. - And I wonder if it really was. I think it always was showbusiness.
0:26:08 > 0:26:15And when there were big studios, which still existed when I went to Hollywood,
0:26:15 > 0:26:20but were in their very last days as Golden Age big studios,
0:26:20 > 0:26:26I think they were PRETENDING to be factories and it was still showbusiness.
0:26:26 > 0:26:30It's true they were grinding them out and all that,
0:26:30 > 0:26:36but the true industrial process cannot be as helterskelter and idiotic
0:26:36 > 0:26:39as every form of showbusiness is.
0:26:39 > 0:26:44Otherwise, every car we get in would break down after the second block!
0:26:44 > 0:26:48I can't believe everyone else is as stupid as we are!
0:26:48 > 0:26:54But...how do you get the product if it's all as mad as that?
0:26:54 > 0:27:01Well, it sort of happens. Movies are terribly easy to make. It's much harder to put on a play.
0:27:01 > 0:27:06- Really?- Oh, yes. What's hard to do is to make a very good movie.
0:27:06 > 0:27:14- Yes.- A GOOD movie, even, is easy to make. If you have a good cameraman, a cast that happens to be right,
0:27:14 > 0:27:19if you have a story that happens to be vaguely interesting...
0:27:19 > 0:27:23that is the art form that works in our day and age.
0:27:23 > 0:27:29So it would be very hard to write a great play in blank verse today.
0:27:29 > 0:27:36But I think it would be pretty easy in Elizabethan days to write a GOOD verse play. Not great, but good.
0:27:36 > 0:27:43- And it's damned near impossible now because it has nothing to do with our culture.- Yes.
0:27:43 > 0:27:49But somehow a good movie gets itself made even by a lot of second-rate people.
0:27:49 > 0:27:51A VERY good one is another thing.
0:27:51 > 0:27:56If you look back at when Hollywood really was the dream factory...
0:27:56 > 0:28:03- Yes.- Are you nostalgic about those days, or were they just comic relief?- I loved them!
0:28:03 > 0:28:11- Really?- I thought it was great! I never belonged to it. I was this terrible maverick that they all...
0:28:11 > 0:28:18You know, I was... I represented... I was, sort of, forty, thirty years ahead of my time...
0:28:18 > 0:28:25There was this sort of Ghost of Christmas Future. There was one beatnik.
0:28:25 > 0:28:31There was this guy with a BEARD who was gonna do it all by himself.
0:28:31 > 0:28:37I represented the terrible future of what was going to happen to that town.
0:28:37 > 0:28:41So I was hated and despised, theoretically,
0:28:41 > 0:28:45but I had all kinds of friends among the real dinosaurs,
0:28:45 > 0:28:50- who were awfully nice to me. - Really?- Yes! I had a very good time.
0:28:50 > 0:28:55But I believe that I've looked back too optimistically on Hollywood.
0:28:55 > 0:29:03My daughter has some books on Hollywood, probably vainly looking for references to her father,
0:29:03 > 0:29:10and I took to reading them, and I realised how many great people that town has destroyed
0:29:10 > 0:29:12since its earliest beginnings.
0:29:12 > 0:29:17How almost everybody of merit was destroyed or diminished,
0:29:17 > 0:29:24and the few people who were good who survived - what a minority they were.
0:29:24 > 0:29:31And I suddenly thought to myself, "Why do I look so affectionately on that town?"
0:29:31 > 0:29:39It was funny and it was gay and an old-fashioned circus, and everything that we're nostalgic about,
0:29:39 > 0:29:46but really it was a brutal place. And when I take my own life out of it and see what it did to others,
0:29:46 > 0:29:53- I see that the story of that town is a dirty one and its record is bad. - Yes...
0:29:53 > 0:30:02- What about the great stars they had in those days that people always say we don't have now?- We don't.
0:30:02 > 0:30:09- That's true, because they're not processed the same way.- I... They don't exist.- They don't exist?
0:30:09 > 0:30:17- Why's that?- They exist as singers. In the old days, the greatest thing in the world to be was a movie star.
0:30:17 > 0:30:22Today the greatest thing is to be a pop singer.
0:30:22 > 0:30:29- There will never be a great star unless the greatest thing to be is that kind of star.- I see.
0:30:29 > 0:30:35Before World War I, the greatest thing to be was an opera singer.
0:30:35 > 0:30:42People used to faint in the streets when they saw an opera singer. And then came the movie stars.
0:30:42 > 0:30:50You see, I think... Any form of entertainment only exists because it corresponds to a moment in time.
0:30:50 > 0:30:55You know? So that, of course there are actors who are as good,
0:30:55 > 0:31:00or as remarkable or as space-displacing or whatever...
0:31:00 > 0:31:06but the world doesn't think being a movie star is the everlasting end.
0:31:06 > 0:31:13- No...- And it used to. That's why they don't exist.- That brings us back to the beginning.
0:31:13 > 0:31:19Were they in fact great stars or just part of an illusion?
0:31:19 > 0:31:22They were great. They were great.
0:31:22 > 0:31:28 I think that, eh...Keaton and Garbo... My goodness. Cagney...
0:31:28 > 0:31:34I won't talk about Bogart because everybody does. I loved him very much,
0:31:34 > 0:31:42but I think we can get along without talking about Bogart for three years, and his shade will be relieved.
0:31:42 > 0:31:50- But Cagney, in my view, is maybe the greatest actor ever on film. - Really?- Yes.- James Cagney?- Yes.
0:31:50 > 0:31:57- What makes you say that? - First, he broke every rule about movie acting.
0:31:57 > 0:32:01The first thing that every stage actor says -
0:32:01 > 0:32:09"You can't do what you did for the National Theatre. You act for the camera." And so on.
0:32:09 > 0:32:14Cagney came on as if he were playing to an audience of 4,500 people.
0:32:14 > 0:32:19He acted at the top of his bent and he never hammed for one moment.
0:32:19 > 0:32:27Thus proving my point that hamming is not over-acting. It's FALSE acting, it's fakery.
0:32:28 > 0:32:36There's not a fake MINUTE in a Cagney movie. PLEASE have a season of him and study what he was.
0:32:36 > 0:32:42I was thinking of people I haven't interviewed who I'd love to. And he...
0:32:42 > 0:32:50- He won't come.- He's a complete recluse now, isn't he?- No, but he won't come in front of a camera.
0:32:50 > 0:32:57He goes out and does his, eh, thing. He goes to Hollywood for six months every year and sees his old cronies.
0:32:57 > 0:33:05But he was like Tracy and a lot of people. He never went to a nightclub. He was invisible.
0:33:05 > 0:33:08- Garbo wasn't the only one.- No...
0:33:08 > 0:33:14There was just a small group who slugged photographers and all that scene...
0:33:16 > 0:33:20The rest of them were home-bodies, you know?
0:33:20 > 0:33:25- They defend what they've got at home, of course!- Yes...!
0:33:25 > 0:33:32You said that Akim Tamiroff said, "Either the camera loves you or..."
0:33:32 > 0:33:39- Oh, yes.- I presume that was more true about Garbo than anybody else? - Yes, I suppose, than anybody.
0:33:39 > 0:33:44- - I don't know if you've ever seen those commercials she did.- No.
0:33:44 > 0:33:51When I went to Stockholm years ago, they showed me in their film institute there,
0:33:51 > 0:33:58two commercials for bread that she made to be shown in movie theatres.
0:33:58 > 0:34:03There's this great gallumphing... Swedish cow...
0:34:04 > 0:34:10There was nothing of the most divine creature that would ever be on the screen.
0:34:10 > 0:34:18- Two years later, she was Greta Garbo. I have no explanation whatsoever for that.- Surgery(?)- Just...
0:34:18 > 0:34:23I have no idea what there is about the camera, what that box does,
0:34:23 > 0:34:29what made Cooper so thrilling on the screen and convincing,
0:34:29 > 0:34:34and when you'd visit Gary Cooper on the set, and see him do a take,
0:34:34 > 0:34:42as I did, waiting to go to lunch with him, and the director would say, "OK. That's a print."
0:34:42 > 0:34:46And I'd think, "They can't use that! That's nothing!"
0:34:46 > 0:34:49Then you'd see the rushes. Magic!
0:34:49 > 0:34:56- Mm.- You know? Showing that there isn't any rule at all that explains it.- No...
0:34:56 > 0:35:02Can I ask you, finally, how many films you're working on at present?
0:35:02 > 0:35:07- You always seem to be juggling four or five.- Yes, I am always.
0:35:07 > 0:35:13Because the hope is that one of them will work out!
0:35:13 > 0:35:18LAUGHTER Eh... We're finishing a picture now.
0:35:18 > 0:35:23Or will be. I'll be going into final photography with it very shortly...
0:35:23 > 0:35:31Which is called The Other Side of the Wind. A lot of it has been filmed. Most of it.
0:35:31 > 0:35:36- It's about the last day in the life of an old movie director.- Oh, yes.
0:35:36 > 0:35:41Older than me. Everybody will think it's autobiographical, but it's not.
0:35:41 > 0:35:49- I saw a bit about this! It was described as your first erotic movie!- I know how that happened.
0:35:49 > 0:35:55 There was a press conference on behalf of some project of mine,
0:35:55 > 0:36:02and it was clear that there wasn't any copy being given to a group of hardworking journalists,
0:36:02 > 0:36:10- and having been a journalist myself, I thought I'd invent something. - I see.- It's just sheer fakery.
0:36:10 > 0:36:12Sheer fakery!
0:36:12 > 0:36:18I wonder if he knows. But why do you keep working so hard?
0:36:18 > 0:36:25- There's an awful compulsion in you, it seems to me, to work all the time.- Oh, no! No, no.
0:36:25 > 0:36:30I think... You've put your finger on a basic failing of all lazy people.
0:36:30 > 0:36:35They have to work too hard or they won't do anything at all.
0:36:35 > 0:36:43- You know?- Yes.- Once I stretch out in a hammock, you'll never hear from me again! I like it that way!
0:36:43 > 0:36:47Is that your last line tonight, or could I ask...
0:36:47 > 0:36:55is there any one single line in any play you've done, any movie, anything you've ever read,
0:36:55 > 0:37:00that you've thought, "That's true. That's really what I'm about."
0:37:00 > 0:37:05What I'M about... eh...I don't know.
0:37:05 > 0:37:09Plato told us that we should know ourselves
0:37:09 > 0:37:15and the object of every artist, good, bad or indifferent,
0:37:15 > 0:37:19is a lifelong inquiry into that subject,
0:37:19 > 0:37:23and his work is testimony to that effort.
0:37:23 > 0:37:27But I'm in no position to sum myself up
0:37:27 > 0:37:33and I would be appalled if the truth could be offered to me at this moment.
0:37:33 > 0:37:36- You'll carry on inquiring?- Yes!
0:37:36 > 0:37:40Orson Welles, thank you very much indeed.
0:37:45 > 0:37:48Orson Welles died in 1985.
0:37:48 > 0:37:53I think a friend described him best: "a totally original creation,
0:37:53 > 0:37:59"endowed with more gifts than any human has a right to expect or hope for.
0:37:59 > 0:38:04"Unfortunately, among the gifts was a talent for self-destruction."
0:38:04 > 0:38:09Next week - David Niven, in our new slot, Sunday night at 11.15.
0:38:22 > 0:38:26Subtitles by Anne Morgan BBC Scotland 1995