An inkling of the restless impulses that guided Orson throughout life (and numerous stopped and started projects) can be glimpsed in his mother’s tireless appreciation of the arts and championing of social issues. McGilligan sets the table of Welles’ childhood masterfully, painting a portrait of his mother and father, Beatrice and Dick Welles, both before and after Orson’s birth. Orson Welles was born in Kenosha (his centennial was celebrated there earlier this year) and spent much of his youth pinballing between Chicago and Wisconsin. Patrick McGilligan’s Young Orson: The Year of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane is just such a book. With the third volume in Simon Callow’s extensive portrait of the famed artist due in April of 2016 and a host of recent releases examining Welles’ life, one could be forgiven for thinking the field of study had been well covered - or, to meet my personal requisite dad joke per article, that the Welles had run dry.īut then comes along a work so fastidious in its recreation of the early years of one of cinema’s most important figures that it upends that belief and becomes a truly indispensable piece of work, deepening and illuminating one’s own appreciation of Welles. There are no shortages when it comes to the world of Orson Welles-centric biographical works.
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