The Eyes of Orson Welles (2018) Online

Mark Cousins explores the life and works of Orson Welles, through the prism of his artwork.

This documentary is structured in the form of an open letter to Welles, as if he were still alive; the conversation isn't entirely one-sided, as towards the end of the documentary there are imagined replies from Welles too.

Burrowing through the remaining archive of Welles' artwork, often in the company of his daughter Beatrice, shows some insights into the workings of the mind of one of the twentieth century's most influential and controversial film-makers. Although nothing can be examined in great detail in the running time (1Hr 40mins as I saw it), his working life, his marriages, and his political activism are touched upon.

This film is both nicely made and is visually arresting in its own right; the content together with Cousins' quiet intensity makes this a must-see documentary for film enthusiasts. For me it underlined the fact that there are lots of his movies which I have yet to see, and there are aspects of Welles that I knew nothing about.

Eight out of ten from me; a longer version would probably have been an easy nine.

I've found this documentary with its slow paced narration and editing quite apaising and somewhat poetic. I really enjoyed it, it's rather unusual in these times of fast cuts and over-feeding of information to adopt this counterpoint. I must confess I can not say I've seen a lot of Orson Welles' movies but after seeing this documentary I definitively plan to watch more of them. I also was impressed by how good he was at drawing, in summary a great all-around artist.

A long & intimate exploration into one of film's greatest minds. Delving through the rich schematics of his movies & his private sketches, chronologically. A beautiful documentary.

In his imaginative take on the life of Orson Welles, Mark Cousins looks at Welles's personal sketchbooks - he was an inveterate scribbler, though he rarely went as far as to produce what we might call finished artworks - and sees the connections to his films, and to his life. This is not just a novel but also an interesting approach: film is a visual medium, but the visual side of a movie is the hardest thing to talk about: the sketches provide a key to the way that Welles conceived his tableaux. The other part of the thesis is that Welles's choice of movies tell us something about his private character. This is more contentious: does someone choose to play Falstaff, say, or film Don Quixote, because the character fits their own self-image? Maybe not, but Cousins gives us a credible speculation of how Welles' own character manifested itself in the work he produced, of how his films reveal the man who made them. Instead of a conventional narrative, Cousins prefers to engage in one half of an imaginary dialogue with the auteur: at times this is less successful, as when Cousins seems to impute a connection of Welles with Ireland that seems more important to him than he manages to convince us it was to Welles. Overall, though, it's a worthwhile endeavor: Welles's story is well known, its arc usually presented as tragic; but Cousins succeeds in making us view it through fresh eyes.

A documentary which gets to grips with the motivations of the great film director and artist Orson Welles. The narration by Mark Cousins is gushing and whimsical but the content is also honest, insightful and heartfelt. Welles is a gargantuan figure in film and this ode to his films and his sketches and paintings lasts in the mind well after viewing. The film itself is extremely well edited, and dovetails with his analysis expertly.

Now there is some interesting information in this film.Sadly it is completely ruined by the narration of Mark Cousins.He delivers it in a low monotone,at times making out as if he is talking to Orson Welles.It is difficult to understand this method of delivery.Sadly the actual content of the narration is pretentious and at times virtually unintelligible.

Gave up on this after 12 minutes (couldn't even make it to a quarter of an hour).

It's almost as if, for some perverse reason, Mark Cousins tried to make his narration as irritating as possible. Is it meant to be a test: if you're truly interested in Welles, then you ought to be prepared to sit through this tripe?

To adopt Mark Cousins' style of narration: "You've messed this up, Mark. You need to go back to the drawing board. And not one once owned by Orson Welles. Ain't that the truth, Mark."

Being a longtime admirer of Welles and his work, I looked forward to seeing this documentary but I found it tedious and boring. Of the many documentaries on Welles, this was the least interesting and Mark Cousins, while clearly in awe of his own brilliance, stretched what could have been an interesting and informative one-hour film about Welles drawings/paintings and film compositions into a two-hour pretentious commentary on Orson's films, politics and romances. If you never heard of Welles or seen one of his films, you may learn something from this opus, otherwise, watch one of the many interviews with the endlessly entertaining and fascinating Orson Welles instead of this attempt to cash in on the renewed interest in the great man, created by the long-awaited release of The Other Side of The Wind.