Orson Welles: 100 years and a legend – Les Echos

Prodigy, cinematic genius, the superlatives are not lacking in this anniversary – the filmmaker would have celebrated this May 6 100 years – to salute the work of Orson Welles, who died in 1985 . The tributes will multiply over the next few months, to honor the memory of the director of “Citizen Kane,” “The evil thirst”, “The Trial,” or “Othello”, whose life and inventiveness still raise the curiosity of moviegoers. A cycle dedicated to this jack-of-all, sometimes producer and screenwriter, sometimes set and costume designer, is now open on the TCM channel Cinema, which broadcasts every Thursday in a work related to the director, whose new documentary, “This Is Orson Welles “(May 21), directed by Clara and Julia Kuperberg and also presented at Cannes.

Cannes Classics also will devote part of its programming to the artist’s centenary with projections restored version of “Citizen Kane,” “The Lady from Shanghai,” but also the “Third Man” of Carol Reed, where the director plays a major character. The documentary “Orson Welles, Anatomy of a Legend” Elizabeth Kapnist, immersing himself in the history of extraordinary filmmaker, will also be broadcast on the Croisette.

After Cannes effervescence, place a large retrospective in Paris, within the Cinematheque, where the works of Orson Welles will punctuate the summer program. In collaboration with Stefan Drössler and Film Museum in Munich – one of the largest funds in the career of the filmmaker – the place presents many rarities, as well as short films, television films, unfinished sequences or curiosities, commented on by the most leading specialists of the director, including Francis Thomas, author of the “Orson Welles at Work” book with Jean-Pierre Berthomé and Stefan Drössler, wellesien Emeritus.

To delve today in the filmography of the artist, visit on the website of the National Film Preservation Foundation, which proposes to discover, for free, the second short film of the filmmaker, “Too Much Johnson” found only in Italy last summer. This creation, never revealed to the public until last year, date of 1938, when the director will sign his first stunt sparking panic in CBS waves by its interpretation – then a bit too realistic – of the “War of the Worlds” by HG Wells. Finally, a DVD set, gathering all of his films, also comes to see the day, to dive at home, in the legacy of the man who so intrigued, both in front and behind the camera.