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    My Lunches with Orson: Conversations between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles
    My Lunches with Orson: Conversations between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles
    My Lunches with Orson: Conversations between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles
    Ebook386 pages5 hours

    My Lunches with Orson: Conversations between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles

    By Peter Biskind

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Based on long-lost recordings between Orson Welles and Henry Jaglom, My Lunches with Orson presents a set of riveting and revealing conversations with America's great cultural provocateur.

    There have long been rumors of a lost cache of tapes containing private conversations between Orson Welles and his friend the director Henry Jaglom, recorded over regular lunches in the years before Welles died. The tapes, gathering dust in a garage, did indeed exist, and this book reveals for the first time what they contain.

    Here is Welles as he has never been seen before: talking intimately, disclosing personal secrets, reflecting on the highs and lows of his astonishing Hollywood career, the people he knew—FDR, Winston Churchill, Charlie Chaplin, Marlene Dietrich, Laurence Olivier, David Selznick, Rita Hayworth, and more—and the many disappointments of his last years. This is the great director unplugged, free to be irreverent and worse—sexist, homophobic, racist, or none of the above— because he was nothing if not a fabulator and provocateur. Ranging from politics to literature to movies to the shortcomings of his friends and the many films he was still eager to launch, Welles is at once cynical and romantic, sentimental and raunchy, but never boring and always wickedly funny.

    Edited by Peter Biskind, America's foremost film historian, My Lunches with Orson reveals one of the giants of the twentieth century, a man struggling with reversals, bitter and angry, desperate for one last triumph, but crackling with wit and a restless intelligence. This is as close as we will get to the real Welles—if such a creature ever existed.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJul 16, 2013
    ISBN9780805097269
    My Lunches with Orson: Conversations between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles
    Author

    Peter Biskind

    PETER BISKIND is a cultural critic and film historian. He was editor in chief of American Film magazine from 1981 to 1986, and executive editor of Premiere magazine from 1986 to 1996. His writing has appeared in scores of national publications, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, The Nation, Newsweek, and The Washington Post, as well as film periodicals such as Sight and Sound and Film Quarterly. He is currently a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. He has published eight books, including the bestsellers Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and Down and Dirty Pictures, that have been translated into several languages. He is executive director of the annual Film-Columbia Festival held in the Hudson Valley.

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    Reviews for My Lunches with Orson

    3.5/5

    52 ratings12 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This was a fascinating read, but given that it takes place toward the end of Orson Welles' life, it is ultimately not a fun read.It certainly has its moments though. You definitely feel like you're eavesdropping on a famous genius telling tales of his past without any filters. However, he clearly realizes that his best years are behind him, so in my opinion that casts a pall over the humor.
    • 4/5
      Got this as an Early Reviewer. I would have been very tempted, but I probably never would have paid for it otherwise. I'm glad that I had the chance to read it.If you're not already interested in Welles, this is would be a terrible place to start. They have a glossary of people and films in the back to help you out, but these are real conversations where people don't give context and explanation for everything. Orson is hilarious, ridiculous, obscene, and pathetic, sometimes in turns, and sometimes all at once. He is gossipy and critical about so many people and movies from Hollywood's history and his own. He also takes on his own legend, especially the parts where he's irresponsible, unreliable, or overly reliant on his collaborators. The other main focus of the conversations is the possibility of getting financing for a few potential projects. This is the saddest part of the book because I already knew that none of the projects ever came about. It showed the tragic side of Welles' late career. He complained about how many people admired him but wouldn't help him out now. However, one key moment was an interview with someone from HBO where you see some of the truth to the claims.It's not an expose digging up dirt on Welles or a whitewash trying to beatify him. It's just 300 or so pages of Orson being Orson. I don't know if I can objectively call it a 4 star book, but as someone who loves his movies and has an interest in film in general, I enjoyed reading it.
    • 1/5
      If you like mean-spirited gossip and vituperative score-settling, then this is the book for you. Otherwise, steer clear, and keep this away from anyone who genuinely enjoys movies and doesn't want his/her mind poisoned by pages of harsh insults and whiny complaints about Hollywood. It's ironic that Welles criticizes various people for wasting their talents when, as these conversations make clear, he squandered his as well -- and due in no small part to the overweening ego and anxieties on display here. I'd hoped that at least some of his talks with Jaglom would actually be about the process of moviemaking, but the scraps of actually interesting information are few and far between.
    • 4/5
      Henry Jaglom gives us something we've been needing for a long time; more opinions by Orson Welles. Arguably the greatest director of all time, Welles accepted an invitation from Jaglom to record their nearly daily lunches at the esteemed director's favorite haunt. We get to read the conversations they had about the art of filmmaking, and some of the people in it. They talk about the ups and downs, ins and outs, the power of film and filmmakers, and food. There are wonderful stories in this book, and talk of movies they each have waiting to be made, and the one semi-documentary that Jaglom directed, Someone to Love, which includes Orson Welles throwing wisdom like a Greek Chorus. A must see companion to the book.A book very much worth the time, if only to learn more about movies and movie people, and a great friendship.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I wouldn't call myself an Orson Welles devotee but I do admire his work and I find his life story fascinating, particularly as told by Simon Callow in the first volume of his biography, [Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu]. There's something undeniably tragic about his trajectory - the boy genius who can do no wrong, who knocks it out of the park with his very first film and is never able to duplicate that initial success, despite flashes of brilliance that tantalize with huge helpings of "if only.". He ends his life with half a dozen projects in some suspended state of development, shilling crap wine on TV and regularly eating lunch at Ma Maison with his friend and fellow filmmaker Henry Jaglom. Recognizing that he had gained intimate access to one of the great creative talents of the 20th century, Jaglom had the foresight to record their lunchtime conversations over several years. This book is composed of transcriptions of those conversations and it is absolutely fascinating. Welles is brilliant, irascible, has an opinion about everything and everyone and is unsparing in both his praise and damnation of former colleagues, friends, wives and enemies. And Jaglom seems to know how to ask all the right questions to tease those opinions out of him. I can't remember when I've enjoyed a book more.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Imagine being seated at a restaurant and discovering that Orson Welles is at the next table. During lunch, Welles seems blithely unaware that you are leaning over, fork hanging forgotten in mid-air, to catch every word of a sometimes witty, sometimes snarky conversation. My Lunches With Orson is a gossipy and guilty pleasure, indeed.
    • 5/5
      If you're at all interested in either Orson Welles or the movie culture of the 30's through the 70's, this book is a must-read.Henry Jaglom and Welles had frequent lunches together from 1983 through 1985.Jaglom taped their luncheon conversations, with Welles' knowledge and approval, although Orson requested that microphone not be visible so he could forget about it. The tapes have been transcribed. edited, and organized by Peter Biskind.In his introduction Biskind compares Welles to Scheherazade--a supreme teller of tales. This proves to be a justified analogy, as Welles tells many stories, some more than once, with verve, enthusiasm, skill, and a not-too-finicky regard for the truth. He intrigued and amazed this reader throughout.Despite a truly wicked yet endearing sense of humor, Welles shows up here as a disappointed man, frustrated with both himself and the endless time and effort required to secure film financing. His memorial is, of course, the body of work (much of it incompere or cobbled together)he left behind. As he said in another place, "I started at the top and worked my way down".Lest you dismiss Welles as an idle boaster, a gigantic bag of wind, or an over-rated dilletante, consider this: At one time the American Film Institute rated "Citizen Kane" as the best movie of all time; the British Film Industry rated "The Third Man" as the all-time #1 movie. Even if the A.F.I. now has (I think) "The Godfather" has #1, it doesn't change the fact that Welles certainly had substance, does it?Highly recommended for the film fan.
    • 3/5
      Often with the early review books, I try something new or a little different from my normal reading. This book was one that I was actually excited about reading. As I read I was both delighted and disappointed by the conversations. Any time I buy or receive a book on Hollywood, I page back to the index to get a taste of what is in store. There is no index but there is a persona dramatis in the back of the book giving mini-biographies of a few of the people talked about in the book. After reading a few of the lunch conversations, I understood why no index. Although many names from Hollywood are mentioned almost none of information is verifiable. That brings us to the wonder of the book and in some ways the failing. This is a record of Welles holding a court of one. He lords over the lunch with his opinions and thoughts on many subjects most focused on movie making personalities. He pontificates on subjects, attributes sainthood to some celebrities while vilifying others. He even admits while talking that there is a good chance that he is making things up as he goes along. I believe the statement is made that he never lies twice. Some of stories are repeats of apocryphal stories attributed to the founders of Hollywood only with Welles claiming the misstatement was said directly to him. It was with those stories that I realized this is Welles creating his Hollywood and making himself a centerpiece to it all. He even claims a variation I've heard many story tellers say about how he discovered various actors and brought them to Hollywood but it was kept quiet because it would have caused problems. As a chronicle of Hollywood it fails but as a chronicle of Orson Welles views on Hollywood and his place in the grand scheme it is fascinating. If you are like Welles and feel that an author or in this case a movie creator is lessened in your eyes by reading their biographies then you should skip this book. This is the end of a career for a great movie personality and you get to see it warts and all. Again something Welles says he doesn't like finding out about his favorite authors. There is a certain pathos in the conversations, especially after an e-mail from Henry Jaglom reveals that in the last years he was trying to put a positive spin on many of the deals that Welles had that were just hanging out there. At the end of the day, I say this is worth reading to get a feel of Hollywood in it's heyday and to get maybe a little more real perspective on how the celebrities felt about each other. As I said it is one man holding court for audience of one but that one man is Orson freakin Welles if not one of the great minds of Hollywood than at least one of the great egos of Hollywood.
    • 3/5
      Fat and terribly rude. That line from Four Weddings and a Funeral might have been what I took away from this book had I not "grown up Welles." My memories of his films and voice and Carson guest appearances colored this strange series of interrupted interviews and asides with a melancholy for the sometimes sad genius that is presented here. He was an amazing director and actor with a somewhat undisiplined intellect of a poet and rogue thinker. All that is on display in this quirky volume that I read in one sitting and two martinis.
    • 4/5
      This is an enjoyable book and a fast read. Biskind's introduction sets things in perspective, but some of his opinions, such as downgrading one of Welles' best films, Touch of Evil, seem a little petty. Perhaps he is trying to put us in the mood for Welles himself, who hardly ever has an opinion that is less than decisive about anything or anybody. Welles' conversations with Jaglom give us a good picture of the late-life trials and tribulations of a man who deserved his status as a genius, but clearly took it too much to heart. The biggest problem with the book is that you really don't know whether to believe half (or more than half) of what Welles has to say. He had a penchant for taking credit for things he didn't do. Jaglom does a good job of not just submitting to Welles' more outrageous judgments or flashes of racism or AIDS-phobia, but he also knows when to just let it pass and let the man talk. And what a talker he was. In the end, however, Welles' comes across as a lesser man than Leonard Bernstein does in Jonathan Cott's Dinner with Lenny: The Last Long Interview with Leonard Bernstein, which I reviewed recently. Still, this was enjoyable and definitely makes me want to take a look at the Welles' films that I haven't seen, such as F for Fake.
    • 1/5
      If you like mean-spirited gossip and vituperative score-settling, then this is the book for you. Otherwise, steer clear, and keep this away from anyone who genuinely enjoys movies and doesn't want his/her mind poisoned by pages of harsh insults and whiny complaints about Hollywood. It's ironic that Welles criticizes various people for wasting their talents when, as these conversations make clear, he squandered his as well -- and due in no small part to the overweening ego and anxieties on display here. I'd hoped that at least some of his talks with Jaglom would actually be about the process of moviemaking, but the scraps of actually interesting information are few and far between.
    • 3/5
      During his final years Orson Welles was under-financed and under-appreciated; recognised as a legendary figure of the film world, he was unable to secure financing to make even a modest movie in the way he wanted. This collection of lunchtime conversations was recorded in the early 1980s, a time when Welles was fighting to begin a number of projects that never came to fruition. While Welles the filmmaker required financial backing to realise his vision, Welles the conversationalist was bound by no such restraints. His friend and occasional man-of-business Henry Jaglom was authorised to record their lunchtime table talk as long as Welles couldn't see the recorder. The resulting book, brought together by Peter Biskind, is for Welles fans only and presupposes a knowledge of his oeuvre that is best obtained from a more general book such as Jonathan Rosenbaum's 'This is Orson Welles' or Clinton Heylin's 'Despite the System'. Welles was a legendary talker, and his conversations with Jaglom show him at his Johnsonian best, an opinionated, deliberately provocative, gossippy polymath – but well-informed, self-revealing, wise and always supremely entertaining. Unlike the conversations taped by Peter Bogdanovich for 'This is Orson Welles', the Jaglom tapes offer a spontaneous Welles, not revised by the great man once transcribed. One by-product of this is that many cutting comments about his colleagues make it into print; it seems likely that Welles, who was always highly sensitive of criticism of himself by others in the film industry, would have softened, deleted or generalised some of the harsher remarks he makes to Jaglom about actors and filmmakers he has known. Over all, this book is a compulsive read, and sadly must stand in place of the final films Welles never got to make.

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