Solid documentary that presents in a clear way a real treasure chest of unknown material by and about Orson Welles. The film came about under the emphatic control of Welles’ widow, Oja Kodar. This may to a certain extent have prevented the film- makers Vassili Silovic en Roland Zag taking an independent and critical position, but on the other hand the film does include film material that Welles lovers could so far only dream of. The film concentrates on Welles’s later period, when he wandered Europe in self-imposed exile, always with a camera in his baggage and a portable cutting table. Welles financed his own films at that time (almost all remained unfinished) by performing as an actor in films by other people. A unique way of working, of which he used to say: ‘I use my own work to subsidise my work, in other words, I am crazy!’. A joke with a bitter undertone, because Hollywood producers really did regard him as crazy and made it impossible for him to work in America. The documentary shows fragments from (uncompleted) films such as The Deep, The Dreamers, Moby Dick, Churchill, The Magic Show and sensational parts from The Other Side of the Wind. In these fragments, that were so far only footnotes on paper in the essays of film historians, an intriguing new Welles emerges. Orson Welles: the One-Man Band is a film that will give Welles exegists work for years to come.
