This film was released on Friday 3rd July 2015 and is no longer screening.

There was once a cynical but perceptive joke that Orson Welles lived his life in reverse, the suggestion being it was easier to understand how an actor would rise from appearing in TV adverts to making independent films, paying his dues before being afforded Hollywood’s riches to make a cherished masterpiece. As Chuck Workman’s illuminating portrait shows, the path Welles’ life took was dictated by his undoubted genius and was never going to be so predictable.

From being a child prodigy, Welles would go on to have a transformative influence on any medium he turned his hand to, be it radio, theatre, film or television. Workman uses archive both familiar and rare, and there is testimony from family, friends and fans, among them Peter Bogdanovich, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Charlton Heston. Most pleasurable are the clips of Welles himself, and it is fitting that Workman allows him a last word on an astonishing life. (Notes by Michael Hayden.)

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