The Giant
Orson Welles, the Artist and the Shadow
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
“Gloriously unruly...an incisive look at an artist who never recovered from the success of his youth.” —Publishers Weekly
From graphic novelist Youssef Daoudi comes a radically new look at the director of Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil: legendary filmmaker Orson Welles.
Long after his death in 1985, the shadow of Orson Welles still looms over Hollywood. By twenty-three, Welles had revolutionized theatre and radio with The War of the Worlds; by twenty-five, he had secured his place in history with his debut film, Citizen Kane. Yet four films and less than a decade later, his career suffered a spectacular collapse, and Welles, once the most promising director in America, was written off as a “would-be genius”—a bad bet in an increasingly money-conscious industry.
In The Giant, Youssef Daoudi weaves together reality and mythology to create a radical new look at one of Hollywood’s most legendary figures and poses a question as timeless as Orson Welles himself: What happens when a true artist comes up against the rest of the world?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Orson Welles's volatile persona and roller-coaster career animate this gloriously unruly graphic biography by Daoudi (Monk!). Paying homage to the filmmaker's fourth wall–breaking style, the volume opens with Welles in gladiatorial swagger, declaring "I'm back in town and I want a rematch" as he looms over the Hollywood sign. From there, Daoudi strings together anecdotes from across Welles's life, such as when he beat Manhattan traffic by darting to his gigs (staging Julius Caesar as a Nazi allegory, producing radio programs, recording commercial voiceovers) in ambulances. Daoudi peppers the script with Welles's mix of braggadocio, self-sabotage, and self-awareness ("The only thing I want written on my tombstone: ‘He never did Love Boat' "). The filmmaker's rapid rise and long fall is framed against the doomed 1970s production of The Other Side of the Wind, his never-finished semi-autobiographical film. The rough but energetic art suits the drama and verve of its subject, portraying Welles alternately with flowing scarf and brandished cigar like an artistic gunslinger and other times in hulking, despondent gloom. His self-criticisms are represented as shouts from the subconscious: "Nobody stopped you from making more Citizen Kanes!" It's an incisive look at an artist who never recovered from the success of his youth.
