orson welles. the not-overly-cerebral artist.


“I’ve never liked talking about art or literature in general, and I’ve always hated artists who talk about their work rather than doing it.”
-Orson Welles

The man voted Greatest Director of All Time by the British Film Institute essentially said that he didn’t dare think about deconstruction and criticism of art and literature because such things would occupy his mind with what were, ultimately, unworthy distractions for any artist.

Here Welles tells the interviewer that he doesn’t believe acting (writing fiction) is anything except convincing the audience (reader) of something that isn’t true. This may seem to fly in the face of Stanislavski and all those literary Russians I love so much, until one makes the ‘artistic truth vs. affective memory/emotional truth’ distinction. You’ll also want to remember that Stanislavski was greatly influenced by Tolstoy and the Count didn’t care much for overly cerebral artists…which is what Welles seems to be saying too.

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