Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles

Name: Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles
Genre: Documentary
Released: December 10, 2014
Rating: 67

2014

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Generally favorable reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews

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Mixed or average reviews based on 5 Ratings

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4.6

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Magician: The Astonishing Life And Work Of Orson Welles

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Movie Details & Credits

Cohen Media Group | Release Date: December 10, 2014 | PG-13

Summary: Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles looks at the remarkable genius of Orson Welles on the eve of his centenary - the enigma of his career as a Hollywood star, a Hollywood director (for some a Hollywood failure), and a crucially important independent filmmaker. [Cohen Media Group]

Director: Chuck Workman

Genre(s): Documentary

Rating: PG-13

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Critic Reviews

100

Movie Nation Roger Moore

Jan 13, 2015

The dazzling thing in Magician is how Workman breezily covers the various periods in Welles’ career, periods worthy of entire books, from his childhood as “The Boy Wonder,” to his post-“Kane” “Gypsy” years, when Hollywood was sure it had plenty of reasons not to hire him as a director, on up to today, as Richard “Boyhood” Linklater dubs him “the patron saint of indie filmmakers.” Read full review

Chris Nashawaty

Jan 3, 2015

Like Welles' butchered cut of "The Magnificent Ambersons," it's fascinating but leaves you hungry for more. Read full review

Joe Neumaier

Dec 10, 2014

Most tales come from the inimitable mouth of the man himself, who could make ordering dinner sound like Shakespeare. He had a life to match. Workman covers all of his subject’s years, even if very few of them truly belonged to Welles. Read full review

Farran Smith Nehme

Dec 10, 2014

If this documentary is swift and witty, that’s in part because it relies heavily on clips of Orson Welles talking. And oh, how Welles could talk, that beautiful voice wrapping itself around tall tales and wine commercials with equal grace. Read full review

Michael O'Sullivan

Apr 4, 2015

The movie marches so quickly past the many milestones of Welles’s career and life that it doesn’t have to time to linger — lovingly or otherwise — on any of them. Read full review

Keith Phipps

Dec 9, 2014

If nothing else, the sweep of Workman’s cradle-to-grave approach helps place Kane in a broader context, making it one chapter in a long life and a drama-packed career. The only trouble with the film is that Welles’ story has been told many times over, and Workman struggles to find anything new to say. Read full review

Jeannette Catsoulis

Dec 9, 2014

Like one of those machines that can inhale a car and spit out a tidy cube of squashed components, Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles is a near-indigestible lump of clips and quips and snipped opinions. Read full review

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User Reviews

oDjento

Jul 20, 2015

For a documentary about one of the most extraordinary directors of all time you’d expect a pretty extraordinary and interesting documentary. Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles is anything but that.
Going in to this documentary you’d be thinking there would be anFor a documentary about one of the most extraordinary directors of all time you’d expect a pretty extraordinary and interesting documentary. Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles is anything but that.
Going in to this documentary you’d be thinking there would be an expansive plethora of facts and examples of what made his work stand out during the time he was directing, writing and acting. Instead of delving deep into his work and dissecting the anatomy of his scenes and directing magic, the documentary acts more as a bundle of random opinions and facts that make the documentary seem like it could be a person reading his Wikipedia page. There is no depth here, and there is no proper exploration of what he was trying to do as a director and how he accomplished his cinematic wonders
In addition to this facts were occasionally brought in and then not elaborated on, as if they were made as filler, and because of the junkyard of which the film was laid out the editing is nauseating to watch as it flicks from image to person at an almost incomprehensible speed that it is hard to keep up with. Because of this you end up not really digesting what is being told to you, especially when at times the editing happens so fast you can’t even read what was on screen. The whole editing process of the documentary feels clunky.
The documentary does luckily offer enough interesting tid-bits of information that it will warrant the viewer enough interest to watch and seek out more of his films, and maybe even do some more research on the film icon themselves; but that doesn’t help the documentary as we should be learning from it.
There are a few interesting facts that make the viewing almost tolerably average and luckily does show some good scenes from his films that give some visual insight into how ahead of the time they were. However, despite these clips they were never really followed up on and explained properly, they were more commented on briefly and in on some information given of Orson it could be seen almost anecdotally.
Best summed up by Jeannette Catsoulis from The New York Times:
Like one of those machines that can inhale a car and spit out a tidy cube of squashed components, Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles is a near-indigestible lump of clips and quips and snipped opinions
This documentary does not do the man justice.
4.5/10… Expand

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