Me and Orson Welles Review- Roger Ebert
Me and Orson Welles :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews.
Me and Orson Welles
BY ROGER EBERT / December 9, 2009
four starsRemember that Orson Welles himself didn’t always look like Orson Welles. He was a master of makeup and disguise, and even when appearing in the first person, liked to use a little putty to build up a nose he considered a tad too snubbed. The impersonation of Welles by Christian McKay in “Me and Orson Welles” is the centerpiece of the film, and from it, all else flows. We can almost accept that this is the Great Man.
Twenty-four years after his death at 70, Welles is more than ever a Great Man. There is something about his manner, his voice and the way he carries himself that evokes greatness, even if it is only his own conviction of it. He is widely thought of as having made one masterpiece, “Citizen Kane” (1941) and several other considerable films, but flaming out into uncompleted projects and failed promise. Yet today even such a film as “The Magnificent Ambersons” (1942), with its ending destroyed by the studio, often makes lists of the greatest of all time.
Oh, he had an ego. He once came to appear at Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre. A snowstorm shut down the city, but he was able to get to the theater from his nearby hotel. At curtain time, he stepped before the handful of people who had been able to attend. “Good evening,” he said. “I am Orson Welles — director, producer; actor; impresario; writer; artist; magician; star of stage, screen and radio, and a pretty fair singer. Why are there so many of me, and so few of you?”
Richard Linklater’s “Me and Orson Welles” is one of the best movies about the theater I’ve ever seen, and one of the few to relish the resentment so many of Welles’ collaborators felt for the Great Man. He was such a multitasker that while staging his famous Mercury Theatre productions on Broadway, he also starred in several radio programs, carried on an active social life and sometimes napped by commuting between jobs in a hired ambulance. Much of the day for a Welles cast member was occupied in simply waiting for him to turn up at the theater.Most viewers of this film will not necessarily know a lot about Welles’ biography. There’s no need to. Everything is here in context. The film involves the Mercury’s first production, a “Julius Caesar” set in Mussolini’s Italy. It sees this enterprise through the eyes of Richard Samuels (Zac Efron), a young actor who is hired as a mascot by Welles, and somehow rises to a speaking role. He is star-struck and yet self-possessed and emboldened by a sudden romance that overtakes him with a Mercury cohort, Sonja Jones (Claire Danes).
The film is steeped in theater lore. The impossible hours, the rehearsals, the gossip, the intrigue, the hazards of stage trap doors, the quirks of personalities, the egos, the imbalance of a star surrounded entirely by supporting actors — supporting on stage and in life.
Many of the familiar originals are represented here, not least Joseph Cotton (James Tupper), who co-starred with Welles in “Citizen Kane” and “The Third Man.” Here is John Houseman (Eddie Marsan, not bulky enough but evocative), who was Welles’ long-suffering producer. And the actor George Coulouris (Ben Chaplin), who played Mr. Thatcher in “Kane.” All at the beginning, all in embryo, all promised by Welles they would make history. They believed him, and they did.
McKay summons above all the unflappable self-confidence of Welles, a con man in addition to his many other gifts, who was later able to talk actors into appearing in films that were shot over a period of years, as funds became available from his jobs in other films, on TV, on the stage and in countless commercials (“We will sell no wine before its time”). Self-confidence is something you can’t act; you have to possess it, and McKay, in his first leading role, has that in abundance.
He also suggests the charisma that swept people up. People were able to feel that even in his absence; I recall having lunch several times at the original Ma Maison in Beverly Hills, where no matter who I was interviewing (once it was Michael Caine), the conversation invariably came around to a mysterious shadowy figure dining in the shade — Welles, who ate lunch there every single day.
Efron and Danes make an attractive couple, both young and bold, unswayed by Welles’ greatness but knowingly allowing themselves to be used by it. Link-later’s feel for onstage and backstage is tangible, and so is his identification with Welles. He was 30 when he made his first film, Welles of course 25, both swept along by unflappable fortitude. “Me and Orson Welles” is not only entertaining but an invaluable companion to the life and career of the Great Man.
Talking Pictures: ‘Me and Orson Welles’ — 3 1/2 stars
Talking Pictures: ‘Me and Orson Welles’ — 3 1/2 stars.
A real charmer, “Me and Orson Welles” is the work of a director who takes nostalgia, romantic possibility and the theater seriously, without being a pill about it.
Richard Linklater’s film version of the Robert Kaplow novel tells a fairy tale based in fact. Strolling the Manhattan theater district one day in 1937, the story’s fictional protagonist, a New Jersey high school student played by Zac Efron, stumbles into Orson Welles, John Houseman and their Mercury Theatre associates. In an eye-blink, young Richard is hired to play the lute-strumming role of Lucius in Welles’ modern-dress revival of “Julius Caesar,” opening in a mere week. A week later, Richard is not the same person. His eyes have been opened. And he is eager for more.
These were history-making times for Welles. Already in 1937 the impresario’s involvement with the incendiary musical “The Cradle Will Rock” (Tim Robbins made a rather hectoring film about it) burnished the Wellesian reputation for nerve and publicity. Welles’ “Julius Caesar,” set in modern dress and drawing eerie parallels with Mussolini’s regime, featured actors Welles would use later in Hollywood, ranging from panicky Brit George Coulouris (played in Linklater’s film by Ben Chaplin) to elegant Virginia horn-dog Joseph Cotten (James Tupper). “Me and Orson Welles” has Richard falling for the Mercury’s jill-of-all-trades, Sonja, played by Claire Danes. Her character is neither a simple ingenue nor a vamp. Danes, reliably excellent, creates a woman of ambition as well as heart.
The film’s press so far has focused on Christian McKay’s portrayal of Welles, and it is indeed something to see. Even more so, to hear: McKay (who is British, and a fair bit older than was 22-year-old Welles in 1937) gives us a boy-man who, practically since birth, has been told he is a genius with a fantastically expressive voice, and who uses that voice for theatrical effect even when he’s nowhere near a stage. The script by Holly Gent Palmo and Vince Palmo stays true to novelist Kaplow’s source material, setting Welles up as the maelstrom who wises up a teenager and then whirls onward.
Much of the film was shot on the Isle of Man, with bits of London filling in for Depression-era Manhattan. Not since Mike Leigh’s Gilbert and Sullivan portrait “Topsy-Turvy” (1999), detailing the birth of “The Mikado,” has a film devoted so much screen time to the ins and outs of theatrical endeavor so rewardingly. (Cinematographer Dick Pope, a master at evocative interior lighting, worked on both pictures.) This theatrical bent may be surprising given director Linklater’s resume; then again, the resume in question is one of the most unpredictable in contemporary American cinema, zigzagging from the hazy Texas ambience of “Slacker” and “Dazed and Confused” to the quiet, piquant marvels “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset” to “The School of Rock” and “Fast Food Nation.”
Working on a modest budget Linklater manages some lovely visual flourishes, my favorite being a tracking shot that scurries, puppy-like, after Welles as he rushes from theatrical rehearsal to a radio gig at CBS. This isn’t a bravura, strolling-into-the-Copa-in-”GoodFellas” example of the single take. Rather, it’s unostentatiously interesting—controlled chaos, crystallizing the chaos as lived, and generated, by Welles.
Me and Orson Welles named one of the top 10 Indie Films of 2009!
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3idf30b42a15c2d86a68915e69d0d138aa
The National Board of Reviews have named Me and Orson Welles one of the top 10 Indie films for 2009!!
Me and Orson Welles Premier on Flickr
A cute story told by Christian McKay about Zac.
Zac Efron: from High School Musical to Me and Orson Welles – Times Online
Zac Efron tips up at the hotel on the Sunset Strip with a half-eaten apple in his hand and a script under his arm. The symbolism seems apt. The young actor as modern Hollywood Adam, tempted by the knowledge of riches and fame.
I wonder if his girlfriend, the young actress Vanessa Hudgens, gave him the apple. His agency, often cast as Satan, certainly gave him the script. Efron is a little breathless and seems distracted. He sits and orders a hot black tea, but quickly disappears to make a phone call. Every eye follows him. Tousled brown hair, big sunglasses that hide his $10m baby-blues, a threadbare T-shirt, faded jeans — nothing can make anonymous one of the most famous young faces in Hollywood.
Efron tells me he was followed here by at least 15 paparazzi. When we’re done, an hour or so later, he suggests that I stand outside the hotel to watch his crazed celebrity circus ramp up again. As he drives away, a posse of aggressive paparazzi in huge black 4WDs appears from nowhere, brazenly running red lights, rolling up onto the pavement beside their prey, blocking him in so they can get more shots. It’s terrifying. I’m not surprised it took him a few minutes to compose himself.
Efron’s snatched photograph, preferably alongside that of Hudgens, has become one of the most prized by the tabloids. Efron and Hudgens vaulted to overnight teen stardom in 2006, in Disney’s High School Musical TV and movie series. The films became a monster hit, generating more than $1 billion worldwide. When I get home, one of the agencies has already posted photos of Efron arriving at the hotel for his interview with me. You can understand why they’re so valuable. Ten days later, thousands of screaming teenage girls, clutching pictures of their beloved, turn out on Leicester Square for the UK premiere of his latest film, Me and Orson Welles.
“I have no control over the 15 dudes outside,” Efron shrugs as he takes a sip of tea. “They can do anything they want. It’s the law. Maybe you could call me paranoid, but I have become a very private person. I imagine there are people who can thrive in this scenario, who can be the centre of attention, but I just get overwhelmed.”
It would be a mistake to underestimate Efron, who has just turned 22, as simply a pretty face. Although he decided to pursue acting, his high-school grades were easily good enough to get him accepted by the top universities in Los Angeles, UCLA and USC. He’s bright, articulate, accommodating, almost too nice, thoughtful, perhaps a little too self-conscious, but that’s surely a consequence of living so young in the weirdness of the modern celebrity spotlight.
For now, his photographs may be caressed every night by millions of adolescent lips. But not many leap the giant chasm from teen idol to adult movie star. Few emotions are as brutally discarded as the affections of teenage girls. Dozens of once adored but now forgotten pretty boys, like Donnie Osmond, David Cassidy and Luke Perry, star of Beverly Hills 90210, can attest to that. To avoid their grim fate, Efron is keeping an eye on the careers of male stars a generation or two older than he is, Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp and Tom Cruise. They, too, were once teen idols.
“I’m rewatching Leo’s transition, from my perspective,” Efron says. “He is the best barometer for me. It’s amazing to see actors who have been able to sustain this for so long and keep positive, still focused on the work, still trying to make their best film.”
Efron knows such longevity is an anomaly. He knows those who have sustained careers have been both as private as their celebrity will allow and shrewd about their career choices. There was a big Hollywood flap earlier this year when Efron pulled out of a big-budget remake of the movie Footloose.
Having starred in High School Musical, and played Link Larkin in the movie musical Hairspray, he seemed perfect for the singing and dancing role. It would have earned him more than $10m. Too perfect. “I felt it was something I had done before,” he explains, “and that if I held out a little bit longer, there could be an opportunity to try something new and scary, to start from scratch. If I’m going to go down, I’m going down with guns blazing. I’m not going to go down safely.”
The desire to take a risk is evident in Efron’s decision to star in the relatively low-budget period drama Me and Orson Welles. Shot last year on the Isle of Man and in New York, it is directed by Richard Linklater, whose last film was Fast Food Nation. Efron plays the Me in the title: Richard Samuels, a young actor who lands a small part in Orson Welles’s famous 1937 Mercury Theater production of Julius Caesar in New York. Welles’s imaginative contemporary restaging of the Shakespeare play was a powerful critique of European fascism. Claire Danes plays Sonja, Efron’s love interest, while the British actor Christian McKay gives a fabulously rich performance as Welles.
Efron’s role, which requires a much wider range of emotions than he has had to show in the past, took him into new territory. Although he’d played an older man trapped in a younger body in 17 Again, this is his first serious dramatic role. It was also a lot of fun, he says. “A group of actors trapped on an island was a pretty exciting prospect for a guy like me. I felt like the young gun on set. I couldn’t help empathise with the character and what he went through, his love of the theatre and his enthusiasm and excitement for performing.”
Efron started acting when he was about 11 — a small part in a local production of Gypsy, with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. “It was amazing to be part of something that my parents couldn’t help me with. I had this whole other life. Why does Batman put on the mask? It was almost that level of fun. But it never crossed my mind that it might be a valid career path. I was kind of dead set against it. Later, I worked hard in school to keep my options open, to be able to go to college, to be able to go back to a normal life.”
Efron grew up in a small town in central California. His parents worked at the nearby nuclear power plant. In his early teens, his mother would drive him to auditions in LA, three hours each way. He started picking up small roles in television series such as The Guardian, NCIS and CSI: Miami before getting a recurring part in a series called Summerland. Even now, he feels amazed that he was cast in High School Musical.
“It was a shitload of luck, to be honest.” Here, as he does a few times as we talk, he catches himself, worried about the swearword, worried about how he will come across. “A lot of luck,” he corrects himself. He doesn’t want to upset his millions of fans; most of all, he doesn’t want to appear arrogant or ungrateful for his success, despite the annoyances of the paparazzi.
He takes care to mention that he had been reading a particularly heartfelt birthday card from a young female fan the previous night. “It was almost like she knew what I was thinking about. It completely lifted my spirits.”
Efron is endearingly excited about some aspects of fame. He admits he’s still completely star-struck, although he cringes when he remembers meeting Leonardo DiCaprio. He later told a journalist DiCaprio had told him: “There’s only one way you can mess this all up. Just do heroin.”
“Oh my God, I can’t believe I just did that to him,” Efron recalls feeling when he read the story. “It was a joke, it was meant completely in sarcasm, but it came across so differently in print. I was devastated. I tried to call Leo and say, ‘Dude, I’m so sorry, that’s not at all what I meant to say.’ It was the worst feeling in the world.”
After Efron and I have said goodbye, I wander out to my car, but double back to use the loo. To my surprise, Efron is in there, gesticulating towards an older man who looks incongruous in a tweed shooting cap, thick glasses and a long brown raincoat. The older man seems taken aback by the attention. “I just love your work,” I hear Efron gushing. The older man, who looks vaguely familiar, mumbles a thank-you, raising an eyebrow to me as he leaves. He seems to have no idea he’s just been accosted by one of the most famous young stars in the world.
“Oh God,” Efron says after the man walks out. “I can’t believe I just did that. He must think I’m so ridiculous. Did you see who that was? Oh my God.”
I rattle my brain. Why, I realise, that was Robert De Niro. Zac Efron and I have just met Robert De Niro in the gents. How weird is life in Hollywood? Will anyone snap De Niro’s photograph as he leaves, I wonder.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article6931259.ece
Filmreviewsonline.com Review of Me and Orson Welles
After a slew of successful movies including Hairspray and High School Musical 2, Zac Efron could sit back and wait for the musical scripts to flood in – that’s what his fans expect. But the young actor is more courageous than that – he wants an eclectic career – and so he chose to star in this small-budgeted drama which tells the story of the legendary actor/director’s re-imagining of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at the Mercury Theatre in New York in 1937.
Efron plays Richard, a young man just passing by the theatre, when he is approached by Welles to play a role in the production.
Why this film? You probably didn’t have any shortage of scripts and this is so different from anything you’ve done so far.
Yeah. You know we tried to do the musical version but we couldn’t get the rights [he laughs]. It was different and it was a very unique opportunity for me at the time and still is. I think it was something that didn’t seem so cut and dry. It wasn’t an obvious decision and, even I was a bit surprised and that’s very cool. I hope I can continue to maintain that and have those options. That’s why we do this, to grow and try new things and that was exactly what this movie represented for me. It came at a perfect time.
And it seemed ambitious to me about Orson. Rick [Linklater, the director] always says we made a screwball comedy at times about Welles which is something he would never have done himself, so we put him into a movie that he never would have been a part of.
Were you a fan of Orson Welles’ work?Yeah. Definitely
What was your first introduction to Orson Welles and when?I was probably 16 and I had worked with a director who said his favorite movie of all time was Citizen Kane and, as a wrap gift, he gave me the DVD and I was definitely fascinated by it and thought it was an incredible movie but was probably too young to fully appreciate it at that point.
Richard has to learn a lesson about dealing with Hollywood-type egos. Have you had to learn any lessons like that?I think things have changed a little bit. I’ve never had an experience quite like that. I’d say it was reminiscent of a lot of my early theater experiences. It’s pretty cutthroat and there was always another kid to pull from the sidelines ready to take your place. But, I’ve never experienced a guy quite like Orson.
What kind of research did you do? Did you read the original book?I read the original book. For my age, I pretty much had the standard [Welles knowledge]. I studied him in high school a little bit before that and was familiar with a lot of his work. Coming into this, I thought I was pretty well-read on Orson and then immediately found out that I hadn’t even scratched the surface on this guy. Rick was the one who really filled us in and supplied with endless literature, the articles and old photos. I think I’ve seen every picture of Orson that ever existed.
Your character Richard is based on a real person. Did you get to meet him?No. He’s based on a real person but Rick was very hands on in trying to get as much of his story as we could. All the stuff with setting off the fire alarms was real. Other than that, he steered pretty far away from the real guy.
How was it rehearsing with Christian McKay, who plays Orson WellesOriginally, he alluded to the fact that he was a bit nervous coming in with very little experience on film and I just remember that from the get-go, from the second I heard him speak and hung out with him and saw his personality I never felt more confident in a lead actor, a leading man. He’s very intelligent and a very quick study. Me and Claire [Danes], we sat in the room on the first day of rehearsals when he read his lines for the first time as Orson. I was shocked. I was floored.
He exceeded our wildest expectations. Like I had any expectations, but it was absolutely incredible and even better just to be with him, just to hang out. He definitely deserves all this.
Does it give you a sense of accomplishment that, because of your participation in this film, you’re going to have a lot of young people out there meet Orson Welles who maybe never would have?Exactly. People say, ‘What about Orson Welles is going to attract a young audience?’ but what I’m hoping is that the audience that does come is able to enjoy this experience with such an iconic guy. Hopefully, it’ll spark their interest and they’ll be able to learn more and go and find out about Welles and his amazing, very interesting roller coaster career.
Parade Magazine interview with Zac Efron
Zac Efron: ‘I’m On the Craziest Ride of My Life’
by Jeanne Wolf
Zac Efron sang and danced his way to success in the wildly popular High School Musical movies–not to mention Hairspray.
Now, he’s taking a serious turn in Richard Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles, playing a high-school kid who lucks into a big break in Welles’ famous production of Julius Caesar. Parade.com’s Jeanne Wolf found out why Efron was ready to take a gamble on a serious dramatic role.
Taking a chance.
“I had never done anything like this before. I was still reeling from everything that had happened to me, all the attention I was suddenly getting from High School Musical. I thought, ‘Maybe this time I’ve bitten off more than I can chew because I’m not singing and dancing. It’s all about acting. I knew people wouldn’t see it as a predictable next move in my career, but I’d like to be known for more than predictability.”How much do you know about Zac Efron? Take the quiz!
Why the story felt familiar.
“I really connected with Rick — the way he kind of lucked into an opportunity to act, and thanks to Orson Welles, doors were opening for him. It kind of resembled my life experience growing up in the theater. In school, my whole life was focused on theater, especially musicals, which were a creative outlet. I had no clue that I’d end up in Hollywood. I’m still on the craziest ride of my life.”See photos of Disney Stars Turned Superstars
There’s no escape.
“We went to the Isle of Man, which is a fairly secluded place to do some filming. The idea of going to a fairly secluded place where I could kind of just leave all of the attention behind was really appealing. Richard Linklater was like, ‘You’re going to love it. There are no paparazzi.’ So we were in this old theater filming a scene and suddenly we heard clapping and cheering. It turned out there was a bunch of kids who were High School Musical fans and they had found me. So I went outside and signed some autographs. I really found their enthusiasm endearing.”What he does for fun.
“I like very normal things, like hiking and camping. When it comes to sports I go skiing, surf boarding, snowboarding, and skateboarding. But, I guess at this point a perfect day for me is probably just relaxing and hanging out with friends. It’s not always easy to be left alone, but I try not to think about it. You can’t let fear control you.”His silliest moment.
“I found the hand of a mannequin in homeroom class in high school. So I attached it to the sleeve of my shirt and then I had my real hand hidden inside. I would walk up to people and take my real hand out, and it looked like an alien was jumping out of my chest. They thought I had a third hand. I really scared some people.”Bringing his dad along for the ride.
“When I made the choice to become an actor, I think he would have been much happier if I went to college. But he got over it. I haven’t seen anyone enjoy themselves more on a set, which can be a very boring place when you’re not working. My dad comes down every chance he gets. It’s almost cute. He’s definitely enjoying this ride. Now, he’s my number one supporter.”Why he’d like to be like Orson Welles.
“Orson was very ambitious, but he just approached his career with such ease and confidence. That’s how I would like to be. That’s how I’m trying to be. I want to learn as much as I can and go for scary things, movies that could potentially fail. That’s what makes it interesting and fun. That’s how you should live your life. It’s kind of my motto, I guess.”See photos of Hollywood’s Fashion-Forward Men
The secret to the Zac Efron hairstyle.
“I have to say it’s pretty low maintenance, so it’s appealing for lazy individuals like me. You don’t have to do anything really, it just goes that way. You don’t even have to put gel in it or anything. OK, there is one thing. If you wash it at night and leave it damp, just towel dry it, you wake up in the morning and you’re all set.”
http://www.parade.com/celebrity/celebrity-parade/2009/1124-zac-efron-orson-welles.html
Zac Efron speaks to Isle of Man Today
Zac interview with iomtoday.com during the Isle Of Man Premiere.
A wet Zac Efron? Yes, please!
Trailer for Me And Orson Welles
Who Knew Zac Efron could Act?-The New York Observer Review
Me and Orson Welles
Running time 114 minutes
Written by Holly Gent Palmo
Directed by Richard Linklater
Starring Zac Efron, Christian McKay, Claire DanesCrowded into the cinematic sardine can of year-end releases, Me and Orson Welles is a modest but gigantically charming jewel that deserves rapt attention. Witty, wise, warm and unfailingly entertaining, it’s one of the year’s happiest surprises. And who knew Zac Efron could act?
In this lovable period valentine to the arts, the teen heartthrob displays a depth and charm that nobody over the age of 14 would ever have suspected; it’s above and beyond anything he’s shown before, in pukey, overhyped junk like High School Musical. Although he looks more like a college student than a callow high-schooler, Mr. Efron plays a stage-struck 17-year-old named Richard Samuels, who accidentally lucks into a job with Orson Welles’ legendary 1937 Mercury Theatre production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, pared down to 90 minutes and performed in modern dress on a bare Broadway stage with everyone wearing the fascist uniforms of Nazi Germany. It’s a year until Welles’ “Invasion from Mars,” which terrified an entire nation of radio listeners, and several years before Citizen Kane, but his mad, eccentric genius in the making was already obvious. What fun to watch theater history through the eyes of an innocent teenage bystander. At first he thinks he’s just another anonymous spear carrier in the crowd scenes, but since Welles was famous for improvising everything on the spot, Richard ends up in the small role of Lucius, playing a ukulele and singing a lullaby to Brutus (played by Welles himself) before the final battle. Craving the star-director’s approval, he gets a close-up of his rampaging backstage ego, as Welles shoves his pregnant wife Virginia into the background while seducing every actress involved in the production. The challenges of working for Orson Welles (Christian McKay, in an inspired performance) grow too intense for a nice young man to overcome, especially when he’s cutting school to attend rehearsals, and then there’s the additional strain of falling in love with Sonja Jones (beautifully played by Claire Danes), the creative lunatic’s bright, ambitious Girl Friday whose can-do personality endears her to everyone, including the critics. (Brooks Atkinson sends her roses.) After Richard loses his virginity to the delectable Sonja, the eventual clash between talented bit player and his demented mentor becomes inevitable. Richard is so gullible that he actually thinks he’s getting $25 a week and a chance to join Actors’ Equity, until Sonja explains: “You’re not getting anything—except the opportunity to be sprayed by Orson’s spit.”
The film moves from Broadway to the backstage action at the CBS radio show where Orson’s mellifluous voice paid the bills; at one point he races through the snow in an ambulance to beat the traffic. The impressionable Richard, meanwhile, is plunged into a firsthand exposure to the theater by a madman with a monstrous ego. Along the way, we meet the actual players in the Mercury troupe—including Joseph Cotten, Martin Gabel, George Coulouris, and producer John Houseman. Names are dropped relentlessly: Tallulah, Gielgud, Richard Rodgers, Jed Harris, David O. Selznick. Based on Robert Kaplow’s meticulously researched novel about the wayward Julius Caesar production, it leaves no stone unturned—including the hilarious dress-rehearsal matinee in which everything goes wrong; the flooding of the theater hours before the opening-night curtain; and the astonishing reviews, which, to everyone’s astonishment, pronounced the show a titanic smash hit! In a deceptively simple script, skillfully written by Holly Gent Palmo, several themes emerge, but the most durable is the reiteration that in the theater, magic happens when it’s least expected.
As Richard grows from starry-eyed fan to calloused veteran with eyes wide open, he gets a crash course in the joy, cruelty and heartbreak of Broadway. With its story of a naïve, impressionable and idealistic young man who learns too much too soon from a cynical, eccentric master, the movie shares obvious similarities with My Favorite Year. But the look of New York on the eve of World War II and the actual recordings of Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday and the many others who made the period come alive musically lend an air of thrilling authenticity I didn’t think possible from oddball filmmaker Richard Linklater. Hopefully, it will attract a more sophisticated audience for this unpredictable director than the small, narrow gang of followers who like his slacker comedies and druggie cartoons. What he has done with Zac Efron is nothing short of dazzling, but the real revelation is Christian McKay, who captures in hair-raising detail the self-centered, egotistical mannerisms, contradictory vocal inflections and flamboyant behavior of the phenomenon known as Orson Welles
http://www.observer.com/2009/culture/who-knew-zac-efron-could-act
Me and Orson Welles Review by The New Yorker Magazine
The lips are wrong. Well, at any rate, they’re different: thin and pursed rather than fleshy and cherubic. But Christian McKay, the thirty-six-year-old British actor who plays the young Orson Welles in “Me and Orson Welles,” has the necessary stature and the vaunting authority for the job. McKay has an easy way with a cigar, too, and a small, sly smile and a strong voice. Not that voice, with its sonic-boom impact, but a fine, leathery instrument. “I am Orson Welles!” he thunders, when challenged. “I own the store.”
The year is 1937, when the great man is twenty-two. The newly formed Mercury Theatre, under the joint direction of Welles and John Houseman (Eddie Marsan), is mounting its first production in New York—a heavily cut and rearranged version of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” with the characters dressed in the uniforms and long coats of the Italian Fascists. We see Welles through the eyes of a cocky seventeen-year-old, Richard Samuels (Zac Efron), a New Jersey kid who bluffs his way into the company.
Richard Linklater, the director, and Holly Gent Palmo and Vince Palmo, the screenwriters (who adapted Robert Kaplow’s 2003 novel of the same title), create a bond between the boy and the theatre big shot. Welles recognizes Samuels as a fellow-mover, and, for a frantic week, as the production lurches toward opening night, the two of them take each other’s measure. It’s a drastically unequal contest. Welles plays Brutus in the production, but his will is closer to Caesar’s. He seduces and bullies everyone, drops actors from the script at will, exercises droit du seigneur over the women in the company, and, in general, acts as if he were God incarnate, which, for all practical purposes, he is. The actors and the craftsmen admire him, loathe him, and know that they couldn’t have theatrical careers of comparable magnitude without him—all New York awaits the opening.
The plot, unfortunately, is conventionally conceived: Richard gets initiated into sex and other fascinating and complicated rites of the grownup world; that is, he gets warmed and then burned by people more experienced and ruthless than anyone could be at seventeen. We’ve seen this rueful coming-of-age story before. And we’ve seen other movies about the staging of a famous production. But if “Me and Orson Welles” isn’t as witty as “Shakespeare in Love,” which, after all, had a script shined up by Tom Stoppard, it’s much better than “Cradle Will Rock,” Tim Robbins’s 1999 account of another legendary early Welles project, a movie with too many characters and too narrow a view (i.e., orthodox left) of the relation of money and art. The strength of “Me and Orson Welles” is that it sticks to Welles’s actual production and to the life of a new theatre company. This is a movie of great spirit and considerable charm. It’s about the giddiness of promise—the awakening of young talent, after years of the Depression, to a moment when anything seems possible.
Working with a limited budget, Linklater found a vintage theatre on the Isle of Man which doubles for the Mercury, on West Forty-first Street (formerly the Comedy, and now long gone); he and his crew reconstructed nineteen-thirties-style New York exteriors at Pinewood Studios, outside London, and assembled a decent cast to support McKay. As Samuels, Zac Efron, the dancing teen heartthrob and shirtless Internet sensation, is surprisingly winning. Efron draws on his confident good looks (from certain angles, this Jewish hoofer from California looks like, of all people, Tyrone Power) without being smug. He’s an actor, after all—maybe even a genuine star. And the even better-looking Claire Danes, of the foot-wide smile, achieves something difficult as Welles’s secretary, Sonja Jones, a friendly and likable woman whose ambition is nevertheless so ravenous that she can’t be trusted for a second. There are many minor characters, swiftly and easily drawn. Linklater, the director of “Slackers,” “School of Rock,” and many other movies, usually works with pop culture; this is his first foray into the classics. Quippy, fast, and enjoyably corny, “Welles” is like a musical comedy without songs. The music is mostly swing hits from the period, along with Marc Blitzstein’s martial drums-and-brass score for the original production, which is played (with the musicians missing many cues) throughout the film.
As opening night nears, Richard’s adventures are of secondary interest, and we welcome with relish the movie’s returning again and again to Welles. He carries on like a much older man—Henry Irving, for example, or some other flamboyant, groundbreaking actor-manager of the nineteenth century, who raised money, edited texts, designed sets, starred in many of the productions, and kept the company going. But Welles has a modernist temperament and a subversive love of shock. He’s abrasive, treacherous, boastful, and inconstant, blocking and reblocking the show at the last minute. At first, this bombast, no matter how amusing, feels too broadly vociferous. Then it becomes clear that Linklater and McKay are portraying Welles as a man who’s consciously entertaining and stimulating his company, playing the black-hearted son of a bitch, creating a crisis atmosphere so that he can pull everything together at the last minute and save the day.
What reconciles us to him, and also compels the actors, including Joseph Cotten (James Tupper) and George Coulouris (Ben Chaplin), to stay with him, is his theatrical intelligence. Welles directs as he acts, moving people around between lines, getting them to lower or raise their voices or shape a phrase in a different way. He’s like a conductor who points out mistakes while pushing the music forward. And when opening night finally arrives, and we get to see chunks of the production, the old radical theatre ideas still have power. The stage is bare, the back wall a rust red, the violence frightening, and the audience stunned.
For moviegoers, however, the triumph is bittersweet. A theatrical performance can be altered and revised until just before the curtain rises, but a movie, with its thousands of interlocking details, requires long-range planning, consistency, and reliability. In Welles’s rabbit-out-of-the-hat victory of 1937, one sees the habits that will lead not only to a few peerless films but also to many defeats and tragically abandoned projects.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2009/11/30/091130crci_cinema_denby
Zac Efron and Claire Danes at CBS News Washington Bureau 11-10
Interview with Bob Schieffer will air on friday at 12:30 pm.
http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlDC/television/hey_isnt_that_142765.asp?c=rss
New MAOW ad from the New York Times
Thanks to Betty from Z.A.C. We can’t wait to see this in theatres. Support Zac and go see it Nov 25 if you live in LA or NY.
Zac Efron to be in Georgetown Nov 10th for a special screening of MAOW
With Halloween falling on a Saturday this year, we at Vox fully expect Georgetown students to go all out (apparently so does the SSAB, which tweeted earlier today, “The SSAB reminds everyone to be respectful of their neighbors during Halloween weekend”). With that in mind, we’ve decided to throw our first ever Halloween Costume Contest!
Before getting into the rules, let’s cover the prizes: winners will get two free tickets to a special screening of Me and Orson Wells on November 10th. How special is this screening? So special that the film’s stars, Zac Efron and Claire Danes are going to be there for a panel discussion following the screening.
Here’s how the contest will work: when you get all dressed up this weekend, make sure you take some pictures. Then send those pictures to blog@georgetownvoice.com by Monday, November 2nd at 5 p.m, along with your name and a brief description of what you went dressed as. We’ll pick the finalists and post their pictures on the blog later that week so Vox readers can vote on the winners. The two contestants who receive the most votes will each get two tickets to the screening!
http://blog.georgetownvoice.com/2009/10/29/enter-voxs-costume-contest/
Review of MAOW from indiemovieonline
Richard Linklater revisits Orson Welles’s theatre company and puts Zac Efron centre stage. It’s a crazy combination says Stieg Ingarsson, but by gawd, it might just work.
If you were making a film set in 1937 about the Mercury Theatre and the great Orson Welles, I somehow doubt that the cheeky teen star of the High School Musical franchise would be top of your list for a central role. But then you’re not Richard Linklater. The man behind such arthouse favourites as Dazed and Confused, A Scanner Darkly, Before Sunrise and School Of Rock (ahem) is back with Me And Orson Welles, and his leading man is non other than Zac Efron himself. Fortunately, and before you all burst blood vessels, our Zac is cast in the role of the ‘Me’ of the title, rather than the fiery giant of stage and screen.
Efron is Richard Samuels, a kid still in school but with big dreams of stardom, who stumbles into a production of Julius Caesar through some nifty snare drum work and an ad jingle. Once in, and with the small part of Lucius his own (a role that mainly involves playing a ukelele disguised as a lute), he is on a rollercoaster of confrontation, romance and theatre, darling, as the Mercury company tries to get the doors open on time.
http://www.indiemoviesonline.com/reviews/me-and-orson-welles-281009
MAOW One of the Top Films for November
http://www.film.com/features/story/top-5-films-of-november/30652906
Me and Orson Welles
The great gamble of this November, as well as a sign of the economic times, Richard Linklater’s latest film is one that almost had to self-distribute if it hadn’t been saved by Freestyle Releasing. In an era when an acclaimed indie filmmaker like Linklater can’t get a well-reviewed film distributed, one can understand why many are speaking only doom and gloom when it comes to the future of indie cinema. But the word on this is strong, and the idea of seeing someone like Zac Efron in a film directed by someone who can get great performances out of his actors makes me very interested in seeing what this kid Efron can really do. Come on, admit it. You want to see Effron break out of the Teen Beat scene as much as everyone else. And before you mock, remember that Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Johnny Depp all once graced the covers of magazines meant for 14-year-old girls.
