Joseph McBride, a prolific film author, has written with insightful depth about several legendary directors, including John Ford, Billy Wilder, Steven Spielberg, the Coen Brothers, and Frank Capra - to name just a few.
McBride’s work has garnered a mountain of praise from critics, filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Peter Bogdanovich, and fans of the golden age of cinema.
“Hawks on Hawks,” featuring McBride’s interviews with Old Hollywood director Howard Hawks, has been named one of “The 100 Greatest Film Books” by The Hollywood Reporter. Also, a new edition of “John Ford” - co-written in 1974 with critic Michael Wilmington - will be released this December.
McBride, also a San Francisco State University professor, recently stopped by the EFT podcast to discuss Orson Welles, one of cinema’s greatest - and most misunderstood - filmmakers. We focused on his 2006 book, “What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? A Portrait of an Independent Career” - a new edition of which was published in January 2022.
In our nearly 90-minute conversation, McBride talks about:
His friendship and collaboration with Welles in the 1970s.
Welles’ singular voice and brilliant artistic vision that fueled his success and, conversely, the ire of his detractors.
Welles’ first feature-length film, Citizen Kane, which is considered the greatest movie ever by many. But it also created powerful enemies for Welles.
How RKO butchered the editing of The Magnificent Ambersons, a would-be masterpiece, while Welles was in Brazil.
That Welles was an innovator decades ahead of his time.
Welles’ other masterpieces such as The Lady from Shanghai, Touch of Evil, F for Fake, and The Trial.
Welles’ love for the underdog and his unusually gifted ability to depict the tensions of race and class authentically on film and stage.
How the red-hunting hysteria of the Hollywood blacklist led Welles to move to Europe in the 1950s, forever altering his career trajectory.
McBride’s acting in The Other Side of the Wind, an infamous ‘incomplete’ Welles film that eventually was finished and released on Netflix in 2018 - 33 years after Welles’ death and nearly 50 years after he started filming the script.
And much, much more.
Speaking of “The Other Side of the Wind”
McBride has a key supporting role in the film. Here’s the trailer:
EFT Podcast: Joseph McBride