Cinema Professor Joseph McBride has studied filmmaker Orson Welles since 1966, and even landed a role in one of his films. As artists and scholars commemorate the Citizen Kane star and director’s centenary all year long, McBride remains in the mix.
Having written three acclaimed books on Welles and known him personally, McBride is in high demand worldwide to discuss his work and life. McBride spent six years shooting his role as a pretentious film critic alongside John Huston, Dennis Hopper and Mercedes McCambridge in Welles’ Hollywood satire The Other Side of the Wind. The film was never finished, but is now in the process of completion. It is expected to be released in 2016.
McBride recently returned from Barcelona and an international Welles conference run by the FilmoTeca de Catalunya. On June 21, he presented two programs on Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons (McBride’s favorite film) at the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael.
Earlier this year, McBride gave presentations on Welles at the Film Forum in New York City and Indiana University as well as in Woodstock, Illinois, and Welles’ birthplace Kenosha, Wisconsin. Later this year he will make a presentation at the University of Wisconsin Cinematheque.
Links
- Joseph McBride’s article on Welles symposium in Barcelona, June 9, 2015
- The Jim Engster Show, May 15, 2015
- SF State video interview with Joseph McBride, March 14, 2011
- Joseph McBride
Photo: Cinema Professor Joseph McBride (left) talks with Orson Welles’ eldest daughter, Chris Welles Feder, in Barcelona in June. Courtesy of FilmoTeca de Catalunya.