With The Eyes of Orson Welles out this Friday, we pick our favourite quotes from filmmaker Mark Cousins and his subject Orson Welles.
"You thought with lines and shapes. Your films are sketchbooks, calligraphy." - Mark Cousins
"You took a line for a walk. Portraits, sketches in letters, costume designs, stage layouts, backdrop plans, Christmas cards, pictures of your loves and travels. You drew compulsively, a lifetime of lines" - Mark Cousins
“I’ve never been excited by movies as movies, as the way I’ve been excited by magic or bullfighting or painting.” - Orson Welles
"If many of your films were like sketches, if you dreamt of a camera being more like a pencil, your dream is coming true. More than ever, you can draw with a camera now. Studio cinema was like history painting. Now, film is more like oil painting." - Mark Cousins
"After radio and theatre, you found a new medium of the people – movies. Your first feature, of course, was Citizen Kane. It changed cinema, and it is known for its expressionism and critique of vainglory." - Mark Cousins