The movie was presumably a "quickie" meant for the centenary of Orson Welles's 1915 birth. It goes superficially over Welles's life and work, and a number of people who have interacted with or call him a strong influence are interviewed. But basically this documentary says a lot without teaching much.It starts with describing Welles's childhood and his broken home, how he was a child genius who could do a lot of intellectual (but not athletic) things, how he ended up getting into Hollywood and cinema, as well as stage acting, and how he kept starting a bunch of movies but never finishing them, how he kept getting into trouble over creative control and financing, and how he became a legend despite all his troubles and comparatively thin body of finished work.Yet you ultimately find out little about Welles. His chaotic family life is not really covered, nor the reason he could not discipline himself enough to complete more work, nor why at the end of his life he went into decline with self-parody. His trouble with Hearst over "Citizen Kane" is not even mentioned. Interesting only as the most basic of introductions to Orson Welles.

"Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles" is a documentary from 2014 about the great filmmaker, actor, magician, and personality. I must have seen and read everything there is on Welles, if that's possible, and this particular documentary borrowed heavily from the best there is -- the BBC interview with Welles, which was one of the best things I've ever seen. Of interest here were the photos of him as a young boy, and interviews with Micheál MacLiammóir, Norman Lloyd, comments by Julie Taymor, his daughter Beatrice, and so many others, some of whom I had not seen interviewed before.Welles was, to say the least, a complicated man. He couldn't deal with the studio constraints, but without them, he often floundered. Spielberg was interviewed here, and I remember very well from one of the books on Welles that he went to dinner with Spielberg with the idea that Spielberg could help him find a distributor for one of his movies. When he came home, the interviewer called him, and he said, they only ever want to talk about Kane. Kane was a blessing and a curse. I think some of the people interviewed didn't give him credit for the fact that he was just as talented as he had always been, but the business had become so much tougher.Documentaries about Welles are always worth seeing. He was one of the most charismatic and interesting people who ever lived, and he'd probably tell you that himself. And the people around him seemed to adore him. So really, as much as I have liked other documentaries better, this one is worth seeing too.

Unintelligent documentary about a very intelligent man. No cohesive theme or statement about Orson Wells. Chunks of a better documentary edited together into a bad one. Has some interesting comments about how he made films, otherwise just sycophantic incantations about how great he was. Includes a montage of pictures of Orson Well's girlfriends and wives, how does this contribute to the story? Came off as sexist as these women are regulated to photographs without anything interesting to say about his personal life. Snips here and there of celebrities saying thins about Orson Wells without drawing any meaningful summations about Orson and his art. Smug, smarmy, and depressing in the way it cheapens Orson Wells legacy.

"Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles" (2014 release; 94 min.) is a documentary about the genius of Orson Welles, 'enfant terrible' of the 1940s-50s Hollywood and godfather of the indie film scene. The movie opens, of course, with the opening scene from "Citizen Kane", where we see Welles whisper "Rosebud", but after that we get a straight-forward and chronological overview of Welles' life and work. The documentary is divided up in 5 chapters, covering different periods of his life (1915-1941 The Boy Wonder; 1942-1949 The Outsider, etc.). To tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.Couple of comments: this is the latest from veteran documentary maker Chuck Workman. When I saw his name on this, I felt pretty sure that we'd be in for a great documentary. And it's certainly not a bad documentary. The movie hits all the major high (and low) lights of Welles' career (War of the Worlds; Citizen Kane; Touch of Evil; The Trial; Chimes at Midnight; etc.), and Workman compiles a treasure trove of old clips. He also interviews a bunch of people, including Peter Bogdanovich, Julie Taymor, Steven Spielberg, etc. Yet despite all that, the documentary seems to be missing something. Maybe it's because there is no true new insight or revelation, since yes, we do know that Welles was a genius who was misunderstood and/or difficult to work with. There are a couple of glimpses into Welles' personal life but the tidbit of information from that angle really doesn't add much (we are informed that one of Welles' two surviving daughters refused to cooperate in the making of this documentary). There are a number of great quotes sprinkled throughout the movie such as Orson's "I like Hollywood very much, but Hollywood just doesn't like me much", ha! or this one (about making Citizen Kane): "it wasn't about the money, it was about control". The timing of the documentary is to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Orson Welles' birth.This documentary opened this weekend without any pre-release fanfare or advertising at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati. Since I love documentaries and of course admire the genius of Orson Welles, I went to see it right away. The matinée screening where I saw this at was attended okay but not great (it didn't help that midway through the movie, the fire alarm went off and we had to leave the theater temporarily). If you are new to Orson Welles, by all means take the opportunity to check this out, be it in the theater, on Amazon Instant Video or on DVD/Blu-ray. You will be amazed. For those that are already familiar with Orson Welles, there's really nothing new in this documentary.