Nov 3, 2026

Orson Welles

Revised and Expanded 3rd Edition

Joseph McBride

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh

Buy Book

Summary

Orson Welles is a foundational work of Welles criticism. First published by Joseph McBride in the British Film Institute's Cinema One series in 1972 when the author was twenty-four, it now has been extensively revised and updated to reflect the ongoing developments in the work of this great filmmaker. McBride—who, as Martin Scorsese has written, "has a clearer understanding of Welles and his films than almost anyone"—studied Welles at work for more than five years while playing an earnest young film critic and historian in The Other Side of the Wind. Among the new material in this third edition, Orson Welles: Revised and Expanded is McBride's first extended analysis of that film as well as an essay on Welles's acting career and revisions of the other chapters on his adventurous, multifaceted body of work, illuminating and setting the record straight on this often misunderstood director.

Joseph McBride has written or edited twenty-six books, also including two other books on Welles; biographies of Frank Capra, Steven Spielberg, and John Ford; the interview book Hawks on Hawks; critical studies of Ford (with Michael Wilmington), Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder, the Coen Bros., and George Cukor; and I Loved Movies, But... In 2026, Sticking Place Books reprinted his long-lost edited collection Persistence of Vision, with an extensive new introduction. McBride covered the film industry for many years as a reporter and reviewer for Daily Variety. He is an emeritus professor of the School of Cinema at San Francisco State University

Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter.

Comments

Your Host

Morteza Hajizadeh

Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18^th and 19^th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter.

View Profile