Touch of Genius: Orson Welles His life is the stuff of legend, and so are his best films. He was a theater revolutionary at twenty; perpetrator of a stunning hoax at twenty-three; the creative force behind the greatest American film ever made at twenty-six; run out of Hollywood (the first time) at twenty-seven. During this period, he co-wrote (with Herman J. Mankiewicz), starred in, and directed Citizen Kane (1941), and wrote, narrated, and directed The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). He would later return from his second exile from Hollywood—at the age of forty-three—to write, star in, and direct Touch of Evil (1958), widely hailed as the nigh-perfect finale to the film noir cycle. Though often dismissed during his career and largely unknown to a generation today, we should never forget that Welles was, in the words of Martin Scorsese, “responsible for inspiring more people to be film directors than anyone else in the history of the cinema.” Take this course to see why.
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