Orson Welles Quotes on Film
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He [Welles] was an onlooker at the clumsy, poignant suicide of 'The Man on the Ledge,' which took place in New York in 1938, when a boy perched for fourteen hours on a window-sill of the Gotham Hotel before plunging into the street. 'I stood in the crowd outside for a long time,' Welles says pensively, 'and wanted to make a film of it all. But they tell me that in the Hollywood version of the film they gave the boy a reason for what he did. That's crazy. It's the crowd that needs explaining.'
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A long-playing full shot is what always separates the men from the boys. Anybody can make movies with a pair of scissors and a two-inch lens.
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The trouble with a movie is that it's old before it's released. It's no accident that it comes in a can.
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Citizen Kane
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The Magnificent Ambersons (film)
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The Lady from Shanghai
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The Third Man (the Harry Lime section contains Welles's famous ad lib about war)