Take The City And Run

I’m currently reading This Is Orson Welles, a book of transposed interviews between Welles and Peter Bogdanovich. It’s quite good and it’s made me realize how much more I need to see of Welles’ work… I’ve only seen Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Lady From Shanghai, and Touch of Evil. He’s such an entertaining speaker and seems to be such a good guy in the book– it just makes all his difficulties throughout the years seem so much more tragic. Anyway, now I need to check out his Shakespeare movies (among others). I saw Raging Bull for the third time last night and, probably because I’m reading this book, it struck me how similar the film is to what I’ve seen of Welles’ work and even what I know of those I haven’t seen. I suppose the main similarity is the self-destructive “heavy” as tragic hero (or anti-hero if you prefer). I guess that goes to show why so many directors and film students tout Raging Bull as Citizen Kane II.