Mariella Gattini

Orson Welles was best known for his film Citizen Kane. Anybody who has even a little knowledge of cinema knows about that extraordinary film. In the documentary They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead, released recently by Netflix, we can see a deeper image of Orson, one that associates him with the behind the scenes difficulties he had producing his last film The Other Side of the Wind, and also with his proximity to failure.

I would like to go over two ideas coming from him. The first one is about storytelling and comes through Peter Bogdanovich, the film director and collaborator in Orson’s last film. Peter says in the documentary that Orson told him, “No story has a happy ending unless you stop telling it before it’s over.” At the end of his life he had a series of unfinished movies, and was away from the States. Being the ultimate independent filmmaker he had been barred by producers in Hollywood, which made him feel personally betrayed. In fact, his movies are constantly talking about betrayal.

What I perceive from all that information is something even more intriguing, and perhaps much more interesting. What I see is that he was constantly suffering from writer’s block, which, according to author Jane K. Cleland, is the result of three main causes: Fear of failure, fear of success, and perfectionism. Apart from the obvious fact that he was constantly occupied finding a way to finance his movies, which took much out of his creative process, I’m sure.

According to Jane, the genesis of our fear of failure is the following: “If you don’t begin (or finish) your book, you’ll spare yourself the rejection you’re secretly certain is inevitable.” In his case, he was out of the country for a reason, he felt betrayed and misunderstood. Besides, the movie business was changing rapidly in the early seventies when he found himself in that predicament, and he had come from another era and another way to convey his stories.

Still following Jane’s line of thinking, the genesis of our fear of success is “If you don’t begin (or finish) your book, you’ll avoid the envy or potential shunning you dread.” Orson dreaded the fact that people compared every film he made to Citizen Kane, his masterpiece according to others, something he couldn’t get away from.

And finally, there is perfectionism, whose genesis according to Jane is that “You’re certain that your work is flawed, that word choices are banal, that you’ll never be able to write with panache.” He repeated over and over again that everything was in the editing, he couldn’t finish because he felt the film was never quite right. In the documentary, they suggest that he never finished his last films because for him the happiness was in the making of the movie and not in the final product. I’m sure he loved the process, but I’m also certain his health was failing him. He was morbidly obese, and he drank and smoked like there was no tomorrow. Greta Heinemann, a TV writer working for CBS, said that she worked such long hours writing and not moving that she started having back problems. She went to the doctor and realized that she needed to add self-care to her schedule, otherwise she would not get very far in the business.

I agree with Orson, in real life no story has a real happy ending, because in real life we all die in the end. However, as storytellers, we can take a piece of that life and tell it to others in order to show the benefits of being alive and how interesting it can be. Since movie making was changing he tried to move with it, losing himself in the process. He forgot who he was in my view, he was trying to be somebody else, that was his mistake, maybe because he didn’t want to see himself as a failure.

The second idea coming from Orson I wanted to reflect on is about loneliness. Paraphrasing, he said that we all are alone, we come to this world alone and alone we go away from this world. Love and friendship are the only two things that give us the illusion of not being alone, but the reality is that we are. I could attest to that, I’m perfectly aware of the fact that in this world of literature we all are on our own and that the illusion of being connected to others happens with our loved ones, with every good professor we’ve ever had, and the wonderful writers we meet in different conferences. In my case in particular, at the Writer’s Digest Novel Writing Conference that took place in Pasadena, California at the end of October this year, where I had the privilege to meet the above mentioned Jane Cleland and Greta Heinemann, and also the wonderful Nicola Yoon, author of Everything, Everything, among a big number of interesting writers.

Jane Cleland, writer of cozy mysteries, also has a cure for our fears and perfectionism. The cure for our fear of failure is to realize that “If someone doesn’t warm up to your story, it’s not personal. That’s why they make both vanilla and chocolate ice cream—people have different tastes.” The cure for our fear of success, on the other hand, is to be aware of the fact that “Success brings respect and esteem from some and jealousy and resentment from others, and you may be surprised to discover which is which.” And finally, for our sense of perfectionism she also offers an insight: “It might be that you’re not judging your work—you’re judging yourself—your internal critic might be having a field day.” She says your internal editor is on your side, whereas your internal critic is against you.

Orson Welles passed away in 1985. He was one of my mother’s favorite artists. He represented everything she wanted in a man: Strength, intelligence, creativity, generosity, and charm.

I lost my mother the past September after many, many borrowed years. And just as Orson thought, there was no happy ending for her story, but she left behind, in me, her profound love for the never-ending creativity in our minds. She was the one who assured me that books, films, and the arts in general are everything we need to have a fulfilling life. She was the light of my life, everything she was I keep as a treasure. All the artists she admired I still admire. Her Orson became my Orson.