Orson Welles once named “the greatest comedy ever made”
Orson Welles is remembered as one of the revolutionary pioneers whose works led to the development of the auteur theory, resulting in seminal movements such as the French New Wave. While Citizen Kane remains Welles’ most popular achievement, his filmography is full of mesmerising masterpieces like Touch of Evil and Chimes at Midnight among others.
Throughout his career, Welles expressed a lot of disdain for many of his iconic contemporaries. Famously, the American auteur criticised other legendary filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock and Woody Allen among others. He was disgusted by Woody Allen’s brand of comedy and claimed that Hitchcock was senile.
Welles was also very critical of the new generation of auteurs who were directly inspired by his works, singling out Jean-Luc Godard’s vision of cinema. Although he wasn’t impressed by cinematic giants like Ingmar Bergman or Michelangelo Antonioni, Welles did enjoy some of the groundbreaking cinema that came before him.
He was especially moved by the films of Buster Keaton, one of the greatest filmmakers of the silent era who laid the groundwork for a special visual framework of action and comedy. Welles was particularly blown away by Keaton’s most famous film – The General – where Keaton shines as the bumbling engineer who gets swept up by the waves of civil war.
Featuring some of the greatest action sequences in the history of cinema, The General is an indispensable part of the evolution of the cinematic art-form. While commenting on the achievements of The General, Welles called it “the greatest comedy ever made, the greatest Civil War film ever made, and perhaps the greatest film ever made.”
Peter Bogdanovich, one of Welles’ closest friends, remembered how the director admired the silent film star. Bogdanovich recalled: “Keaton used to say that he was too busy working to smile. But you can see plenty of nuanced expressions on his face. Orson Welles loved him, and we talked about Keaton quite often. He would always say: ‘Look at that beautiful face.'”
When it first came out, The General did not get a good reception from critics or audiences which resulted in mediocre box office numbers. Due to the film’s failures, MGM forced Keaton to give up many of his artistic liberties but The General has survived the test of time and it has emerged victorious because its legacy has continued to grow as younger viewers discover Keaton’s genius.
