bonniegrrl | Vincent D'Onofrio revisits Orson Welles

I always thought D'Onofrio looked a little like a young Orson Welles....
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SFIFF: Vincent D'Onofrio revisits Orson Welles

One of my favorite scenes in my favorite Tim Burton movie, "Ed Wood," is when Wood (Johnny Depp) is at his wit's end late in the picture when he's trying to complete is, uh, masterpiece, "Plan 9 from Outer Space." Angry that his "vision" is not being understood by his actors and producers, he storms out of the warehouse where they are filming and hotfoots it to the nearest bar for a couple of drinks

There, sitting in a booth in a tuxedo, apparently working on a screenplay, is Orson Welles (Vincent D'Onofrio). They have a conversation that inspires Wood to march back onto the set and finish what would be later called the worst film of all-time. D'Onofrio is so much like Welles -- I'm a huge Welles fan, the partially San Francisco-shot "Lady from Shanghai" being my favorite movie -- and I especially loved that the man who made what is generally considered the greatest film of all, "Citizen Kane," inspires an artist at the other end of the spectrum.

Anyway, D'Onofrio must have been tickled by his one-scene turn as Welles, too. He has made a 30-minute short film, called "Five Minutes, Mr. Welles," and it plays at the San Francisco International Film Festival as part of the compilation of shorts entitled "Domestic Dramas" (there's only one showing left: Wednesday, May 3, at 12:30 p.m. at the Kabuki).

Filmed in black and white (natch), it's about Welles, who has taken the role of Harry Lime in Carol Reed's "The Third Man" for money, practicing for the classic ferris wheel scene (the one in which Lime, the black marketeer whose fake penicillin has killed thousands, famously compares the scurrying humans below with ants). Woken up from a snooze by his "assistant," a sultry/secretarial blond (Janine Theriault), who helps him with his lines, Welles bellows, paces, gripes about the screenplay, yells at his assistant -- and finally, gets it in gear and is ready to do the scene.

Yo Vince -- I loved the film. I can't wait for your next turn as Welles, perhaps in another decade. Like the fat 1958 Welles setting up the famous crane shot of "Touch of Evil" near Venice Beach? Keep hittin' the spaghetti there, big guy.

SOURCE: SFGate.com
Posted By: G. Allen Johnson