Orson Welles - misunderstood, displaced ... unable to keep fractures from his art - was in many ways his own worst enemy. Maybe that's the defining mark of his genius. A fugitive from the arts.

Working on Othello - all over Europe - he would leave the actors and crew in a hotel, fly to some spot in the world, to act in someone else's film for money he could use to finish his project. He spent two years in many locations - mostly Spain - filming Chimes at Midnight. The critics initially hated it, but the film as weathered time, and now is regarded as a major work – maybe his finest. I've always wondered what Chimes could have been if Welles had had full backing from a studio - a system he hated and shunned, by the way. The film would have had a great look, but the story, most certainly, would have lacked passion.

Every Welles’ film contains the man - his loss, his greatness, his fire, his unwillingness to find an end, to find completion. His being rejected by the film world is the foundation of his art's greatness.

My favorite of his films? Can’t pick one: Chimes, Touch of Evil, F for Fake, Othello, The Lady from Shanghai, Citizen Kane...