How did Orson Welles do it ?

Orson Welles 1937

Stories.

I wonder lately. How did a person like Orson Welles ever “do it”? You know to bring all those wonderful stories to life. And in a way, few people ever did and do. I mean by 21 years old he had already mastered several different art forms/ mediums. And in such a way he is still today considered one of the best. Not only for his famous movie(s). But on the radio and live stage as well. And all of it goes back to his being an artist on canvas and paper. Drawing and painting. He drew and painted everything. Often long before it was ever acted out on the radio, stage or screen.

Plato

Dreams

He dreamed dreams that even Homer would have been envious of. But undoubtedly there would have been no Welles without Homer's traditional Greek ways of telling a story. And of course, then comes Plato's thoughts and writing on “telling a story”. I mean it is at the bottom of everything “western” (not cowboy western (they are stories too) but western civilization) Putting aside cowboys... It's all Greek to me... God! Must we always go back to the dilemmas of things like Plato's The Phaedrus. Have you read it? My god. It messes with your mind. But it's all about basic storytelling. With a big warning at the end. You know like...What is a speech? What is reality? What is the body? What is the soul? What is death? What is life? And finally, it all goes back to the direct transmission of the story itself from the teller. That written words simply won't do in the place of the real thing. That is you and me and our own lives and the stories they tell. 

Whatever it is. Or whatever they are.

It always seems to boil down to making a good story out of ordinary lives with extraordinary potential. And the Greeks were some of the best at it. Telling a good story. They passed that tradition down to us. . .Westerners. Cowboys too. And us too.  That is in spite of all it's dreaming and alternate realities.  Timelines Are Sarah is a story about two people being in love with each other. And hey. What's better than a good romance? 

David and Sarah's song by Hartley 2020