Over the course of a long and prodigious career, Orson Welles appeared as a performer in more than 70 films, 50 stage productions and several hundred radio broadcasts. In spite of this impressive list of credits, however, and of the considerable body of critical writing on Welles in general, extremely little scholarly attention has been afforded to the subject of Wellesian acting. This seems a somewhat curious and disquieting oversight, particularly considering the extreme importance which Welles himself afforded to performance, (once calling acting "the most serious [of] the theatrical arts," ) as well as the numerous potential ways in which his performance career might be seen to influence, shape, and augment his more widely discussed directorial efforts. Along these lines, James Naremore notes that "Welles would never have been given an opportunity to direct in Hollywood had he not also been an actor," and further suggests that Welles' acting "affected his idea of directing in important ways." In the meager body of critical-analytic writing on Wellesian performance however, such provocative and potentially important assertions have yet to be adequately explored and developed, even by Naremore himself.

Indeed, much of the sparse writing that actually does exist concerning Welles as an actor simply dismisses his performance style as indulgent, hammy, or just plain bad, often without ever attempting any kind of detailed, critical analysis of its individual elements. Reviews, for instance, certainly often offer such biting, generalized value judgments in relation to Wellesian performance, as evidenced by New York Times critic Bosley Crowther's unrelenting condemnation of Welles' acting over the years. In reviewing The Stranger, for instance, Crowther writes that Welles comes across as "just Mr. Welles, a young actor, doing a boyishly bad acting job," while in his critique of Tomorrow is Forever, he describes Welles' performance as "plainly hard to take." Most vitriolic though is Crowther's description of Welles' performance of Michael O'Hara in Lady From Shanghai. He writes: "For no matter how much you dress him in rakish yachting caps and open shirts, Mr. Welles simply hasn't the capacity to cut a romantic swath. And when he adorns his characterization with a poetic air and an Irish brogue, which is painfully artificial, he makes himself - and the film - ridiculous." Here, criticism of Wellesian performance borders precariously on personal attack.

This general dismissal of Welles as a performer extends beyond the case of this one potentially hostile and embittered critic however, as even scholars and biographers who are generally sympathetic to Welles often manifest such a distaste for his acting. Joseph McBride calls the performance in The Stranger "impossibly hammy," for example, and further argues that it "just about single-handedly destroys the story's tenuous credibility." Even Naremore, one of the few scholars to address the phenomenon of Wellesian performance as an object worthy of critical study, claims that "as an actor in [films he didn 't direct], Welles was usually a 'character' in the worst sense… he seems … hollow and disappointing as Father Mapple in Moby Dick; and as General Dreedle, the pure monster of Catch-22, he is too much like a movie celebrity playing a cameo." With such assertions, Welles' supporters often seem to manifest a sense of his acting as an embarrassing or insignificant blight on an otherwise impressive career, at best an unimportant means by which Welles acquired the money necessary to do his important directing work, and at worst a major flaw which generally compromises the larger picture of his artistic genius. In my opinion, while Welles' acting is by no means beyond reproach, this seems an unnecessarily harsh, and potentially shortsighted judgment. As such, this paper will attempt a more specific, analytical examination of Wellesian performance, looking specifically to his fictional roles in narrative films, in order to move beyond such generalizing, subjective judgments of quality and value and to ultimately address the important ways in which Welles' performance style might comment on, inform and enrich other central aspects of his life and career.

So, what can usefully be said of Welles' acting style? Much of the little scholarly and analytical work which has actually been done on this subject (largely all by Naremore and Michael Anderegg) affords a great deal of attention to the presentational character of Wellesian performance, often tying it, at least in part, to Brechtian theory and left wing politics. So Anderegg, for example, claims that "in certain roles and at certain moments in all of his roles, Welles approaches the Brechtian ideal of performance. … [he] interprets his roles for us, projects both the emotion required by and the explanation of each dramatic moment." Certainly, Welles' work as actor can frequently be understood in such determinedly anti-illusionist, presentational terms. In fact, he himself frequently advocated a non-naturalistic, 'hot' performance style that echoed certain key elements of Brechtian performance theory.

According to Naremore, for instance, in a lecture on "The New Actor," Welles, like Brecht, proclaimed the necessity of formulating an expressly performative acting style that acknowledged the audience and thus aimed to deconstruct the fourth wall realism of both the Stanislavskian stage and Classical Hollywood film. "Even before the movies," Welles said in this lecture, "actors stopped considering their audiences," It was the constant effort of people like Stanislavsky in a very serious way and John Drew in a frivolous way to pretend there is a fourth wall. This is death to acting style. It is practically impossible to create a new acting style which excludes the direct address to the audience." Here, in his insistent focus on acknowledging the spectator and thus preventing her passive submersion in the drama's ostensibly real fictional universe, Welles certainly sounds somewhat Brechtian in his thought.

That said, however, this focus on the Brechtian elements of Welles' performance is somewhat too restrictive and totalizing. For one thing, there are several respects in which Welles' conceptions of acting differed greatly from Brechtian ideals. As Naremore describes, for example, "unlike Brecht, [Welles] did not encourage his audience to talk back to the spectacle, and his idea of the theatre remained expressionist and 'magical' … All of his work was dependent on structures of fascination and illusion, and on his own role as manipulator."

This notion of concealing the magical means by which theatrical effects are generated would have been anathema to Brecht, standing, as it does, in complete contradiction to his determinedly anti-illusionist theatrical/political project. In addition though, beyond the relative Brechtian or anti-Brechtian elements of Welles' acting, a variety of further influences, ranging from the practices of 19th Century melodrama and Shakespearean performance, to Stanislavskian-based Method acting, can also at times be discerned in his style. Indeed, even while Welles himself stated that he was "an actor of the old school," he also admitted, "I'm always making fun of the Method, but I use a lot of things that are taken from it." At various moments, Welles' film performances suggest the influences of Delsartian gestural acting, of traditions of oratory and storytelling, of his early work in radio drama, and of the practices of the Realist, Expressionist, Absurdist, and Epic theatre movements, amongst other things. Not surprisingly then, given the tendency to heteroglossia and complexity in his work as a whole, Welles seems to have been a very dialogic actor. As such, it seems that any attempts to draw general, totalizing conclusions about his performance style are necessarily doomed to failure.

That said however, it appears to me that this very tendency to multiplicity and heteroglossia itself constitutes an extremely viable and illuminating way of characterizing the phenomenon of Wellesian acting. In particular, this complex orchestration of multiple techniques and styles allows Welles to generate a unique combination of presentationalism and magical illusion in his performances, continually foregrounding his presence as Orson Welles, while simultaneously illustrating the ways in which he can magically transform and re-create himself through a variety of vast and varied personalities. Here then, the dialogism and heteroglossia which otherwise present such obstacles to defining Wellesian acting themselves become a central aspect of his performance style, as a conscious employment and manipulation of various performance traditions and techniques becomes key to his method of work and being both on camera and off.

To be fair, this complexity has not been entirely lost on Welles' few performance critics. Naremore, for example, clearly hits on part of this process when he says:

On the one hand, [Welles] was a brilliant practitioner of what John Houseman called 'magical effect,' and he was clearly indebted to a romantic or gothic tradition of Shakespearean drama, grand opera, and stage illusionism; on the other hand, he was also a didactic, somewhat Brechtian storyteller…whose technique was visibly rhetorical and strongly dependent on direct address. The tension between these extremes - in other words, the tension between Welles as conjurer and Welles as narrator - accounts for many of the special qualities of his films in general.

Likewise, the fact that Welles' acting style continually foregrounds his own presence and personality has also been widely noted, from Crowther's aforementioned comment that Franz Kindler comes across as "just Mr. Welles" in The Stranger, to Welles' own declaration to Peter Bogdanovich that "An actor never plays anything but himself… And so, of course, in all these characters there is something of Orson Welles." For his part, Michael Anderegg similarly notes the way in which Welles' acting is marked by a pervasive quality of "guest stardom;" a certain sense of "starring Orson Welles as…"-ness. "Welles," he says, "of all film performers, was always both himself - that is, a recognizable 'real' person, someone pre-or extra-filmically famous - and a theatrical construct; he was always someone who, even when, perhaps especially when, being 'himself,' was a performer, and who even when most disguised in a role, most 'performing,' was most himself, most clearly 'Orson Welles'." In acknowledging the complex, multiple, somewhat dialogic nature of Welles' appearance in on-screen fictional roles in this manner, each of these compelling descriptions begins to draw out centrally important aspects of the multifaceted phenomenon of Wellesian performance.

That said however, these analyses and the broader conclusions to which they ultimately point nevertheless seem to fall slightly short of the entire picture, underestimating in particular the potential significance of the interaction between Welles the performer-personality and the various character-personalities that he magically-performatively incarnated. Indeed, despite their significant and important insights, neither Naremore's nor Anderegg's descriptions of Welles as actor seems to fully recognize the important way in which his heteroglot performance style ultimately resulted in the creation of multiple, vastly different instantiations of Orson Welles, allowing Welles to illusionistically transform himself into innumerable characters and personalities while still seeming to retain a sense of his own identity and to say to his audience "look what I've become now." Moreover, neither do these critics fully consider the potential implications and relatedness of this acting style to Welles' life, persona and directorial career.

Before turning to the potential importance of Wellesian acting thus conceived however, we first need to consider how Welles actually achieves this complex balance of character, self and actor in his various performances. Here, several contributing factors could be noted. Perhaps most obviously, Welles' continued use of elaborate, somewhat apparent theatrical makeup both allows him to transform himself into a variety of strikingly different characters and to simultaneously retain a sense of the theatricality of the identities thus created. On one hand, as Anderegg argues, Welles' constant dependence on theatrical wigs, makeup and costumes does achieve something akin to a Brechtian effect, allowing Welles "to look as well as be theatrical." Wrinkles and eyebrows have a noticeably drawn-on character, while the obvious spirit gum holding beards and mustaches in place frequently betrays their unnatural status. At the same time though, this makeup also often has a degree of illusionist efficacy, allowing Welles to manifest physical appearances as diverse as the pudgy, aged jollity of Falstaff, the dramatic, brooding intensity of Macbeth, the grotesque, slovenly toughness of Hank Quinlan, and the extreme, angular severity of Father Mapple. In fact, Welles himself frequently referred to his continual use of makeup as camouflage, an attempt to at least partially hide himself within the characters he embodied. Here then, theatrical makeup becomes simultaneously an agent of illusionist transformation and an indicator of theatrical creation. A wig and a false nose not only function as markers of performativity, but also allow Welles to become someone physically different from himself, ranging from the dark skinned moor of Othello to the ebullient, semi-grotesque Southern patriarch of The Long Hot Summer.

In a similar manner, Welles frequently also employs particular accents and vocal patterns in order to indicate his assumption of a persona very different from his own. From the Irish brogue of Michael O'Hara, which Crowther described as painfully artificial, to the overdone drawl of Will Varner in The Long Hot Summer, which the same critic dubbed a "[put] on Southern accent that you can hardly understand," these accents tend to be clearly false and assumed, thus referencing their constructed and performed status in a Brechtian fashion even as they help to indicate Welles' illusionistic transformation into yet another vastly different personality. Gregory Arkadin's speech is marked by hyperbolically exaggerated Slavic intonations, for example then, while Lord Mountdrago sounds vaguely like an upperclass Englishman from time to time. Even in roles that are not so clearly bound to a specific, easily indicated, national or regional sound, Welles still manipulates his voice in order to fashion a clearly constructed, evocative vocal pattern for the new identity he is assuming and interpreting on film. Thus, Clay in The Immortal Story always speaks in clipped, bitter, somewhat breathless tones, while Hank Quinlan's speech is marked by a degree of muttering and mumbling that matches his slovenly appearance. Like the use of theatrical makeup then, this particular technique is a key factor in allowing Welles to evince a compelling sense of self, actor, and character in interaction as he performs. Indeed, the very discrepancy between his voice in such performances and the infamous, Wellesian sound is one of the strongest indicators of the difference and specificity of the given new personality that Welles assumes, while the falsity of the delivery itself pulls attention back to Welles the actor, and the manner in which he has consciously chosen to manipulate his voice in order to assume yet another identity.

At the same time, in other roles, and even at specific instances within some of these roles, Welles rather calls upon and employs the distinctive and inimitable sound for which he had been so well known since his days on the radio. In films such as Othello, Lord Mountdrago, Moby Dick, and Macbeth, Welles frequently plays upon the melodious and dramatic capacities of his booming, inimitable voice, employing heightened delivery, clear, theatrical diction, and particularly a unique, syncopated style of verbal pacing which serve to both indicate a created, theatrical style, and also to remind of the specific presence of Orson Welles, so famous for his distinctive vocal quality and delivery. Lord Mountdrago's political speech and Father Mapple's sermon, for instance, are each delivered in a highly rhetorical, almost musical manner, moving deftly through a variety of well chosen pitches, tempos and intensities that clearly indicate their status as complexly orchestrated performances and also capitalize on the familiar resonance and quasi-hypnotic expressivity of Welles' voice as such. Macbeth also features this use of heightened, syncopated delivery that is at once both theatrical and inimitably Wellesian, augmenting this dual focus even further by rendering certain of Welles' soliloquies as voiceovers and thus also potentially reminding viewers of listening to that uniquely expressive, theatrical and hypnotic voice on the radio or in earlier instances of film narration. Finally, even in films such as Lady From Shanghai, Touch of Evil and The Long Hot Summer, in which Welles affects an accent or vocal pattern so different from his own typical sound, he nonetheless continues to employ his distinctively syncopated, off the beat sort of phrasing, again offering a sense of Welles the individual and actor shining through and actively creating these widely varying personalities.

Similarly, this unique balance of self, character and performer within Welles' renditions of fictional characters in narrative films is also aided by a frequent use of large, expressive gestures drawn from sources ranging from Expressionist theatre and film, to melodramatic systems of physical attitudes employed on the 19th Century stage. The infamous hypnotic stare, for instance, drawn straight from German Expressionist practices of trance acting, figures heavily in Welles' performance as Franz Kindler in The Stranger and, at least given the evidence of its advertising poster, especially in his construction of Charlatan Cagliostro in Black Magic. In addition, other elements of the Expressionist style, such as heavily stylized or distorted gestures and movements also form a central part of certain Wellesian characterizations, including his interpretations of both Othello and Macbeth. Conversely, in other films, the non-naturalistic nature of Welles' physicality can be directly connected to the practices of the 19th and early 20th Century melodramatic stage, as he frequently assumes expressive physical attitudes that might have been drawn directly from the pages of Delsarte-inspired manuals for actors. In his bravura political speech in Lord Mountdrago, for example, Welles points, leans and gesticulates in an extremely constructed, Delsartian manner, even, near the end of his triumphant monologue, assuming the exact pose that Charles Aubert suggests in order to convey "assurance, independence, gay humor, and self-content" (weight evenly distributed and thumbs hooked casually into the armholes of a vest). Such stylized, highly performative gestures then, like their vocal counterparts, again serve to underline the theatricality of these Wellesian characters, and thus to help focus attention on why Welles the actor might be constructing his performance in this specific manner.

Moreover, this sort of non-naturalistic physicality was amongst the elements of Welles' acting style that most offended realistically-minded critics, thus ultimately becoming a central part of his reputation as a hammy, self-indulgent performer. Crowther, for example, described Welles' Othello as "monstrous in his pictorial movements," and snidely condemned the Expressionist physicality of Welles' work in both The Stranger (dubiously referring to the way in which Welles' nostrils "flange out and his eyes… pop and roll" in the film), and in Macbeth, (castigating Welles for deploying "himself and his actors so that they move and strike the attitudes of tortured grotesques and half-mad zealots in a Black Mass or an ancient ritual.") With such criticisms becoming a major aspect of the common understanding of Wellesian performance then, Welles' continued use of heavily stylized, performative gestures might also be seen to help further the sense of his own, particular presence within the characters he theatrically fashioned. Indeed, as his career went on, Welles' use of a technique such as the hypnotic, Expressionist stare must have begun not only to underline the presentational, constructed nature of his characters as such, but also to strengthen the concurrent recognition that it was Orson Welles, so known for his use of such techniques, who was specifically fashioning these performative identities for himself to play. Certainly, the fact that Expressionist physicality, and particularly the hypnotic stare, play such a significant role in Welles' expressly self-parodic performance as the villainous Le Chiffre in 1967's Casino Royale suggests that this might well have been the case.

Another technique that figures heavily in the self-parodic performance of Casino Royale, and which generally came to function as a clear-cut marker of Welles' specific, individual presence within the various characters he constructed, was his frequent tendency to assume what Anderegg has dubbed "the knowing gaze and its aural equivalent." This incomparable expression, eyes crinkled at the corners and twinkling mischievously, Puckish smile playing at the lips, and voice cunning and roguish, has been most widely discussed in relation to its remarkable functioning in Welles performance as Harry Lime in The Third Man. Indeed, as Anderegg says, at several points in this film, and particularly in his introductory shots, "Harry Lime's expression is pure Welles, … point[ing] back beyond [the character] to the actor personality who plays him" (emphasis mine). This inimitably Wellesian expression also works its way into several of his other performances however, ranging from Michael O'Hara and Lord Mountdrago to Falstaff and Will Varner, becoming, in the process, one of the strongest ways in which the specific presence of Orson Welles is telegraphed and foregrounded from within the boundaries of the many and various characters he plays. Like his continued use of the hypnotic stare and hypnotic voice then, as well as other practices such as his near-constant puffing on cigars both on camera and off, Welles frequent, clever incorporation of "the knowing gaze and its aural equivalent" into his performances serves to maintain a clear awareness that this is not merely any actor fashioning a clearly constructed and performative character, but rather it is Orson Welles in particular. Again then, this technique contributes significantly to the unique and important balance of actor, self and character to be found in Welles work as a performer of fictional roles on film.

Finally, several writers have noted that Welles frequently also calls attention to his own presence as performer by attacking his roles in a manner that sharply differs from the approach taken by other actors in his films. Anderegg, for example, suggests that Welles "deliberately sets himself against the dominant tonality of the film in which he appears by adopting a style that provides something in excess of, or at least different from, what the project or role demand." Not surprisingly, Anderegg interprets this strategy in strictly Brechtian terms, suggesting that Welles' self-conscious pursuit of difference was designed to demand recognition of his performances, and by extension, of the films in which he appeared, as specific, unusual constructions. While this is an apt and potentially useful observation, it nonetheless also seems important to specifically consider the vast range of different performance traditions - many of which are quite non-Brechtian in character - which Welles drew upon to actually achieve this effect, as well as the way in which these contrasting performance styles ultimately aid in creating the sense of each Wellesian character as an extraordinarily different, constructed personality for Welles the individual to perform.

It is by adopting a specifically Expressionist style in The Stranger, for instance, with the extreme facial expressions and stylized movements and vocal delivery associated with that theatrical tradition, that Welles' performance comes to differ so markedly from the more measured, Classical Hollywood acting of his co-stars Edward G. Robinson and Loretta Young. Similarly, in The Long Hot Summer, Welles' use of typed vocal inflections and broad, expansive gestures owing more than a little to the presentational traditions of 19th Century popular theatre matches neither the subtle and restrained "cool" Method style of Paul Newman, nor the highly psychologicalized "hot" Method performance of Anthony Franciosa. In such instances then, the diverse and multiply-influenced nature of Wellesian acting allows him to adapt and construct his performances such that they continually stand out and call attention to themselves exactly as performed, non-essential entities. Moreover, this continual shifting in styles across Welles' films also aids in creating a sense of the vastly different, contrasting nature of the various personalities and characters into which he transformed himself over the course of his career. Indeed, despite their equally theatrical, performative, and specifically Wellesian nature, no one would confuse Will Varner with Franz Kindler or Lord Mountdrago. It is largely the employment of performance traditions that vary widely from each other as well as from the style adopted by the other actors in each of these films that allows Welles to create such vastly and noticeably different personalities, even while he underscores their shared status as ultimately constructed entities.

Importantly, this Wellesian employment of self-consciously contrary performance styles is not strictly limited to situations in which the actor seems more exaggerated and presentational than his fellow actors, and thus needn't necessarily be seen as a result of some natural proclivity for exaggeration and hamminess on his part. For instance, the largely subtle, non-theatrical vocal delivery that Welles employs as Falstaff in Chimes at Midnight differs greatly from the poetic and melodious presentational tones of Gielgud's Henry IV, while, as Anderegg has aptly described, his remarkably intimate and nuanced interpretation of Jonathan Wilk in Compulsion stands out, given the film's generally broad, histrionic style, in its very realism and restraint. Perhaps most interestingly in this regard, in his complex and multi-faceted interpretation of Hank Quinlan in Touch of Evil, Welles actually manages to achieve this sense of constructed uniqueness by dialogically incorporating elements from apparently contrasting performance traditions within this one, individual role. Specifically, in its blending of Method-influenced psychological development (particularly suggested by the tormented expression in Quinlan's eyes that subtlely peaks through the excessive makeup when he discusses the past), and a more exaggerated, theatrical indication of Quinlan's negative character traits (seen especially in his stereotypically gruff, mumbled delivery and stilted, slovenly physicality), Welles' performance is neither as "Classical Hollywood" as that of Charlton Heston or Janet Leigh, nor as stylized and extreme as that of Akim Tamiroff or Dennis Weaver. Here then, the dialogic drawing from a variety of performance styles that can be noted across Welles' different roles can also be seen operating within this one individual performance, ultimately allowing him to create a character that stands out from both the other characters in the film and from the other characters that he himself has portrayed. Again, the result is a strange, quasi-magical realization of the way in which Welles as actor is constructing this highly performative entity, and thus transforming himself once again before our very eyes.

With this complex process somewhat precariously established across Welles' work as an actor in fictional films then, I turn now to the case of Citizen Kane specifically. In so doing, I hope to provide a more detailed and illuminating elaboration of this complex, heteroglot acting style, and to further indicate that style's potential significance in relation to Welles' life and work in general. Like his performance of Quinlan in Touch of Evil, Welles' remarkable interpretation of Charles Foster Kane is especially interesting in that it offers a particularly extreme manifestation of the process that I've been noting across his career as a whole. Indeed, throughout the film, we continually see this sense of Welles performing and constructing both Kane and himself, employing, as Anderegg has pointed out, "a number of distinct acting styles, from the relative naturalism of the scenes where Kane is still a young idealist, to the heightened formalism of the scenes depicting Kane's final years at Xanadu." Once again, Anderegg explores and interprets this provocative observation mainly in Brechtian terms. My goal here (in addition to augmenting and developing Anderegg's helpful observations themselves) is rather to show the way in which, beyond its relative Brechtian effects, Welles' heteroglot performance in this film activates the sort of process I have been outlining above, with its various, shifting acting styles and performative techniques ultimately allowing Welles to transform himself into diverse instantiations of the similarly complex and performative entity that is Charles Foster Kane.

As the film begins, for example, our first glimpse of Welles is in the massive close up of his lips, adorned with an obviously whitened mustache, as they whisper Kane's infamous dying word. Already in this immediate introduction, the noticeable, heavy makeup underlines the constructed, theatrical nature of the character to whom this mouth belongs, even as it clearly provides important information about that specific character himself (in terms of his age, health status, etc.). In the same way, the stylized, dramatically drawn out way in which Welles whispers "Rosebud," full of haunting breathiness and mystery as well as a certain typed, "Old Man" scratchiness, similarly underlines the performative nature of this characterization, while also focusing attention on the enigmatic details of this fictional individual's story and character. Finally, as Anderegg suggests, this opening sequence might also be seen to refer back beyond Kane to the presence of Welles himself, as the experience of listening to his supremely effective, nearly-disembodied voice might well remind viewers of his status as an established radio star. Even before his whole face has made it onscreen then, Welles' performance as Charles Foster Kane can be seen to activate a unique interaction between character, actor, and the specifically Wellesian persona.

Welles then continues to develop this complex process throughout the remainder of the film, drawing from a vast array of performance styles and techniques not only to indicate the shifting nature of Kane's performative personality, but also to maintain a degree of emphasis on his own role in magically transforming himself into this other individual. In the newsreel, for example, following several images in which, as Anderegg rightly notes, Welles draws heavily from the exaggerated acting style of silent movie performers (and thus suggests the performed nature of Kane's personality already), we hear Charles Foster Kane speak while seeing him in his entirety for the first time. At this instant, his voice wily and full of inimitable Wellesian mischief, Kane significantly says "Don't believe everything you hear on the radio," a piece of advice which many have noted for the way in which it seems to refer to the furor caused by Welles' own War of the World broadcast in 1938. Indeed, Welles' specific delivery of this line seems to invite such a comparison, as his use of the distinctive Wellesian voice at this moment augments the words themselves in referring back to his own persona and performance history. Importantly, following this brief, ironic rupture, Welles breaks immediately in to the overdone, theatrical grin which he has already established as a key marker of Kane's particular identity and assumes a slightly different, more affected vocal delivery for the remainder of the line ("read the Inquirer.") Here, having called attention to his own presence, Welles swiftly and noticeably switches the focus back to the obviously performed, theatrical means by which he transforms himself into Kane's specific personality.

He once again becomes an actor obviously crafting a specific character, but this momentary break asks us to remember that he is not just any actor, but specifically Orson Welles.
In the scenes depicting Kane's youth, Welles employs still different techniques and performance traditions to continue this complex process. In particular, his performance now takes on a certain degree of what I would call heightened realism, drawing largely from Classical film acting, but inflecting that style with certain elements that underscore both its performative nature and his own continued presence. On one hand then, Welles' generally non-stylized, unadorned performance in these sections allow a focus on the details of Charles Foster Kane as a fictional identity, permitting us to engage with the character that Welles has illusionistically created, rather than forcing our attention toward his performative process as such. At the same time however, the simultaneous presence of subtly evoked theatrical and personal elements nonetheless continue to underline the fact that, despite its believability, this complex personality is a creation being fashioned by Orson Welles. So, for instance, while remaining generally within the bounds of realism, the interactions between Kane, Leland and Bernstein in these early scenes nonetheless seem clearly rehearsed, as the three men jump on each others' cues and complement each others' words and actions with the timing and facility of a well-oiled machine. Indeed, at several moments, such as their initial infiltration of the Inquirer offices, these three bear more than a passing resemblance to a group of vaudevillian comedians, drawing heavily from the more self-consciously constructed traditions of comedy that had become common in 1930s Hollywood.

In addition however, Welles in particular serves to further point to the constructed nature of his performance, despite its relative degree of Hollywood realism, by employing several of the techniques that I have discussed above. Slightly too much eyeliner peaks out around his eyes, for example, and in certain shots, if you look closely enough, you can almost discern the putty that has been added to theatrically modify his nose. Similarly, his theatrically conceived vocal delivery, often drastically shifting in pace and intensity, emphasizing off beats, and engaging in unexpected pauses, clearly indicates the rehearsed, constructed nature of his performance without stretching it entirely beyond realistic extremes. (His first scene with Thatcher in the newspaper office, for instance, offers a particularly strong example of this process). Moreover, the mischievous twinkle that frequently makes its way into those heavily made up eyes and the general employment throughout this section of the familiar Wellesian tones and delivery also serve to retain a focus on Welles' presence as a specific performer, here simply choosing to employ a quasi-realist style.

Perhaps most interestingly in this regard however, Welles' somewhat tense physicality in these early scenes seems expressly conceived so as to indicate self-confidence and assurance without allowing us to entirely believe that these attributes are part of Kane's natural character. He continually moves in a manner that suggests that Kane is self-consciously choosing his gestures, frequently engaging in an ostentatious sort of swagger, for instance, with his hands placed noticeably in his pockets or on his hips, his head cocked somewhat unnaturally to one side, and a toothy grin plastered on his face. Here, Welles might be seen to activate his complex combination of character realism and performative critique in a particularly interesting way, as these physical mannerisms (like his vocal delivery) stretch the bounds of realist performance without breaking them, thus maintaining the possibility of assigning them a plausible, character-based motivation within the fictional world. Indeed, we largely remain somewhat uncertain as to whether we should attribute the put on nature of this physicality to the actor creating the role or to the character himself. As such, this somewhat theatrical technique becomes both an element indicating the constructedness of Welles' performance and a successful, illusionist realization of Kane's individual personality, itself marked by a tendency to perform. In this respect, Welles' complicated employment and inflection of a quasi-realist acting style in these early sections of the film not only sets in motion the complex interplay of individual, actor and character that typifies Wellesian performance generally, but also provocatively begins to suggest the potential ways in which the boundaries between Charles Foster Kane the actor and Orson Welles the actor might themselves be blurred.

As the film progresses, Welles continues this process in several interesting ways. In the middle sections of the film, surrounding Kane's political career, for example, he employs a new, widely divergent acting style that draws heavily from traditions of oratory and from the practices of the 19th Century Romantic stage. His makeup becomes more extreme and obvious, and yet is still remarkably effective in drastically transforming his appearance, thus suggesting both a brand new identity and the way in which that identity is ultimately constructed. Similarly, Welles' vocal delivery becomes more booming and theatrical, while his physical mannerisms lose even the veneer of naturalism they used to retain and begin to tend toward more exaggerated, Delsartian performativity. Indeed, Kane now comes across as almost an entirely different person. In this manner then, Welles not only indicates the clearly theatrical, constructed nature of his performance, but he also illustrates the way in which the assumption of such a new theatrical style can result in the creation of an extremely different sort of identity, one which is not entirely without its believable characteristics.

Of course, several indicators of both Welles' specific presence and of the earlier Charles Foster Kane still linger within this newly fashioned personality. The complexly orchestrated Wellesian vocal delivery still figures heavily, for instance, as does the puckish twinkle in the eye and the knowing grin. As such, Welles continues to foreground his own particular presence within even this strikingly different sort of individual, thus suggesting the way in which he has magically transformed himself yet again. At the same time however, the sheer fact that these same techniques are amongst the only elements in which the new Charles Foster Kane seems to resemble the old, causes them to suggest the continued presence of that previous manifestation of the character as well, even as they point to the presence of Welles himself. In this respect, Welles' complex acting style provides a strong indication of not only how he, Orson Welles, might illusionistically transform himself into a variety of different identities, but how Kane, like Welles, might also continually recreate and transform himself through performance. In fact, the shift in Welles' acting style back to a more naturalistic register for a brief segment of the scene in Susan's apartment further illustrates this idea, indicating the continued presence of the previous Charles Foster Kane within this new creature, and thus further underlining the fact that he is otherwise performing his new, drastically different identity. Here then, the obvious theatricality of Welles' performance itself becomes an essential part of his illusionist realization of this character, who, like Welles, might be seen as a supremely effective theatrical conjuror. The boundaries between "living a character" and performing it thus become blurred, as indeed do the boundaries between Kane and Welles himself.

In a particularly interesting instantiation of this process, in the middle of his political speech, Welles-Kane leans dramatically over the edge of his podium and offers a toothy grin in what appears to be the direction of the camera. At this striking moment, the clear-cut performativity of Welles' characterization is suggested not only by his exaggerated actions and voice, but also by his ostensible acknowledgment of the larger film audience and resulting deconstruction of the fictional, onscreen world. The subsequent shot however, suggests that Kane's look and smile might actually have been directed toward his watching family members, logically re-framing this apparently deconstructive performativity within the constraints of the fictional world. What appeared to be Welles addressing us as spectators suddenly becomes Kane, also an actor, addressing his own, onscreen audience. In this shocking confusion of character's and actor's performance then, Welles' acting style again not only mobilizes an interaction between performer, character and self, but also ultimately comes to suggest a fundamental similarity between his own performative, continually transforming identity and that of the equally constructed, constructing actor that he has so vividly created.

Finally, Welles switches acting styles yet again towards the end of the film in order to further indicate the shifting nature of Kane's highly performative personality. In particular, during the final sections of the film, (surrounding Kane's marriage to Susan and his decline at Xanadu), Welles' adopts a highly Expressionist acting style, calling heavily upon the trance-like, hypnotic stare, large, expressive gestures, and a dark, ominously restrained vocal delivery that seems to threaten to explode into violence at any moment. Indeed, the extreme, animalistic rage that he manifests in destroying Susan's room is only the culmination of this highly stylized, Expressionist style. His makeup also becomes even more obvious and grotesque, vastly altering his appearance yet again, and thus illustrating once more the way in which a highly theatrical, performed identity may nonetheless be somewhat illusionistically effective. Again then, in this final shift to a more Expressionist acting style, Welles calls upon still another distinctive performance tradition in order to transform himself into yet another instantiation of both Charles Foster Kane and of Orson Welles, one which diverges greatly from the earlier manifestations of both of these individuals, even despite its status as a similarly theatrical creation.

Moreover, even this highly formalized, Expressionist performance is not without its simultaneous illusionist elements. The deep seated, much more naturalistic pain which exudes from Welles-Kane's eyes after he finishes destroying Susan's room, for instance, suggests the very real humanity of even this Golem-like figure, making his preceding performance of rage all the more affecting. Indeed, Welles himself is said to have remarked after shooting this scene that he "really felt it," suggesting that his highly stylized, theatrical performance held a degree of illusionist efficacy even for him as he created it. Furthermore, in a more general sense, our by now well-established understanding of Kane's own status as a performer within the fictional world also contributes to the quasi-realist believability of this highly stylized and clearly constructed style, positioning it as just one more manifestation of Kane's complex, performative personality. Again, performance itself becomes an important and believable element of reality, as the employment of a shifting and multiple acting style allows both Kane and Welles to magically transform themselves into a vastly different sort of personality before our very eyes.

Across this film, then, Welles employs shifting performance styles and techniques in order to indicate the multiple and varying nature of Kane's personality. Moreover, the noticeable theatricality of these techniques continually serves to underline both his distinctive presence as the actor creating Kane for this film, as well as Kane's own status as an actor creating his identity within the fictional world. As such, beyond Anderegg's Brechtian interpretation of this performance, it seems equally plausible to relate Welles' complex realization of Charles Foster Kane to a desire to suggest the ultimate complexity, indefiniteness, and performativity of identity itself. In line with the so-called "enigma interpretation" of this film advanced by scholars such as Noel Carroll and Jorge Luis Borges, Welles' performance suggests that Kane was all these widely differing personalities and yet essentially none of them; he behaved in all of these manners and continually performed and transformed himself throughout his life in a manner that negates the possibility of defining his identity in singular, monolithic terms. Moreover, through the simultaneous foregrounding of his own individual presence, and the general confusion between the performances of the actor and of the character that occur throughout this film, this theme might well be extended to the enigmatic, labyrinthine nature of Welles himself. Here then, Wellesian acting not only plays a centrally important role in developing significant thematic content in his most highly regarded directorial effort, but also begins to shed some light on the equally often discussed issue of Welles' own complex and enigmatic personality.

Rather than simply being "impossibly hammy" or unworthy of critical scrutiny then, Welles' acting might instead be seen as a central element of his artistic life and career. It is indicative of his tendency towards complexity, ambivalence and parody, and also seems to represent yet another means by which he conducted his continued examination of the multiplicity of man, the indefinable nature of character, and the performativity of personality. In this way, Welles' acting becomes centrally related to his persona in general, and to a major theme of his work. Indeed, throughout his career he continually posed questions such as "Who is Kane?" "Who is Arkadin?" and "Who is Elmyr?" and determinedly thwarted attempts to understand or essentialize his own personality at every turn. Complementing and contributing to this complex process, Welles' heteroglot acting style suggests that he, like Kane, can be many things; he is all of the characters he creates and more, and, further, all of these identities are only magical performances - creations, rather than monolithic, unchangeable, or natural entities. Arguably then, Welles' performances can in fact be seen not as a source of embarrassment for his celebrators, but rather as a particularly significant avenue by which he explored a central preoccupation of his more widely appreciated directorial career and also came to comment on his own enigmatic and widely debated persona. In fact, his specific acting process might even be understood as yet another example of his status as visionary innovator, allowing him to point out and to celebrate the very postmodern notion of the performative nature of identity years before it became a cultural commonplace. "Everybody in the world is an actor," Welles once told Peter Bogdanovich. "Conversation is acting… Everything we do is some sort of a performance." As much as his directing, writing or public appearances, it is Welles' work as a professional performer that seems best able to reflect this important social and artistic concern.

                                                                  © THE FILM JOURNAL 2004