Around the World with Orson Welles

Engaging, although the host doesn't always appear totally engaged, each episode seeming to convey the sense that what matters is increasingly being lost. Quality is variable, though, from the anthropology of Basque society to the less interesting interviews concerning Viennese pastry and a London home for old soldiers. But it is undeniably fascinating to see Isou, Duncan and Buchwald in Paris, and to wonder how the Tynans' fondness for bullfighting relates to Kenneth's love of spanking Elaine.

The Basque episodes are something special, a glimpse into a way of life that most people don't see (and may no longer exist anyway), and the bullfighting episode is quite informative and engrossing. Welles's interviews are always interesting, always trying to get at what he sees as important--a point of view well worth considering--but this series is perhaps the best illustration I have seen of Marlene Dietrich's quote about Welles: "When I talk to him, I feel like a plant that's been watered."

The Basque Country episodes are masterworks which show what a travel film can and indeed should be; immersion in people and places as told through personal stories. While the other episodes show glimpses of Welles' genius at work, they are a tantalising hodgepodge and leave the viewer asking ‘what could have been?' All up, an eclectic collection of essay films that form a bizarre whole. Kenneth Tynan and Elain Dundy spruiking the virtues of bull fighting in Madrid is oddly mesmerising.