Pitch Deadline: 30 March 2012
Final Deadline: 4 May 2012

Contact: Calum Marsh, Jordan Cronk and Sarah Zupko

Email: calummarsh@gmail.com, jordancronk21@gmail.com, editor@popmatters.com

Over the course of a week-long special feature, PopMatters is excited to offer a new venue for film scholars, historians, critics, and social theorists of any stripe to reexamine the legacy of one of the American cinema's most iconic but divisive masters, Orson Welles.

Though his first feature, Citizen Kane, continues to be regarded by the high guard as one of the finest films ever made, Welles spent the rest of his life producing pictures that would either be widely derided or entirely neglected, if he was even able to complete them. Reduced in his twilight years to acting in wine adverts and second-rate blockbusters in order to personally bankroll projects no real producers would, Welles was always working, even at the very end of his life, on films every bit as potent and radical as the debut that eclipsed his career.

In the more than 25 years since his death, precious little has changed: Welles is still considered something of a cinematic one-hit wonder, and many of his later projects, including final feature The Other Side of the Wind, remain unfinished or unreleased as a result of arcane legal complications and skirmishes over rights. Even many of those with proper formal releases exist only in heavily butchered form, "restored" to some approximation of completion using guess-work and speculation.

To bring Welles back to the spotlight, and to try however feebly to reemphasize his unparalleled genius, PopMatters strongly encourages film scholars, critics, and theorists from related fields to provide insights and commentary on any aspect of the forgotten master's career. Though we welcome criticism of any tone, we are particularly interested in essays focused on positively reappraising a filmmaker whose name has been dragged through the critical mud for decades already.

The goal of this project is to push back against the seemingly unanimous contempt directed toward Welles over the years, and to highlight work that's been largely forgotten or misread. Essays between 1,000 and 4,000 words will be due by 4 May 2012, though earlier submissions would be very much appreciated. Because these essays will be read by students and fans (as well as detractors) of Welles from all over the world, the highest standards of writing and critical thought will be anticipated. We are especially interested in critical explorations of the concepts of authorship and text as they applied to Welles' unfinished or re-edited films, as well as in-depth studies of the legal issues surrounding his as of yet unreleased projects.

Submissions should be directed to full under one of the following topic headings, though we are certainly open to ideas not suggested here:

- Welles 101 - An Unstable Canon: Exploring What We Can Of Welles' Filmography (We'd like between 500-1500 words on each of Welles' features, including, if appropriate, separate pieces on each of the available versions of Mr. Arkadin and Touch Of Evil, and stand-alone pieces on Don Quixote, The Other Side Of The Wind, and Filming Othello.)

- The "Director's Cut" And What It Means (And Doesn't Mean)

- The Mercury Theatre: Orson's Plays

- Radio Days: Orson On Air

- Orson's Unfinished Films: Speculation, Insight, Analysis

- Aging And Death: A Thematic Fixation

- "Raising Kane", Pauline Kael's Controversial (And Misleading) Book

- Possibilities: Projects Worked On But Never Made

- Nostalgia For The Past

- Examining Orson's Legacy

- Examining Orson's Critical Reputation

- Great Adaptations: Literature And Orson Welles

- Orson's Shakespeare

All correspondence should be addressed to: Calum Marsh, Jordan Cronk and Sarah Zupko, calummarsh@gmail.com, jordancronk21@gmail.com, editor@popmatters.com.

We look forward to assembling this feature series and hope that you find it both interesting and worthy of your participation.