Here's something you might be interested in.
A snippet from somwhere around 1:45:
"Somebody said that Touch of Evil seemed very unreal and yet real. And I corrected that statement and said what I was trying to do was to make something which was unreal but true. And I think that's the definition of the highest kind of theatricality, the best kind - that's a kind of theatricality that can exist in films, too. What is more unreal and stylized than Cagney? It's a totally stylized, unreal performance - no human being ever behaved the way he does. And every moment of Cagney's entire life in films is truth. He never had a second that wasn't true. He certainly was larger than life. He did everything dangerously and as though he were playing in Madison Square Garden, and it was always cinematically true. But unreal. That's the difference, I guess - I think."
Oh, and here's a probably illegal upload of F. for Fake, Welles' foray into film-as-personal-essay, which includes this astonishing bit:
A snippet from somwhere around 1:45:
"Somebody said that Touch of Evil seemed very unreal and yet real. And I corrected that statement and said what I was trying to do was to make something which was unreal but true. And I think that's the definition of the highest kind of theatricality, the best kind - that's a kind of theatricality that can exist in films, too. What is more unreal and stylized than Cagney? It's a totally stylized, unreal performance - no human being ever behaved the way he does. And every moment of Cagney's entire life in films is truth. He never had a second that wasn't true. He certainly was larger than life. He did everything dangerously and as though he were playing in Madison Square Garden, and it was always cinematically true. But unreal. That's the difference, I guess - I think."
Oh, and here's a probably illegal upload of F. for Fake, Welles' foray into film-as-personal-essay, which includes this astonishing bit: