Excerpt from This Is Orson Welles (Conversation between Peter Bogdanovich & Orson Welles)
PB: What American director do you like the least?
OW: [Censored.]
Here follows a full reel of tape in which Orson attacks a number of filmmakers whose work he detests. This material was very colorful indeed, but the following letter from Orson, which I received soon after he was sent the typed transcript of this day's work, leaves me no choice in the matter:
Dear Peter,
How do you like having another director lick into you? It hurts, doesn't it? You tell yourself that you are angry, but the truth is that you are hurt. I know I am. A bad word from a colleague can darken a whole day. We need encouragement a lot more than we admit, even to ourselves. There's quite enough poison floating in the Hollywood air as it is; why add to the pollution?
Of course, I hate those movies we were talking about the other day, but I don't hate the men who made them. Or want to distress them even a little bit. You told me on the phone it was very funny when I said that [name deleted] ought to be put in jail. Well, let's commute the sentence. The book doesn't need it.
Always remember that your heart is God's little garden.
Yours ever,
Louisa Mae [sic] Alcott