Exemplar
Orson Welles
historical · read by 2 of 6 traditions
How each tradition reads them
standard attribution in Jungian men's-work literature
Citizen Kane at 25 — the Precocious Child's triumph and the subsequent decades of decline.
Tarot
The Magicianinterpretive attribution
Stage magician by training, filmmaker by extension — Welles himself understood the two as the same art.
Where they sit on the lenses
Stage
- Pre-initiation
- Striving
- Liminal
- Integrating
- Integrated
Affect
- Gut · Anger
- Heart · Shame
- Head · Fear
- Eros · Desire
Stance
- Toward
- Against
- Away
Cluster coalescence
The archetypal tags above resolve into 4 clusters. Each cluster reads the exemplar in its own vocabulary; where more than one cluster surfaces, the exemplar themself is holding a structural tension.
- Death & Rebirth - Necessary Ending, TransformationLiminal · Heart · Shame · Away
- The Boy-Hero - Proving, Striving, Pre-Initiation AmbitionStriving · Gut · Anger · Against
- The Sage-Magician - Truth-Seeking and TransformationIntegrating · Head · Fear · Away
- The Creator - Imagination, Vision, Enduring FormIntegrating · Eros · Desire · Away
Orson Welles is read across divergent stances (Away vs. Against) and divergent affect centers (Heart · Shame vs. Gut · Anger vs. Head · Fear vs. Eros · Desire). The exemplar holds a tension their readers cannot — which is often why they endure.
Also read in this register
Death & Rebirth - Necessary Ending, Transformation
The Boy-Hero - Proving, Striving, Pre-Initiation Ambition
The Sage-Magician - Truth-Seeking and Transformation
The Creator - Imagination, Vision, Enduring Form