After Citizen Kane, Orson Welles embarked on a career checkered with brilliant achievements, miserable failures, and seemingly unending artistic challenges during nearly 45 years of filmmaking.

“I passionately hate the idea of being ‘with it,’ ” Welles said. “I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.”

Welles may have been a maverick who received little financial support from studios in the United States and Europe, but the film world at least learned to acknowledge his artistry.

The motion picture industry bestowed on Welles its highest awards: he received an honorary Oscar in 1971 for lifelong contributions to the art of cinema, the Life Achievement Award of the American Film Institute in 1975, and the D. W. Griffith Award from the Directors Guild of America in 1984—a rogue visionary honored by the establishment.

Welles appeared in a motion picture for the final time in a captivating role as the commentator of Henry Jaglom’s Someone to Love. The film, shot in 1985 shortly before Welles’ death, but not released until three years later, provides a bittersweet memorial to Welles— a last opportunity for him to probe once more the questions of life, love, and relationships.

Welles’ appearance in Someone to Love, however, would not mark the last time he would make news after he died. Welles turned out to be something of a psychic, because in his last days, he fully understood that a new threat loomed for his greatest work…