Orson Welles’ final film, The Other Side of the Wind, was shot in early 1970s—but left unfinished at the time of the great man’s death in 1985. In the decades that followed, the fate of the hundred hours of footage Welles shot was entangled in impossible legal and financial complications. But against all odds, and after countless announcements and false starts (we contributed to a crowdsource campaign years ago and didn’t even get the promised t-shirt), thanks to Netflix, a version of the film has finally been completed. And last Saturday – third row, center – we saw the movie (and the spectacular panel that followed, which included Peter Bogdanovich and Martin Scorsese) at the New York Film Festival, where Wind had its North American premiere before a sold-out crowd practically undulating with anticipation.
It is premature to write critically (and to some extent even premature to think analytically) about the picture; like most serious films, it requires three viewings to start that process. (Hmmm, we should post about the “three viewings principle.”) Moreover, after forty years of anticipation, it’s hard to give the movie a fair shake—nothing could live up to the expectations created by years of dreaming about the very possibility of the film. So here instead, for now, are a few first impressions.
Wind is necessarily a compromised film—as noted, Welles did not see it to the finish line. But we are comfortable calling it his. With the exception of a few effects and overdubs, the footage is all from the original production, and the team dedicated to assembling the film had at its disposal, in addition to several scenes already fine edited by Welles, his notes and instructions, and input regarding his intentions from crucial participants, including Bogdanovich. (Then at the peak of his success as a wunderkind director, Bogdnaovich had one of the lead roles in the film, and Welles asked his young devotee to promise to see the film to completion should he prove unable to do so in his lifetime). In addition, and crucially, the plot, the performances and the production are redolently Wellesian.
The Other Side of the Wind concerns the struggles of legendary director Jake Hannaford (John Huston, so brilliant and flawless it is impossible to imagine anyone else in the role), set against the backdrop of his seventieth birthday party—the essentials are efficiently summarized in this excellent trailer. It is a tough and ultimately sad film (Scorsese, in his comments after the screening, used the words “emotional” and even “painful” in describing how well Wind captures the agonies directors can experience in getting their films financed and completed—an agony that Welles knew better than most). Yet at the same time, the movie is also brimming with more humor than any other Welles film.
Our immediate reaction can be summed up in two words: thrilled and overwhelmed. Thrilled that the movie exists, and that it is replete with great scenes, set-ups, sequences, and performances, and, here our go-to metric—thrilled that it has something to say. Indeed it has a lot to say. But also overwhelmed, because the movie, like Jake Hannaford, comes at you relentlessly and never stops. The shooting style is frenetic and overpowering (here the third row was perhaps not an unmitigated privilege), and once or twice, especially in the first half (before the momentum of the narrative becomes irresistible), we found ourselves rooting for a slower passage, just to catch the breath and reflect. (Bogdanovich mentioned that he asked Orson if there might not be an opportunity to include some long take, deep focus scenes—a celebrated signature that distinguished his early masterpieces. But Welles explained that was only possible when he had the resources of a Hollywood studio; his shot-on-the-fly, independent productions required him to deploy a shooting style that allowed him to cut around actors, locations, and the passage of time. That Welles mastered each of these diametrically opposed styles is a revelation.)
We also want to wade into the great “is it autobiographical” debate, which pits Welles (“it’s just a movie”) against the rest of the entire world (“don’t be ridiculous, of course it is”). The world has plenty of logic and evidence on its side: Welles directed this film about a genius filmmaker who has trouble completing films (who could that possibly be), and one who has (understandably, in our view) mixed feelings about the New Hollywood, and the money suddenly being showered on young filmmakers by studios who consider him a has-been. Welles also wrote the film with his long-time companion Oja Kodar (who has a leading role); he talked often of playing the fictional director himself; and, in Bogdanovich’s most moving anecdote, when feeding lines to him in a most revealing scene between Hannaford and that top-of-the-world young hotshot, gave the direction, “this is you and me.”
So there is all that, and its inarguable. Nevertheless, we’re going to go with “deeply personal film,” but one that falls well short of a self-reflection. Welles is not Hannaford—Huston is Hannaford, that’s why no one else could play him. Not in the “can’t finish a movie” sense (that wasn’t Huston’s problem, he finished forty of them), but in the incarnation of a certain type of precarious masculinist sensibility. This is at the center of the film, of many of its puzzles and mysteries, of its one surprising “reveal” (we didn’t see it coming, and neither did Hannaford), and is given voice by the one-woman Greek-chorus, the critic Julie Rich (an excellent Susan Strasberg). That is all Huston, and it is not Welles. (An aside: over the years, we have read how the (purportedly) unflattering presentation of Strasberg’s character was an act of revenge—a thinly-veiled portrayal of film critic and Welles nemesis Pauline Kael, designed to embarrass and settle scores. We found the character’s comments incisive, and cutting.)
Which is not to say there isn’t a ton of Welles in this movie (we don’t call it “deeply personal” for nothing). This is of course plain in the Hannaford/Otterlake (Bogdanovich) relationship, which is at the core of the movie and inexorably cumulates its tensions to the very end, and more joyously (if that word can be permitted), represented in that band of dedicated minions who work tirelessly for, and have an intense loyalty regarding, that central, charismatic, ego-driven master who often seems less than worthy of such devotion. One of the great pleasures of The Other Side of the Wind is to see the dozen fine actors filling out these roles: Welles affiliate Norman Foster (he directed Journey into Fear in 1943); also marvelous is the great Paul Stewart (the valet in Citizen Kane, his ties to Welles go back to the old radio days); Lily Palmer, outstanding in a role Welles had written for close friend Marlene Dietrich, and so many others, including Edmond O’Brien, and Chief O’Hara (Stafford Repp – who knew!)
But wait—there’s more. We’re also eager to see Morgan Neville’s new documentary They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead, which will surely help bring more context to a very complex film; and then the DVD – oh the DVD – the extras promise to be something. As noted, Welles shot about 100 hours of film. Legend has it that the glimpses seen on screen of young directors talking about the movies – Paul Mazursky, Henry Jaglom, and Dennis Hopper – were but fragments of extended conversations about the New Hollywood and the Old, all captured on film. And there was MCC favorite Claude Chabrol, in the movie with a line or two, and occasionally seen in the background (once, fleetingly, in the company of his wife and collaborator Stephane Audran)—might he show up with more in the extras as well?
The Other Side of the Wind—this is a conversation that is just beginning.
Peter Bogdanovich talking Welles and Wind at the New York Film Festival
Martin Scorsese shares his reactions
