A master filmmaker’s lost work is finally unearthed.
Of all the unfinished projects Orson Welles left behind, The Other Side of the Wind was, without question, the most talked and speculated about. Those who were a part of it told tales most thought were tall, while some lucky enough to have seen footage were quick to speak about the supposed brilliance of Welles’s lost masterpiece. Aside from perhaps Alfred Hitchcock’s Kaleidoscope, The Other Side of the Wind became one of cinema’s greatest urban legends. So much has been written and gossipped about the film, from it’s cinema verite-like style, to the endless hours of footage shot, to Welles’s painstaking efforts to get the film financed and completed. Years went into shooting The Other Side of the Wind only to have the unedited footage languish after it’s director’s death in 1985. Thankfully, through the efforts of a group of filmmakers (including director Wes Anderson and producer Frank Marshall), a restoration journey was undertaken to bring Welles’s vision to eventual completion in an attempt to experience the director’s own comment on the very medium he helped define. The result is a dizzying, wild cinematic experience and one of the finest American films about movie making ever created.
In The Other Side of the Wind, former celebrated director Jake Hannaford (John Huston) has returned to Hollywood after years in a self-imposed exile to make his greatest film, a searing document of the counterculture times. A planned screening of the work-in-progress during the director’s birthday party brings out a collection of Hollywood players including Jake’s mentee (Peter Bogdanovich), a former flame (Lilli Palmer) and a cynical film critic (Susan Strasberg), among many others. What follows is an unpredictable series of events in which the larger-than-life filmmaker reveals himself to be just as complex a mystery as the very film he’s made.
I’m sure there will be those who will slam The Other Side of the Wind as one of the most up front criticisms of Hollywood ever put to film. Not only does Welles illustrate his evaluation of the industry through the director’s struggle to maintain creative freedom in the face of studio battles and almost mind-numbing adoration, but also in the array of thinly-veiled versions of real-life people who have been turned into characters for the film. Among those supposedly ripe for cinematic reinvention are the likes of critic Pauline Kael, studio executive Robert Evans and legendary actress Marlene Dietrich. No one gets a more “on the nose” treatment however than Bogdanovich’s hot shot director who is forever entranced by the glow of his mentor’s legacy.
Beyond the individual send ups, The Other Side of the Wind takes on the state of the movie industry itself through a collection of raw footage showing prominent names of the day including Henry Jaglom and Dennis Hopper discussing their craft in relation to self and society, echoing the strong self-analytical quality running rampant in the era of the great auteur. With sequences featuring midgets, guests shooting up mannequins with rifles and a subtle homosexual subplot (one of many), The Other Side of the Wind almost feels like a warped Hollywood version of the classic French classical music piece “Carnival of the Animals,” through it’s wild and unpredictable nature that results in a fascinating visual melody.
For all the sending up of the industry and those who populate it, The Other Side of the Wind can’t altogether be looked at as necessarily mean-spirited. This is simply Welles’s personal chronicle of his own experiences in the film world and how affected he was by them. A scene showing a studio executive disinterestingly viewing footage of Jake’s film recalls the many personal battles Welles’s must’ve fought in trying to see virtually all of his projects come to fruition, while the somewhat baffling movie within the movie (so clearly Welles’s take on Antonioni’s Zabriske Point) saw the director’s own take on the kind of era-defining counterculture work being made. The way Welles switches back and forth between the movie within a movie and the movie everyone is in, also cannot help but come across as representative of the way Welles saw the industry and the world he existed in as being so intricately linked.
When The Other Side of the Wind takes on a sincere, reflective quality, the film turns surprisingly earnest and becomes the closest thing to a memoir for its director. The most poignant of these moments comes with Palmer’s actress melancholically saying: “You don’t have to see someone for them to remain in your life. With old friends, sometimes it’s enough just to know that they’re there.” Through all the antics and philosophy however, there remains an undeniable feeling that The Other Side of the Wind remains Welles’s cry showing him to be an artist still searching for meaning and vitality in the art form he gave so much of himself to.
You would never guess all the gaps of time that occurred in between filming (including re-casting and last minute additions) The Other Side of the Wind based on the strength of the performances themselves. If there was one thing Welles could never be guilty of, it was not utilizing an actor’s talent in front of the camera. His long-in-the-works final effort is testament to that. Bogdanovich, typically an actor-for-hire whenever he’s appeared on screen, does a truly remarkable job as a former boy wonder filmmaker clinging to his aging idol’s side. Mercedes McCambridge (as Jake’s editor) and Palmer also skillfully portray women whose lives have been forever influenced by the great maestro, with the latter giving the film a special poignancy in all her scenes. As the actress in the movie within the movie, Oja Kodar (who also served as co-writer) commands the screen and gives the film’s most electric performance, despite never uttering a single word. Conversely, Strasberg proves to be a fireball of energy as she delivers speech after speech of the cinematic philosophy of the day.
In addition to the film’s release, a documentary chronicling Welles’s career and inspiration behind making The Other Side of the Wind, titled They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead has also been released. Featuring raw vintage footage and interviews with those involved with the production, the documentary does a superb job of re-constructing the journey of Welles’s creation to the point where it feels almost like an alternative version of the movie itself. If the somewhat uncharacteristic style of filming The Other Side of the Wind seems off-center to the point of unending distraction, it only serves to make the experience of watching it all the more provocative. Switching back and forth between color and black and white, Hannaford and his guests are shown being interviewed by a number of camera crews, including one hoping to shape a revealing documentary on the genius himself. While this visual technique could test some people’s patience, it only serves to heighten the effect of Welles’s vision when it comes to the complex relationship between the individual and the medium. It’s unclear where The Other Side of the Wind fits in today’s cinematic landscape and whether or not it will be appreciated for the almost phantasmagorical document that it is. Yet none who see it, will ever forget it.
