It’s unbelievable that this happened. A film shot over forty years ago only now being completed and released is one thing, but a film by Orson Welles is another. I’d have never believed it possible that I would have the chance to review a new movie from the man who made Citizen Kane. I’d have thought it even less likely that should something like this happen, it would be through Netflix that it finally reaches an audience. But ending Welles’ legacy on a former mail-order video service does seem to fit the strangeness of his career in its later life.
Of course, it’s very intimidating to review and discuss this film, not only because The Other Side of the Wind is now the last Orson Welles movie, the last John Huston movie, and the clout around it in cinephile circles is immense, but also because, like his former last brilliant movie F For Fake (and no I’m not counting the butchered Don Quixote), The Other Side of the Wind is very unusual, experimental, and incredibly fascinating.
Jake “J.J.” Hannaford (John Huston) is a legendary Hollywood director attempting a comeback with a European New Wave/New Hollywood style movie called The Other Side of the Wind, a largely quiet though gratuitous movie of softcore erotica and incoherent plot. However the film is incomplete due to the lead actor John Dale (Bob Random), whom Hannaford is credited for discovering, abruptly storming off the set during a scene. Hannaford intends to screen what remains at his 70th birthday party at an Arizona ranch, attended by the crew, journalists, film buffs, young filmmakers, and his entourage of old collaborators. As pieces of the movie are shown and guests interact with an increasingly more inebriated director, the party becomes more and more a statement on Hannaford’s career and personal life.
The filmmaking on this movie is engaging from start to finish. Welles makes sure that there’s something going on in every scene, except perhaps in the film-within-a-film. It’s shot essentially as a mockumentary, only without any characters talking directly to the camera, but preserving a lot of the same motion and editing techniques. The editing on this movie is madly striking, very specific, and contributes to its unique rhythm and pacing. Shot on a variety of cameras, it cuts between characters and their actions with seamless comprehension, the first act managing to balance multiple people on the road with scenes from the film-within-a-film and the unimpressed studio executive watching it. The movie is also filmed both in colour and black and white, using each methodically. It begins and proceeds for a while in full colour; not until the plot reaches the ranch do we see various shots in black and white, and gradually the whole movie apart from the sequences of The Other Side of the Wind is presented without colour, until it slowly starts to work its way back into the film. This shift may be related to perspective from the younger characters to Hannaford’s older crew.
It’s no coincidence too that Welles cast his two leads (as well as a series of minor roles played by the likes of Dennis Hopper, Paul Mazursky, and Curtis Harrington) with actor-directors. It lends real credibility to the character of Hannaford, a legendary Hollywood Golden Age director, to be played by actual legendary Hollywood Golden Age director John Huston. And Huston is amazing as this sad yet contentious Ernest Hemingway-type figure, delivering one of his best performances. Peter Bogdanovich is great as his devoted protege Brooks Otterlake, representing the new breed of director coming into the spotlight in the 1970s. A number of characters are clearly Welles’ commentary on specific industry notables, such as Susan Strasberg’s outspoken, brutal, and presumptuous film critic (Welles’ nemesis Pauline Kael), Lilli Palmer’s friend and one-time leading lady of Hannaford’s (Marlene Dietrich), and Norman Foster’s former child star, formerly alcoholic Hannaford lackey (Mickey Rooney). Hannaford’s entourage is coloured by stars of the period they represent: Edmond O’Brien, Mercedes McCambridge, and Cameron Mitchell. But perhaps the most important performer in the movie next to Huston is Oja Kodar. She’s a familiar face to those who’ve seen F For Fake, Welles’ partner and creative collaborator who co-wrote The Other Side of the Wind and plays the enigmatic, non-speaking lead actress of the film-within-a-film. She spends a lot of her screen-time naked in a not entirely non-exploitative fashion, or in the process of seducing Random’s mesmerized Dale; however she retains an elusive aura of mystery and strength, and a piercing gaze that communicates through every screen.
Of course given this is Welles, it’s important to examine what is being said with The Other Side of the Wind, particularly in relation to the artistic trajectory of film. He seems to be continuing the theme of decrying pretentiousness from F For Fake. The joke at the centre of the movie is Hannaford making a type of film he’s completely out of his depth with in an attempt to restore some acclaim to his legacy. He only knows what these movies look like and that they’re seen as high art. The film-within-a-film is also a clear parody of the kind of arthouse and European movies on the rise at the time, often narratively experimental, lingering, sexually explicit, and vague. Welles’ particular target seems to be Michelangelo Antonioni (Zabriskie Point, Blowup). But as much as he’s making fun of the new order he’s also satirizing the old, and suggesting perhaps that their rules were rightfully dying. There’s something too to be said of the implications surrounding Hannaford’s character and personal life, the details of which are spoilers, but quite interesting in how they paint his behaviour and power. It’s hard to say exactly what message Welles is trying to convey, but he does leave you with a lot to ruminate on, hell even in just the final highly symbolic shots, which has always been Welles’ style since he first revealed the identity of the mysterious “Rosebud”.
This film to miraculously see the light of day thirty-three years after the death of its director and creative visionary is as utterly fascinating as it was expected to be. It doesn’t quite reach the heights of Welles’ filmography and pales next to both F For Fake and The Transformers Movie in terms of a bizarre finale to a great career. But it’s an engrossing commentary on the industry and its changes over the course of Welles’ time in it, perhaps providing insight into why he exiled himself from Hollywood for years at a time. Most of all, it’s a meditation on change and why film should do just that, a message as relevant and far-reaching as it was in 1976.
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/jbosch/
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