"A new motion picture from legendary director Orson Welles" comes
The Other Side of the Wind. This experimental semi-autobiographical film directed, co-produced and co-edited by Welles, and co-written by Welles and Oja Kodar. After years of exile in Europe, a maverick director returns to Hollywood to finish his comeback movie.
Like many of Welles' personally funded films, the film had a troubled production history where it was filmed and edited on-and-off for several years. After forty years in the making, Welles' final film was finally released in 2018, and marked Welles' return to Hollywood after two decades of Hollywood exile in Europe. The project evolved from an idea after the suicide of Ernest Hemingway in 1961. Nothing came of the project until after the completion of
Chimes at Midnight (1965). The film was intended as a satire of both the passing of Classic Hollywood and of the avant-garde filmmakers of Europe and New Hollywood in the 1970s. In 1970, principal photography commenced, and was shot in an unconventional mockumentary style in both colour and black-and-white. The film features a film-within-a-film narrative structure that gestures as a pastiche of Italian director Michelangel Antonioni. Welles cast his friend John Huston as the film director, J.J. "Jake" Hannaford. Between 1970–71, principal photography focused on Hannaford's film-within-a-film. Filming ground to a halt late in 1971 when the US government presented Welles with a large tax bill for his European company. Welles had to work on numerous other projects to pay off this debt, and filming could not resume until 1973. In 1973, some scenes were shot intermittently, as and when cast were available; but the film's main production block did not begin until early 1974, when major shooting of the party happened in Arizona. Principal photography was further undermined by serious financial problems, including embezzlement by one of the investors, who fled with much of the film's budget. After many starts and stops, principal photography ended in 1976. In February 1975, Welles used his AFI Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony as an opportunity to pitch for funding to complete the film. Sure enough, one producer made what Welles later called a
"wonderful offer", but Antoine turned it down on the assumption that an even better offer would arrive. No such offer came, and Welles later bitterly regretted the refusal. Welles estimated that the editing of the film in a distinctive and experimental style would take approximately one year of full-time work, like
F for Fake (1973). A change of management at the Iranian production company in 1975 resulted in tensions between Welles and the backers. The new management saw Welles as a liability, and refused to pay him to edit the film. The company made several attempts to reduce Welles' share of the film profits from 50% to 20%, and crucially, attempted to remove his artistic control over the film's final cut. Welles made numerous attempts to seek further financial backing to pay him to complete the editing full-time, including attempting to interest a Canadian backer, but no such funding materialised, and so Welles only edited the film piecemeal in his spare time over the 1980s, between other acting assignments which the heavily indebted actor-director needed to support himself. However, these did not prevent it from being incomplete.
By 1979, forty minutes of the film had been edited by Welles. But during that time, the film experienced serious legal and financial complications. Welles's use of funds from Mehdi Bushehri, the brother-in-law of the Shah of Iran, became troublesome after the Shah was overthrown. A complex, decades-long legal battle over the ownership of the film ensued, with the original negative remaining in a vault in Paris. At first, the revolutionary government of Ayatollah Khomeini had the film impounded along with all assets of the previous regime. When they deemed the negative worthless, there was extensive litigation as to the ownership of the film. By 1998, many of the legal matters had been resolved and the Showtime cable network had guaranteed
"end money" to complete the film. However, after Welles’ death in 1985, further legal complications caused the project to be suspended. Welles’ daughter, Beatrice Welles, had inherited many of Welles’ assets after his death, and the death of his estranged widow, Paola Mori. However, he had also left various other assets, from his house in Los Angeles to the full ownership and artistic control of all his unfinished film projects, to his longtime companion, mistress and collaborator Kodar. Following Welles' death, several attempts were made at reconstructing the unfinished film. Since 1992, Beatrice has claimed in various courts that under California law, she had ownership of all of Welles' completed and incomplete pictures, and the film has been heavily affected by this litigation. Matters have been exacerbated by much personal animosity between Kodar and Beatrice. Ultimately, the matter was settled out of court to avoid costly legal battles. Although the original negative of the film long remained in a Paris vault, two workprint versions of much of the raw footage were privately held - one by Welles' cinematographer Gary Graver, and one by Welles himself, who covertly smuggled a copy out of Paris after the legal difficulties started. Welles left his own workprint copy to Kodar, as part of a clause of his will giving her all his unfinished film materials. Over the years, there were repeated attempts to clear the remaining legal obstacles to the film's completion, and to obtain the necessary finance. Those most closely involved in these efforts were Graver, Kodar, Peter Bogdanovich, film critic Joseph McBride, and Hollywood producer Frank Marshall, one of whose first jobs in the film business was as Production Manager on the film. Marshall in particular was instrumental in getting several major studios in the late 1990s to watch a rough cut, although most were put off by the film's legal issues. Before a deal was put together in 1998, Kodar screened Graver's rough cut of the film for a number of famous directors in the 1980s and 1990s, seeking their help in completing the film, but they all turned it down for various reasons. These included Huston, Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Clint Eastwood and George Lucas.
In 1998, a turning point came when Bushehri changed his mind, and re-invested in the film. He therefore compromised on his earlier claims, and reduced the share he claimed. This resolved several of the film's legal problems. In 2006, Bushehri died, but his heirs similarly accepted his sentiment. The 1998 deal struck with Bushehri led to funding being put up by the Showtime network, until the lawsuit from Beatrice Welles later that year stalled matters once more. Showtime shortly afterwards backed out of the deal. In 2004, Bogdanovich announced that he still plans to restore the film and release it soon thereafter. However, there remained both legal and technical challenges. The latter concerns replicating Welles's avant-garde editing style. In 2006, Kodar expressed concerns about a proposed deal Beatrice Welles had made with Showtime to turn the film into a "kind of" documentary. In 2007, a new deal was then eventually struck in which the three parties previously involved agreed to pay off Beatrice with an undisclosed sum and/or share of profits from the film. At a late March 2007 appearance at the Florida Film Festival, Bogdanovich stated that the four parties involved had come to an agreement and that the film would be edited and released in the very near future. In early April 2007, Bogdanovich also stated that a deal to complete the film was "99.9% finished", with a theatrical release planned for late 2008. However, in 2007, there were then further complications through the intervention of Paul Hunt. He had worked on the film in the 1970s as a Line Producer, an Assistant Editor, Assistant Camera Operator and Gaffer. Kodar had approached him to see if he could strike a deal. Together with his producing partner Sanford Horowitz, Hunt formed a company, Horowitz Hunt LLC, and within three months had a signed deal with an option to acquire his rights of the movie. Horowitz and Hunt's goal was to release two versions of the film: a completed theatrical version and another uncompleted but original 42-minute version. In March 2008, Bogdanovich said that there was over a year's worth of work left to be done, and a month later, he filmed the opening of the Los Angeles vault where Kodar had kept the workprint material cut by Welles, along with other positive film materials. However, the full original negative remained sealed in a warehouse in France. Throughout the rest of 2008, some work was done on the Los Angeles material. In June 2008, the Showtime Network set up an editing suite in Los Angeles, to begin preliminary logging in work on all of the material. Bogdanovich personally directed the work, with Tim King, the Showtime Executive in charge of post-production, and Sasha Welles (Kodar’s nephew) as an Assistant Editor. Horowitz Hunt LLC eventually began negotiations with Kodar to acquire her rights, but they were unsuccessful when Beatrice Welles put an injunction on access to the negative stored at the LTC Film Vault in Paris, by proclaiming an inheritance claim, thus preventing the opening of the Paris vault containing the full 96 hours of original negatives, some of which had not even been seen by Welles in his lifetime. The attorney for Bushehri neglected to send in their documentation nullifying Beatrice's claim and thus the project stalled once again. In December 2008, this resulted in the closure of the Showtime editing suite. In February 2009. Variety reported that Showtime was still willing to pay for its completion, but they wanted to be sure all the materials existed. In January 2010, during a public Q&A after a screening of one of his films, Bogdanovich stated that the film had been examined and was in good condition, but wondered whether editing the film would even be possible. Bogdanovich indicated that the original negative was in excellent condition, with the picture quality being far superior to the poor-quality workprints seen in public so far. In January 2011, a report in The Guardian suggested, once again, that a legal settlement was close and that a release would be possible in the near future. However, Kodar denied that this was the case. In 2011, Paul Hunt died. That same year, Sanford Horowitz and financier John Nicholas launched a company called "Project Welles The Other Side LLC" and the website www.projectwelles.com to attract additional capital and complete negotiations with Kodar and Beatrice Welles. Their goal was to present an uncluttered account of events, make peace with all the players, present their chain of title compiled by the law firm of Mitchell, Silberberg & Knuff and gain access to the film negatives stored in the LTC Film vault in Paris. By 2011, all copyright difficulties had theoretically been resolved between the respective parties. However, the Showtime network refused to specify what the budget would be. Kodar stated that she did not want a repeat of the debacle over Welles' posthumously completed Don Quixote, which was universally panned after being cheaply put together from badly decayed, incomplete footage which was sloppily edited, badly dubbed, and often incoherent. As such, she would not grant permission to proceed until she had received assurances that the project will be done professionally, and to a high standard, with an adequate budget. In March 2012, the end of Showtime’s involvement in the project came with the retirement of Matthew Duda, the Showtime executive who had championed funding for the film since 1998.
After Showtime's withdrawal, producer Filip Jan Rymsza intervened with a successful bid that would break the film's deadlock. Rymsza had become aware of the film's existence in 2009. Very early on, he teamed up with both German producer Jens Koethner Kaul, and Marshall. In late October 2014, it was announced that the rights were acquired by Rymsza's Los Angeles-based production company, Royal Road Entertainment, and that the project would be completed with the assistance of Bogdanovich and Marshall. Bogdanovich and Marshall were aiming to have it ready for screening on May 6, 2015 — the 100th anniversary of Welles's birth. Royal Road and Kaul acquired the rights held by Les Films de l'Astrophore and Bushehri. They reached an agreement with Kodar and Beatrice Welles. Post-production was to be funded by pre-selling distribution rights, but in December some potential distributors asked to see edited footage from the negative, not the worn workprint. A 40-day crowdfunding drive was launched on May 7, 2015, on the Indiegogo website by directors Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach, with a goal of raising $2 million for the film's completion. Plans were announced for the 1,083 reels of pristine negative footage to be flown from Paris to Los Angeles for 4K resolution scanning and editing by Affonso Gonçalves. The Indiegogo campaign deadline was extended in June and the goal revised to $1 million after potential outside investors offered to match that amount. Acknowledging that the campaign had struggled, Marshall said that his objective is to put the first 15 to 20 minutes of the film together to win over a distributor who will help finish the post-production. The campaign closed on July 5, 2015, having only raised $406,405. At the end of 2015, efforts to complete the film were at an impasse. In April 2016, Marshall announced at CinemaCon that they are in negotiations with Netflix for the completion of the film. The potential deal requested the approval of Kodar to finalize the agreement. In mid-March 2017, it was confirmed Netflix had purchased the rights, and was planning to work around the clock to complete and distribute the film. In the same month, 1,083 original negative, as well as dailies and other footage, arrived in Los Angeles to be fully inventoried, thus allowing the film's post-production to resume. In November 2017, it was reported that various members had been hired to the post-production team, including Bob Murawski as editor, Scott Millan as sound mixer, and Mo Henry as negative cutter. In January 2018, a rough cut of the film was screened for a small, select group of invite-only attendees. Amongst those present were Rymsza, directors Paul Thomas Anderson, Quentin Tarantino and Rian Johnson; actors Danny Huston (Huston's son) and Crispin Glover; and the film’s cast and crew members, Bogdanovich, Lou Race, Neil Canton, and Peter Jason. In March 2018, Michel Legrand was announced to compose the film’s score, which he had been secretly working on the film since December 2017. On August 31, 2018, the film eventually had its world premiere at the 75th Venice International Film Festival. Finally, on November 2, 2018, the film was released by Netflix.
The cast, that includes Huston, Kodar, Bogdanovich, Susan Strasberg, Norman Foster, Lilli Palmer, Edmond O'Brien, Mercedes McCambridge, Cameron Mitchell, and more, gave terrific performances that managed to transcend throughout the decades.
The film is one of the most interesting and technically superior films that has ever come out of cinema.
Simon says
The Other Side of the Wind receives:
Also, see my review of
Chimes at Midnight.
