Mark Reviews Movies: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 1, 2018

It might be more surreal to be writing about a new Orson Welles film in 2018 than it is to watch The Other Side of the Wind, a new film from the great auteur, 33 years after his death. The reason is pretty simple: Welles was always ahead of his time, whether he was working on material dealing with his contemporary age or the past. It's easy to take his narrative and formal innovations for granted now, because, at the height of his craft, he helped to define so much about how people after him made—and continue to make—movies.

Watching his latest and reportedly last film, one is taken aback at how of the current age it is. Like so many of Welles' independently financed projects, it had tumultuous production history. It began with a kernel of an idea and grew from there. Welles began shooting in 1970 and didn't officially stop until 1976, although plenty of financial problems put some significant pauses in the schedule, obviously. One can't help but watch the film with all of this history in mind.

There are two stories within the final film. One is the tale of a renegade Hollywood director trying to screen an incomplete version of his latest project to the cast, crew, and possible financial backers, only to come across a slew of technical, professional, personal challenges to the seemingly simple endeavor. The other is the enigmatic story of that movie, which also unintentionally includes a scene of the movie-within-the-movie's own troubled production.

One could almost argue that there's a third story here, considering how John Huston, the legendary actor and filmmaker who plays the rough-and-tumble but actually-vulnerable-underneath director, clearly was shot separately from the majority of the cast. Even within the context of the film, his larger-than-life but completely believable performance exists almost in a realm of its own (His voice booms over everyone else's, since he probably didn't have to deal with the noise of background players).

Lest anyone fear the implications of those statements in regards Huston's appearance here, this is a complete and finished film. It has been put together with care and love and admiration for its filmmaker by an assortment of people, notably Peter Bogdanovich, an investor of the original production and co-star of the film, and editor Bob Murawski, taking over the task of editing from Welles, who edited a little less than half of it himself before his death.

All of this is to say that it's a story very much of its time, revolving around the shifting of American film culture in the 1970s, and that it also fits in surprisingly well with zeitgeist of now. If it had been released 40 years ago, we might be holding the film in high regard for what it helped to inspire in the ensuing decades. Watching it now, after so many filmmakers have done such things on their own and without the inspiration of this film, it seems almost quaint. In the late 1970s, it might have been low-key or impactful boon on the industry. In 2018, the film feels like a relic. Because, though, it's a new film from Welles, arriving decades after anyone expected such a thing to pop in front of our eyes, it's an important relic.

The story is much less involving than how Welles tells it. Huston plays Jake Hannaford, a Hemingway-like figure with a closely knit group of colleagues, who—we learn from the opening narration—will be dead within the day. It's his birthday, and to celebrate, he's holding a screening of his new project at the desert estate of Zarah Valeska (Lilli Palmer), an actress who appeared in one of Hannaford's movies and has kept enough of a distance from him not to hate him.

Along for the event are members of Hannaford's entourage—most importantly Brooks Otterlake (Bogdanovich), his right-hand man—and assorted members of the press, who are filming every public and private conversation on a gaggle of cameras of various formats. A lot of the conversation and unspoken tension involves John Dale (Robert Random), the mysterious leading man of Hannaford's latest movie (which shares a title with Welles'), who hasn't been seen since he stormed off set during production. There's a bevy of mannequins of the actor, used to complete his scenes, littered by the pool and waiting for Hannaford to decide their fate.

Like the film's visual and editing style, which shifts between color and black-and-white (as well as between a box ratio for the "documentary" scenes and widescreen for the movie within the movie), the screenplay, written by Welles and co-star Oja Kodar (who plays the often-naked star of and muse for Hannaford's avant-garde movie), is loose. It's mostly about the tenuous relationships Hannaford, who was weaned on and grew out of the old Hollywood system, has with these guests.

He barely holds on to the people who are loyal to him, and at this point in his life, they're all starting to realize they might hate each other. He remains an intentional mystery to the press, although we learn (because Otterlake was writing a failed biography of the man) that his family has a history of suicide. When a film critic (played by Susan Strasberg) suggests that Hannaford's destructive personality has a personal toll, he slaps her. By the next morning, he probably has proven her correct.

It's a fine enough film, equal parts confounding and unflinching about its central figure, and it's certain to start new chapters for film historians and Welles biographers, as they parse the film's intentions, meanings, and relationship to its creator. The Other Side of the Wind is vital, though, as a lost piece of history, finally found.

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