THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND

I first heard of Orson Welles' unfinished epic THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND in 1990 when I happened to stumble across Leslie Megahey's documentary WITH ORSON WELLES:  STORIES FROM A LIFE IN FILM late one night on television.  I was eighteen at the time.  The legend of a cursed film project with the enigmatic title THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND, ostensibly frozen in limbo forever, fascinated me.  Later, I made passing reference to the film in my 2010 short story entitled "Ticks," which was published in issue #9 of Rudy Rucker's webzine FLURB.  (You can read that story HERE.) 

Last week, I finally saw THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND at Laemmle NOHO 7 in North Hollywood.  I plan to write about this movie at great length at some point in the near future, but for now all I'll say is that it's a wonderfully challenging film, complex and multilayered, the type of harrowing in-depth character study Hollywood seems incapable of making these days.  Who in America is creating these types of films in the 21st century?  I immediately think of Darren Aronofsky's BLACK SWAN and THE WRESTLER and David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE and MULHOLLAND DRIVE... but beyond that my mind goes blank.  

Some critics are saying that we can't really consider THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND to be a "Welles film" because he only edited "a few" scenes himself.  I strongly disagree with this.  Ten years ago at the Orson Welles Film Festival, held at the Egyptian Theater in Los Angeles, I saw Oja Kodar (star and co-writer of THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND) and cinematographer Gary Graver present to the audience the scenes Welles had edited himself before his death in 1985--and this amounted to at least a half hour worth of footage.  That's a quarter of the finished film, at least.  I'd say that's more than just "a few" scenes.  Besides, cineastes consider EYES WIDE SHUT to be Stanley Kubrick's last film despite the fact that Kubrick didn't have a hand in the final edit of that movie at all.  (Some conspiracy theorists claim that the Church of Scientology had control of the final edit of EYES WIDE SHUT... but that's a whole separate story, best left for another time.)  

As my friend and colleague Rafael Zepeda told me the other day, "THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND is an American 8 1/2."  I agree with that.  But THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND is also far more than just a take-off on Federico Fellini's peculiar obsessions.  Ultimately, this can be considered Welles' most personal film.  I've seen this movie 2 1/2 times now (once in the theater and one and half times on Netflix) and will no doubt watch it again.  If you can see THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND in a theater, please do so.  I think experiencing this particular film in a theater is almost a must--it heightens the meta-aspect of the film immeasurably.

The two documentaries that bookend the film--A FINAL CUT FOR ORSON:  40 YEARS IN THE MAKING and THEY'LL LOVE ME WHEN I'M DEAD--are fascinating as well.  The first can be seen by clicking HERE.  The second is available exclusively on Netflix.
  

The official trailer can be seen below....