The Other Side of the Wind - Review Thread

Orson Welles has certainly been regarded as many things both throughout his career and after his death.  Many consider him to be the greatest director of all time who also made the greatest movie of all time.  Many consider him to be arrogant and pompous, resulting in his career largely failing to consistently ignite past the 1940s when he struggled to land financial backing, and aside from lucking into the director's chair for his film noir masterpiece Touch of Evil, never found his way back into Hollywood's good graces as a filmmaker, only an actor, and a mainly cameo-based one at that.  It's always struck me as a real tragedy that Welles never was able to see his vision and films realized throughout his career, not just because of the monumental achievement that is Citizen Kane, but because he was so obviously ahead of his time.  It's funny to me that Citizen Kane is so often touted as being challenging by people when in comparison with some of his later works it actually plays itself as very straightforward.  With films like The Trial and F for Fake, Welles was in full-on experimentation mode, utilizing the same brilliant camera and editing tricks he stunned audiences with in Citizen Kane but utilizing far less conventional narrative structures to consistently throw the audience off balance.  I understand that those films, especially F for Fake, aren't going to be for everyone, but again there's something incredible about viewing Welles' work and comparing it to other films at the time, even those deeply entrenched in the various film "movements" of the period, and seeing how visibly stronger they were.  There's a confidence in a true understanding of the sensory limits cinema can take a viewer to that Welles clearly understood, perhaps better than anybody, but instead of seeking to dazzle his audiences he instead toyed with them, baffled them, and clearly delighted in doing so.  Well there is perhaps nothing to prepare anyone for how obtuse and challenging his "latest" film is, finally completed by the powers that be at Netflix after lying dormant for decades.  The Other Side of the Wind is an exhausting film at just over two hours, with Welles showing little mercy to his viewer and embracing a rapid-fire approach of editing, camera movements, numerous characters often talking over and at one another, and films-within-films that makes Mr. Arkadin and F for Fake look like The Lady from Shanghai by comparison.  It's not a film that's going to entice anyone not already enamored by Welles, but for cinephiles looking to rejoice in a "new" Orson Welles film in 2018, it's more than worth a look.  And perhaps a second, third, or fourth viewing.

The Other Side of the Wind surrounds famous filmmaker Jake Hannaford (John Huston) who is attempting to complete what he's deemed will be his final picture, the eponymous The Other Side of the Wind.  He decides to screen the film for friends and enemies alike at his swanky Hollywood ranch home, though constant interruptions such as the film reels cutting out or the power faltering break it up.  Welles constantly cuts between the "real world" of a sort of cinema verite look at 1970s Hollywood and the film, which itself is a definite parody of the pseudo-experimental films coming out at the time, namely Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point.  It's pretty hilarious coming from Welles, who himself has been accused of being a pretentious, self-serious filmmaker and person, to be poking fun at the aimless arthouse approach of Antonioni and other filmmakers, and the film within the film doesn't disappoint in its preposterousness.  It follows a John Dale (Robert Random) who literally just wanders around following a mysterious woman (Oja Kodar) through various oddball environments, one of the highlights being a bathroom in a bar where everyone in it is engaging in sexual activities which later leads to the two having sex in a car as another man drives in an incredible dichotomy of beautiful colors and imagery while apathetic, seemingly meaningless sex is going on.  It's very tongue-in-cheek in all its seriousness.  In fact the two characters never even speak to one another.  During parts of the film we hear Jake directing John, and he eventually walks off the set in frustration.  I suppose Welles is making a critique of the director as a dictator here, since so many characters tell Jake he doesn't have empathy, but then again Welles seems like the exact opposite kind of director to make that claim, especially during the 1970s when his bitterness and cynicism towards Hollywood was likely at an all time high, so maybe I'm completely wrong there.  

Most of the film though is shot in a documentary style fashion, where film critics, journalists, and fellow directors, including Jake's close friend Brooks Otterlake (Peter Bogdonavich), constantly interview him, pester him, and try to get inside his head as they chase him around the party.  The film seemingly cuts between an A and B cam and doing so alternates between color and black-and-white shots, adding to the chaos and dysfunction of everything going on.  I'll admit that at times it's a bit much.  This is not a slow film by any means, and the moments where we're in the "film within the film" of the man pursuing the woman are the only times we feel we can relax a little bit and ease into the film.  Bet some of you never thought you'd be dying to get to the Antonioni part of a film.  There's constant dialogue, characters, cuts, camera movements, and flashes of obtuse imagery that constantly keeps the viewer on their toes.  It's a lot to take in on an initial viewing, and to me it's easily Welles' most demanding film of his filmography.  He's certainly taking his swipes at Hollywood, both in terms of how fickle the business aspect of it is and the ostensible allies that surround famous figures, but at times I'm not sure what deeper meaning Welles is putting forth here either.  This is a movie where a lot is happening, but at times it doesn't feel like we're moving towards anything but instead stuck in place in the same chaotic loop.  It's a film, like many of Welles' works, that demands multiple viewings, something I'm not particularly ready or interested in doing just yet.  Is Welles poking fun at the idea of the auteur as being nothing more than a deceiver for eager sycophants to lap up, or is he saying that the director is actually a sadistic manipulator of people?  Whatever it may be, The Other Side of the Wind is a sad reminder that Welles was brilliantly ahead of the game but never got the resources from Hollywood to truly dazzle us on the grander scales he should've been on.  It's a film as challenging as the man who made it, and certainly worth a look for any cinephile craving more from the master of cinema.


8/10