How far are you willing to go to realize a dream, because you are certain that what you do will benefit and inspire the future generations to come? Orson Welles, the director of 'Citizen Kane', has a new film to show the audience this year. Wait a minute - didn't Welles pass away long ago, back in 1985? No, this is not a joke nor the prelude to a ghost story. Because Welles' unfinished final film, 'The Other Side of the Wind', is coming to the lovers of cinema this year. It has already had a premiere in the Venice Film Festival, and it has received a positive and enthusiastic response from the audience and critics so far. The Welles film will be shown on Netflix and selected cinemas in November this year, and that will give our generation a chance to experience the mighty power of the 'Wellesian' style. I will definitely write an article on this final Welles film after I have watched it, because as you may see, I have already written a few articles to celebrate Welles' unmatched genius. The story of Orson Welles will never finish if we have not considered 'The Other Side of the Wind'. Now, let me share with you my enthusiasm on this new film from Welles.
Why would I be so happy about a new film by a dated filmmaker? Let me put it this way - if you can see an unrealized and impossible dream finally comes true, just how much gratifications you can get from that? I suppose this is also a sentiment shared by so many film lovers who admire Orson Welles and cinema as an art in general. 'The Other Side of the Wind' has almost become a myth throughout the 50 years of so since its inception. Welles started filming his final feature film at around the early 1970s, and he was committed to make it his comeback film, because he has been marginalized by the Hollywood System since the 1940s. Most of the greatest films from him were heavily edited or altered without his consent, and they often suffered severe criticism because of these alterations. For the second half of his life, Orson Welles has always wanted to make so many movies, yet every single one was a painful experience for him - due to the termination of funding and studio interference. Either the film was not in his realized form, or he had to abandon projects during production. I suppose one of the reasons why Welles can become such a legend is because he was both a genius and a sympathetic figure. Welles revolutionized the way of filmmaking through all his greatest films, yet the institutions of film production prevented many of his genius moments from happening at all.
Going back to his final film, the production went reasonably well between 1970-1976, until a lack of funding stopped the production process. By that time, Welles has already edited more than 40% of the footage, yet he could not continue to work on the film. The things became even more complicated because of the conflicting legal rights to the film. This controversy continued all the way after Welles' death oin1985. There are many committed filmmakers, including Peter Bogdanovich and Frank Marshall, to name a few, who want to put together the film to realize Welles' dream project, yet they all understand there are loads of issues to settle - from the whereabout of the footages to the legal rights of the final film. That is why most people think that the film is a pipe dream and predict it will never be shown. Fate and Netflix have proven us all wrong. Because the footages were discovered in 2017, and Netflix is willing to support and fund the project, so that the filmmakers can assemble and complete the film, by reference to Welles' script. And now, the film is all ready and the film genius is back!
A great thing about the film is that it is a historical collaboration between two of America's greatest filmmakers - Orson Welles and John Huston. Welles casted the director of films like 'The Maltese Falcon' and 'The Treasures of Sierra Madre' as his protagonist, who was an aging filmmaker wishing for a comeback. Many critics have already pointed out that Huston’s character reflects Welles’ life experience, and indeed the larger-than-life temperament of the character also resembles that of Huston and Welles, whom the former has been acclaimed as the ‘Ernest Hemingway of cinema’. The realization of this film leads to the Huston-Welles collaboration, which is something the audience from their era will never even imagine or be able to see.
That is why any lovers of cinema will find blessed by this film. The ultimate irony about the whole thing is that the film, which is supposed to be a film of the 1970s, actually crash-lands to the cinema world in 2018 – our era. We turn out to be the ones who has first-hand experience by a film from a number of cinematic legends who appear to come from another century. Isn’t it deeply ironic that Welles, Huston, or their contemporaries, actually do not have a chance to watch this film because it has taken half a century to complete the work? I suppose the reason why everyone is fighting so hard for ‘The Other Side of the Wind’ to finish is because of their admiration and gratitude to Welles, an inspiring genius who has shaped the way we look at film as an art form.
If you love cinema, or want to know more about film art, you should definitely go and watch ‘The Other Side of the Wind’ - because if there is one more Orson Welles film out there, humanity deserves one more chance.
Film Analysis
