Official OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND Thread - All things OSotW he

[RayKelly]

Forgive me for being dense but I've been trying to plow through these posts and I cannot tell if the Showtime production is on or off.

The most recent bit of news on the site was a great March 2008 interview Larry French did with Peter Bogdanovich. It can be found in the archives and it is worth checking out. It stated in part:

LAWRENCE FRENCH: Last March in Florida, you announced that Showtime had finally green-lit plans to finish the editing work on The Other Side of the Wind. Since that time, I’ve heard stories that Oja Kodar had some kind of reservations about actually signing the final contract.

PETER BOGDANOVICH: No, it wasn’t Oja. I don’t want to go into details, but there were some rights we still needed, but hadn’t gotten. But Showtime is still going to go forward with the project. We just have to work out of few more of the rights issues. Since then, I’ve actually seen a lot of the footage I hadn’t seen before, because we got into Oja’s vault in Los Angeles which has all the positive footage. I’d only seen about 40 minutes of the film and now I’ve seen quite a lot of new footage. These are scenes we had shot but Orson never showed them to me. I still haven’t seen everything, because there is so much stuff to look at. It’s the dailies and so on and it looks great.

...

LAWRENCE FRENCH: When you get the final go-ahead on the project, how long do you think it will take to put everything together?

PETER BOGDANOVICH: Probably a year or longer. Orson asked me to finish the picture if anything should ever happen to him. One day at lunch in Arizona, we were all sitting around, Orson, Oja, Frank Marshall and myself. Out of the blue, Orson turned to me and said, “if anything ever happens to me I want you to promise me you’ll finish the picture.” I said, “what a terrible thing to say. Why should anything happen to you?” He said, “I know, but just in case it does, I want you to promise me you’ll finish the picture.” I said, “okay, of course I will.” So when Orson died I felt it was incumbent on me to make good on my promise. It’s now been 22 years and I think we are finally going to get it done. I’d say it should happen within the next year. But to catalogue all the material, putting it all together so we know exactly what is there, including what’s in Paris, is going to take almost a year. So there’s still a lot of work to do.

[ToddBaesen]

Harvey wrote in the DON QUIXOTE threat:

One pities Welles as he enters his twilight years in a dire financial predicament, but he should have seen it coming, with his track record of many unfinished projects. Why didn't Orson take the money when the going was good instead of putting his career on hold to finish TOSTW? The genius kept taking on Tinseltown, and it kept beating him down.

To keep this discussion on track in the appropriate thread, I'm replying here.

Harvey: You seem to suggest that Welles was in a personal financial predicament when he wrote that letter in 1977. I don't think that he was ever in a "dire financial predicament," like so many people are today.

Of course, Welles never had quite enough money to finance a movie, but he certainly never lacked for the luxuries of life. As he says in that same letter, he's never been rich (by Hollywood standards), but he was certainly never poor, especially by "upper middle-class" standards.

What I find ironic is if Welles had only lived a bit longer he could have sold his Oscar for about $500,000, say in 1995 (when he would have been 80) and then probably would have been able to finance the completion of THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND as his last and greatest independent production!

Beatrice apparently sold the Oscar last year to Dax for $850,000.

[Alan Brody]

As you said, in 1995 Welles would have been 80, and with his personal habits and declining health he was lucky to make it to 70. According to Suzanne Cloutier, Welles even told her around 1971 that he was thinking of "pulling a Hemingway", so I suppose he was lucky to make it it past 60.

Still, you make a good point Todd that there's really no reason to pity Welles. Despite his many professional setbacks he lived the kind of life that most of us couldn't even dream of: world-traveller, idolized as a legend all over the world, was never poor, never had to work a 9 to 5 job in his life, numerous affairs with beautiful women, hob-nobbing with the rich and powerful all over the world, fancy hotels and gourmet dining throughout his life. I think I could put up with having a few projects fail in exchange for all of that.

[jbrooks]

Did folks ever come to a conclusion as to whether the Dax Foundation was real or just a front for Beatrice? At the time, its web site sure looked bogus. Perusing it now, it seems slightly less bogus, but only slightly.

[purplepines]

This appeared on IMDB.com today:

"Huston Can't Wait To See Welles' Lost Masterpiece"
12 October 2008 7:05 AM, PDT

Angelica Huston can't wait to see the finished cut of Orson Welles' The Other Side Of The Wind - because it features one of her late father's career highlights.

The long-awaited release of the 1975 film, starring John Huston and Jeanne Moreau, has been held up for more than two decades by financial issues.

Peter Bogdanovich, who also appeared in the movie, shot a revised final scene years after Welles' death, but only a select few have seen the finished film - and The Witches star Huston isn't one of them.

She tells WENN, "What happened was at one point Iranian money came into the mix and Bogdanovich was going to shoot the last scene and I don't know what happened to the last scene. I know my brother Danny has seen it. I haven't seen it.

"Peter has offered to show it to me but it's never come about. I understand they're always just a whisper away from releasing it in some form. I don't know what's happening with it right now. I think it has a debt against of it of some five to seven million dollars or something like that."

The actress admits she's keen to see the film because her father had such fun working with Welles on it: "I remember my dad saying that Orson had done something that had never been done before; he was shooting Jeanne Moreau in Paris with her side of the conversation and then my father in Los Angeles with his side of the conversation and putting all of it together like a giant puzzle.

"I'd be fascinated to see it now."

[Harvey Chartrand]

What a fascinating, unexpected and well-researched piece of showbiz journalism!
Now we know that Peter Bogdanovich directed "a revised final scene" from "The Other Side of the Wind". I suspect that Bogdanovich viewed the unsatisfactory footage and relied on written or recorded instructions from Orson Welles while doing the retakes. I'd be curious to find out why a reshoot of the final scene filmed by Welles was judged to be necessary.
We also now know that Welles's working relationship with Jeanne Moreau continued after "The Deep". I had no idea Moreau appeared in "The Other Side of the Wind". I thought that she and Welles were through as artistic collaborators by the mid-1970s. Stéphane Audran is the only French actress of note whose name appears among the cast members on IMDB's listing for TOSOTW.
I hope the Huston clan (Angelica and Danny) can use their influence to get "The Other Side of the Wind" released all these decades later.
Should this long-awaited bookend to "Citizen Kane" ever be released as a DVD box set, I wonder if it will feature a half-dozen or so cuts of varying lengths.

[ToddBaesen]

Purplepines:

Thanks for posting that interesting bit of news. Nice to know Ms. Huston is hoping to see the film will be completed. However, although this article might be "well-researched" it can hardly be called very accurate.

Firstly, Ms. Huston is almost certainly mistaking Jeanne Moreau for Lilli Palmer, when she remembers her father talking about the scenes he had shot with an actress who wasn't with him on the set. John Huston says as much in his autobiography. And unfortunately, Peter Bogdanovich has yet to do any work on the movie, much less shoot a "revised" ending scene.

[jbrooks]

The Angelica Huston article is interesting, but it doesn't sound like there's anything new there. She just seems to be repeating the things we've heard for 2 decades. "The film just needs one final second-unit shot. Bogdanovich pledged to finish it. It's almost clear of all the legal and financial hurtles, etc."

When she refers to her brother Danny having seen it, I assume that is a reference to Oja showing the workprint or rought cut to John and Danny Huston in 1986 or 1987 -- and not a reference to any recent screening of a completed cut.

[etimh]

I haven't posted here in a while so I don't know if there has been any extensive discussion about the status of OSOTW (other than this thread, which doesn't seem to have much current info), but I thought I'd throw something out there:

I teach critical film studies at a university here in California and about a year ago one of my students told me that he recieved an internship that involved working with Bogdonavich on the OSOTW restoration. This accompanied the mainstream press news about the project so I was thrilled to hear of my student's involvement and told him to keep me informed.

Fast forward to a week ago when I again ran into this same student--he told me that he was let go from that position at least 6 months ago and that there were problems with the project and that all work on it had ceased. He said he has inquired about the job starting up again but no one has any answers for him.

I know this doesn't add any new or important information on what is actually happening with the OSOTW project but it does seem to indicate that it is not proceeding and being worked on. I've checked here and with as many sources as I could find to verify my student's report but have found nothing of any substance to fill in the story of what is happening.

If this in fact is the latest on the OSOTW project than this is seriously disturbing news. Does anyone have any more legitimate substantive updates on what is happening? Either way it would be good to know so I can let my current students know what the deal is with the film.

Tim

[Kane76]

Of all the unfinished Welles films, this is the one I want to see the most (along with The Deep, Ambersons, the Nazi footage from The Stranger...you get the idea).

I just got a DVD copy of the AFI tribute and of course Welles was trying to find end money for OSOTW from the Hollywood crowd that had gathered to honor him. It was a nice tribute. I could have sworn I saw Gary Graver there, as well. And the OSOTW footage was wonderful. (I think the most moving footage was from Chimes at Midnight.) It was great seeing Heston saying nice words, Sinatra hosting and Johnny Carson telling a funny Welles story.

Welles was very charming, I thought, in his passionate plea for the "mavericks," used before the term became overused in this last election.

I met Bogdanovich a few years ago and we briefly chatted about Welles, but in my haste, forgot to ask him about the project. We mostly talked about the new book, Despite the System, for which he wrote the foreword.

[Vidamonte]

I have interviewed Oja Kodar couple of times and last
time I spoke with Oja was in April 2007 and then
she told me that they are going to make TOSOTW as a documentary, because they can't make it as a Orson Welles movie because they could never make it as he would have done it etc.
She also told that on the very same day (or was it day after)
Peter Bogdanovich was going to shoot the opening of the vault in LA (where some material, working print etc. is located)for this project and with him opening the vault would be the mysterious nephew (Sasha Welles ?).
I suggested that couldn't they release the movie as close
to "the script" as a dvd extra, but she said it is not for her to decide anymore( after the deal is closed, I understood).

So many times I've heard " just one small thing and..."

check this older post from August 08: http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=262

[ToddBaesen]

DID JIM MORRISON INFLUENCE WELLES SHOOTING OF (BREAK ON THROUGH) to THE OTHER SIDE... OF THE WIND?

Obviously, the following is complete conjecture, but there are still several rather bizarre intersections here of fact and fiction...

Jim Morrison was a film student, a filmmaker, a poet and a rock star. Was he also a lover of the work of Orson Welles? - (what filmmaker isn't?) More importantly, could Morrison's work have had any influence on Welles while he was making THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND in the hippie era of LA in 1970 to 1971?

These questions came to my mind when I read ROLLING STONE's entry that pegs Jim Morrison at # 47 on their list of the greatest singers of all time.

Now, John Dale, the young lead in Jake Hannaford's movie bears a very strong resemblance to Jim Morrison... Dale is played by actor Bob Random, who several writers have also noted bears quite a striking appearance to Jim Morrison. But the piece in ROLLING STONE notes that Morrison died in Paris on July 3, 1971, which is also the same night that THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND is set on, because it is the night of Jake's 70th birthday party (and the anniversary of Ernest Hemingway's suicide.)

Then, there's the fact that much of OSOTW was shot in LA and Paris. Important towns to both the work of Welles and Morrison (and for Hemingway, Paris.)

So, if any of the above comparisons have any validity, it seems obvious that Morrison's song Break on Through (to the Other Side), could quite possibly have been a partial inspiration for Welles's in titling his final Magnum Opus...

As Jim Morrison might say, "Ain't It Strange..."

[RayKelly]

There is a Jan. 15, 2009 interview with Frank Marshall at http://artvoice.com/issues/v7n52/hitting_the_button
promoting "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." The interviewer asks him about working on OSOTW:

AV: Frank, you started your career as a line producer in 1972 on Orson Welles’ unfinished The Other Side of the Wind. What did you learn there that still applies to filmmaking today?

Marshall:That was a time I wouldn’t trade anything for, working with Mr. Welles, as we used to call him. Every day was exciting. We would never know what we were going to do. The phone would ring, we’d jump up, he says, “It looks like a good sunrise—let’s shoot!” So we’d rush there and ask, “What are we shooting, Orson?” and he’d say, “I don’t know, let’s just get out there!” It was an adventure everyday.

[Because Welles was working with miniscule budget] he would improvise shots using minimal materials, and they would come out looking great. I thought I was in film school, he was so enthusiastic it was inspiring. And I’ve tried to take that along the way with all the movies that we’ve made. It’s a hard business, so you have to be passionate about the stories you tell.

[kipling71]

Is it just me or is anyone else positively SEETHING with envy that French got to see a rough cut of "Other Side of the Wind"? Lucky BASTARD!!!!

[nextren]

Here is a Variety story posted today (Februrary 17, 2009). Marshall and Bogdanovich are interviewed about OSOTW.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000218.html?categoryId=3554&cs=1

Bogdanovich: "It's going to happen in the next month or so," he says. "We're aiming for Cannes."

Cannes 2009 is May 13-24. Three months from now.

The problem is that, according to Marshall, the Paris negative has not even been inspected yet. He says it is still tied up in a legal battle among "the estates."

We were told at some point in the past two years - weren't we? - that the Paris negative had indeed been inspected and was in great shape. Again I use the emoticon:

I apologize if I have opened old wounds. The subject is pretty painful (and wearying) to some. At least Mr. French has verified with his own eyes that there is, in fact, a movie called OSOTW. He saw the rough cut. OR SO HE SAYS... Just kidding, LF!