By RAY KELLY
Imagine eavesdropping on a suppertime conversation between a maverick filmmaker who was frequently at odds with the major studios and a young director at the forefront of the New Hollywood movement.
Cineastes will rejoice in learning that extensive footage of the November 1970 meeting of Citizen Kane creator Orson Welles and Easy Rider director Dennis Hopper has been uncovered and assembled by The Other Side of the Wind producer Filip Jan Rymsza and editor Bob Murawski. Politics, Christianity, fraught family relationships and, of course, moviemaking are among the topics touched upon in Hopper / Welles — an unscripted 130-minute talk directed by Welles.
La Biennale di Venezia announced on Tuesday, July 28, that it will screen Hopper / Welles at its Venice International Film Festival in September. Also on the festival roster is Mosquito State, a feature written and directed by Rymsza about an obsessive Wall Street data analyst.
Rymsza has kindly made Hopper / Welles available to Wellesnet and we will be reviewing it at a later date.
Hopper / Welles was assembled by editor Bob Murawski and producer Filip Jan Rymsa, seen here at the Venice International Film Festival on August 31, 2018.
The overwhelming majority of the two-camera, black and white footage — lit only by hurricane lamps and the glow of a fireplace — has never been publicly seen before. It was among the 1,083 reels of The Other Side of the Wind footage that was inventoried and scanned in 2017.
Hopper / Welles was lensed 50 years ago when the 34-year-old director agreed to a cameo as a party guest for Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind – a biting takedown of the crumbling studio system and rise of New Hollywood. The two men were already acquainted. Welles had offered Hopper advice on the editing Easy Rider two years earlier. In November 1970, Welles, 55, flew Hopper from New Mexico to Los Angeles, where he cooked him a pasta dinner before they spent the evening talking as the cameras rolled.
Years after Welles’ death in 1985, Hopper recalled fondly the Los Angeles shoot in an interview with Mustard magazine. He said he was pretty much playing himself in a conversation with The Other Side of the Wind‘s lead character, Jake Hannaford, a legendary director voiced by Welles during the shoot before John Huston was cast in the role.
“Because of money and time, Welles was shooting the movie in bits and pieces. To allow himself to do that, he’d written it into the script that, during the dinner, there is this power outage. So Orson set up a few hurricane lamps around me which meant he could tie the footage in with what he’d already shot,” Hopper recalled. “It was genius – what a mind to be able to make a movie like that. We filmed all night.
Hopper, who passed away in 2010, expressed his admiration for Welles, a fellow renegade who “upset the applecart.”
“When people talk about me turning things upside down with Easy Rider, I always think how amazing it was that this 24-year-old kid was able to make a movie like Citizen Kane when the studio system was at its most powerful. That’s a real renegade for you,” Hopper said. “Of course, he got his ass kicked for it, but that’s not the point. The simple fact is, if people want to talk renegade filmmakers, you shouldn’t look to the 1960s. You should look to 1940 and George Orson Welles.”
Dennis Hopper in a scene from the forthcoming film Hopper / Welles. (Royal Road Entertainment)
The late Gary Graver served as cinematographer on Hopper / Welles. It is believed his then-wife, Connie Nelson Graver, was a camera assistant with John Willheim on the B camera and R. Michael Stringer as gaffer.
Hopper / Welles’ debut at Venice marks a return there for Rymsza, who attended the festival in 2018 for the premieres of The Other Side of the Wind and They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead. Murawski, already an Academy Award winner for The Hurt Locker, was honored that same year with the Campari Passion for Film Award by La Biennale di Venezia.
The 77th Venice International Film Festival will take place September 2-12, but with a reduced lineup, becoming the first major film festival not to be canceled or delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The official selection was reduced to about 50 movies.
In a statement, Artistic Director Alberto Barbera said, “I am extremely pleased that the Biennale Cinema can be held with a minimum reduction of films and sections. Without forgetting the countless victims of these past few months to whom due tribute shall be paid, the first international festival following the forced interruption dictated by the pandemic becomes the meaningful celebration of the reopening we all looked forward to, and a message of concrete optimism for the entire world of cinema which has suffered greatly from this crisis.”
The announcement of Hopper / Welles inclusion in the 77th Venice International Film Festival was live streamed on July 28, 2020.
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