By RAY KELLY
Days before Netflix pulled The Other Side of the Wind and four other movies from the Cannes Film Festival lineup, Orson Welles’ youngest daughter, Beatrice, had made an emotional plea to the streaming giant to put aside its differences with the prestigious festival for the sake of her late father’s legacy.
Beatrice Welles made her email to Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos available to Vanity Fair and Wellesnet without additional comment tonight. In the email, she cited the special relationship between Cannes and her father and suggested that The Other Side of the Wind could bridge the gap between the contentious parties.
“I saw how the big production companies destroyed his life, his work and in so doing a little bit of the man I loved so much. I would so hate to see Netflix be yet another of these companies…. The Other Side of the Wind belongs in Cannes, where they love and respect him more than anywhere else,” she wrote. “This was ‘his’ film festival. It is so appropriate that you should be there to take in the accolades for having done the work you did to make Wind a reality. What you have done is nothing short of cinematic history.”
“I totally understand the differences you and Cannes have, but who is going to suffer in the end? My father’s legacy. I know that neither you nor Cannes wish that upon him. He deserves so much more.”
She added, “I understand that what I am asking is far from easy. Please reconsider and let my father’s work be the movie that bridges the gap between Netflix and Cannes. I loved him more than words can say. To imagine that Wind won’t premiere in its rightful place is more than a heartbreak for me.”
As Beatrice Welles noted in her email, Cannes holds a special place in Welles history.
His Othello received the Grand Prix in 1952, while Chimes at Midnight won the 20th Anniversary Prize and Technical Grand Prize 14 years later. Welles took home best actor honors at Cannes for his performance in Richard Fleischer’s Compulsion in 1959. He served on the Cannes jury in 1983. Since Welles’ passing in October 1985, Cannes has screened revivals of Citizen Kane and The Lady from Shanghai, a restored Othello and footage from his unfinished Don Quixote.
According to Vanity Fair, Sarandos responded to Beatrice Welles’ email, but ultimately followed through on his plan to withdraw from the festival. (Wellesnet has reached out to Netflix for comment about its dispute with Cannes.)
The world premiere of The Other Side of the Wind in France seemed destined. After all, it was a French-Iranian production, several key people involved are French and its negative spent four decades in storage in a film laboratory outside Paris.
While Cannes has showered Welles with praise over the years, the festival has been critical of Netflix. The streaming giant does not release its original films theatrically in France due to a French law that prohibits films from streaming online for three years after their theatrical run.
The Other Side of Wind was originally produced by Welles and Les Films de L’Astrophore. Filip Jan Rymsza’s Royal Road Entertainment is producing the movie with Frank Marshall, who served as line producer during the 1970s shoot.
Marshall has called the movie “collateral damage” in the dispute between Netflix and Cannes.
Rymsza issued a statement tonight on the film’s crowdfunding page.
“As news of Netflix’s decision to withdraw all of its films from the Cannes Film Festival spreads throughout the film community, I’d like to let you know that we fought long and hard to persuade Netflix to keep The Other Side of the Wind in the festival. Our film was selected to screen Out of Competition, as an Official Selection in the Grand Théâtre Lumière, so it was not directly effected by the ban.
What’s sad and most difficult to come to terms with is that everyone loses in this decision — Cannes, Netflix, film lovers and all of us who worked so hard on this historic endeavor.
The film is a marvel. Cannes Festival Director Thierry Frémaux deemed it “an extraordinary film, much more than a historical film… a message from [Orson Welles] to the world of cinema today.” No other festival premiere will rival what Cannes intended for the films. Their placement and reception will live only in our collective imagination.
Granted, I’m conflicted in my emotions. There would be no The Other Side of the Wind without Netflix, but that doesn’t lessen my disappointment and heartbreak.”
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