That Stroheim quote is great. That seems to be the way the Hollywood game goes: make money for the studios with their kind of movies and they'll let you do something risky and individualistic once in awhile. Ford and Hitchcock understood this, and so had long, successful careers. So did Stanley Kubrick, who got to do BARRY LYNDON after 2001 and CLOCKWORK ORANGE were hits, then when Lyndon failed, did THE SHINING to get back in the good graces of Warner Brothers. Spielberg got funding to do something risky like SCHINDLER'S LIST because he had already made a ton of money for the studios with more commercial fare. Welles played along with this game too when he made THE STRANGER, but as Paul Schrader put it in HOLLYWOOD MAVERICKS: "There was a certain contrariness to (Welles) that made it very difficult for him to work within the Hollywood system." Of course, having several films cut to ribbons by the studios undoubtedly added to that difficulty. In Europe he had the opposite problem: artistic freedom, but inferior resources and convoluted financing.
It's not surprising that those that make it big playing by the system's rules, like Vin Diesel, are contemptuous of those, like Welles, who tried to challenge that system. As Welles himself said, "An individual is an outright nuisance in a factory."
And regarding presentism:
"I passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time."
That seems to be the basic idea behind THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND: a dark satire about what happens when an old director tries to be "with it" and in step with his time.
BTW, I can't remember if I have posted this before, but it might be apropos in this thread too. It's another trashing of CITIZEN KANE by Cinema Sins on YouTube. Pretty nitpicky for the most part, but some amusing bits here and there.
Everything Wrong With Citizen Kane:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqHRwP7LFMg
