THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND Thread - 2015-2017

[Roger Ryan]

...obtaining financing...

This is usually the culprit right here. Perhaps the legal agreements finally took care of forty years of ownership issues...which has moved the clock back to 1975 and the producers are looking for completion funds!

[Le Chiffre]

Nothing would surprise me at this point...except that everything was proceeding smoothly.

[tonyw]

Drat! And I thought a DVD would be ready for the last day of my Welles class!

[RayKelly]

An inside look at how TOSOTW has been pitched
Sony email leak included pitch for ‘The Other Side of the WInd’
http://www.wellesnet.com/sony-email-leak-included-pitch-for-the-other-side-of-the-wind/

[tonyw]

And now all clips have vanished from youtube

[RayKelly]

And now all clips have vanished from youtube

When the 20 minutes of previously unseen footage appeared on Henry Jaglom's YouTube channel in November 2012, there was a lot of publicity. Within 2 months, those clips -- and everything else out there from Wind -- was taken down, as YouTube stated, at the request of OlPal. I assume OlPal is Olga Palinkas aka Oja Kodar.
With the footage now in the hands of Royal Road Entertainment with plans for its release, I assume they will want to keep it off YouTube, Vimeo and the like,

[tonyw]

Understandably so - but as long as a finished version does appear - in our lifetimes, of course?

[Wellesnet]

No completed TOSOTW at Canne 2015, but they will be showing 4K restorations of Citizen Kane, The Lady from Shanghai and The Third Man, as well as two new hour-long documentaries on Orson Welles.
http://www.wellesnet.com/cannes-film-festival-2015-no-the-other-side-of-the-wind-but-2-orson-welles-documentaries-and-3-restorations/

[Wellesnet]

Six months after producers announced they would complete Orson Welles' unfinished The Other Side of the Wind in time for the 100th anniversary of his birth in May, they have been stymied by distributors unwilling to finance the project without first seeing edited footage.
http://www.wellesnet.com/producer-distributors-want-to-see-edited-the-other-side-of-the-wind-footage-before-committing-money/

[jbrooks]

This development is puzzling. Showtime was apparently willing to put up the completion funds 10 years ago and was only stymied by rights issues. Is it really possible that Frank Marshall can't get anyone to fund this? He's about as well connected in Hollywood as anyone possibly could be. He's a power-house producer in his own right, and his wife is the President of Lucasfilm. There must be 100 people in his rolodex who would give him $5 million in completion funds. Or he could fund it himself personally.

Also, quite a lot of the footage from The Other Side of the Wind has already been seen publicly. One would think that potential distributors could get a feel for the film from the scenes that the producers already have on hand--

--Hannaford arrives at the party.
--Hannaford, Overlake and Strasberg banter at the party in the front of the crowd
--Norman Foster shows the studio head the clips of the film-within-the-film
--The car sex scene from the film within the film
--Hannaford (offscreen) directing the sex seen on the bed outside.
--The reporters pestering Hannaford with questions in the car
--Mr. Pfister getting kicked out of the car and getting onto the bus with the dummies
--The film within the film scenes were Oja and Bob Random walk through the modern cityscape
--Jaglom, Mazursky, and Hopper discussing Hannaford and the status of filmmaking in Hollywood
--Hannaford and Overlake discussing Hannaford's finances
--Hannaford's cronies at the party discussing the difficulties in getting financing
--Hannaford's meeting with the former teacher of his male star

That must be about an hour of material (although not all of it would make it to the final film -- and some would need to be edited more tightly).

[mido505]

You are exactly right, jbrooks.

I smell that familiar old TOSOTW stench, wafting down the alley.

Where is the Facebook page? The website? The pictures of an ecstatic Frank Marshall, Bogdanovich, Oja Kodar, and Beatrice in tow, opening up the long-sealed vault that held the negative for 40 years? How about a few shots of the negative, perhaps some screen caps of never-before-seen footage? There should be a page of YouTube videos showing scans of scenes already edited by Welles.

Buzz, buzz, buzz. Hollywood thrives on buzz. These people are supposed to be professionals, creating excitement, building momentum, creating an audience.

Instead it's the usual drip, drip, drip.

I don't think the negative has left Paris. F for Fake, indeed.

[RayKelly]

Where is the Facebook page? The website? ... Buzz, buzz, buzz. Hollywood thrives on buzz. These people are supposed to be professionals, creating excitement, building momentum, creating an audience.

Silence is bad -- especially when it involves TOSOTW
Joe McBride spoke for a lot of us at Indiana University this evening.
There were some tidbits revealed. You can read them at http://www.wellesnet.com/the-other-side-of-the-wind-what-we-learned-at-indiana-university/

[Wellesnet]

Two pessimistic blog entries from Hollywood Elsewhere:
http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2015 ... l-letdown/

http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2015 ... -standoff/

[RayKelly]

Two pessimistic blog entries from Hollywood Elsewhere:
http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2015 ... l-letdown/
http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2015 ... -standoff/

Jeffrey Wells opinions voiced on Hollywood Elsewhere cite my reporting on Wellesnet. I do not share his dire view and posted this comment on his blog:

"As someone who has followed this closely -- almost to the point of obsession -- I never meant to give as pessimistic a view as described above. Distributors want to see footage taken from the negative to make sure it is in good enough quality for a theatrical release. If it were my money at stake, I would feel the same way.
I have watched Welles' decades old 42-minute work print numerous times and it is battered. A finished film cannot be judged from what I have seen.
The three producers have sunk a lot of time and their own money into TOSOTW over the past few years. I cannot imagine they expect to get rich off of this. And, kudos, they have gotten farther than anyone else since 1985.
The 18 hours of negative they have acquired was indexed and catalogued in Paris. An editor can put together a sampler reel from a digital scan of the 35mm, 16mm and 8mm footage, early video and stills to satisfy distributors.
They need to put together financing to do this. Editing costs money. These are bright fellows. They will figure it out,
Six months ago, I thought talk of a May 6 premiere (or any 2015 premiere) sounded far too optimistic.
I believe TOSOTW will be completed by Rymsza, Marshall and Kaul. After reading my Wellesnet post, someone told me I sounded frustrated. I admit I feel like I did at the age of 9 when my parents said I had to wait until after Mass to open my Christmas gifts."

[mido505]

From Jeffrey Wells's post:

“The negative is in France,” McBride states, “and post will be done there. I’m not sure who the editor is. The producer, Filip Jan Rymsza, would be the one to ask. I’m not directly involved. I’m just giving them whatever advice and help they need. At some point they will show a cut to me and some others to get opinions.”

I called it. The negative never left Paris.

I appreciate that you are optimistic, Ray. I am not.

Post-production has hardly begun, if at all. McBride is barely involved. Bogdanovich is MIA. Jonathan Rosenbaum, previously mentioned as an advisor, also seems to be in the dark. No editor has been announced. After announcing an accelerated completion date, the producers get testy about questions regarding a completion date.

Let me reiterate: at the time when the producers claimed they could be finished, they have barely started.

Ray, you state in your comment that the negative has been scanned. May I ask who gave you this information?