‘The Other Side of the Wind’ being finished in Los Angeles for Netflix

[Wellesnet]

Pat McMahon recalls his work in The Other Side of the Wind as "Marvin P. Fassbinder":
https://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwtv/art ... x-20190220

[Le Chiffre]

In 1973, the phone rang, it was Welles. "Pat? Orson. Do you still have that same outfit that you wore (two years ago) and can you be at (the Slingman House in Carefree) in a couple of days?"

Ah, that kind of settles the question as to why Marvin P. Fassbinder's hair looks somewhat different at the party then it did in the back of Oja's car. The two scenes were filmed two years apart.

[RayKelly]

Teresa Nersesyan's dad was legal counsel for Charles Manson and shortly before her 14th birthday, she was cast by Orson Welles as the Ice Cube Girl in THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND after he saw her yearbook photo! She went on to become a fashion exec and sailed the world.
Read her story at http://www.wellesnet.com/ice-cube-girl-other-side-wind/

[Le Chiffre]

That's quite a story. I thought the Ice Cube Girl looked real young, but I didn't think she was THAT young. I doubt if you could get away with something like that nowadays. Thanks, Ray. Another great job.

Squeaky Fromme taught her how to ride. Holy shit.

[RayKelly]

I thought the Ice Cube Girl looked real young, but I didn't think she was THAT young. I doubt if you could get away with something like that nowadays. Thanks, Ray. Another great job.
Squeaky Fromme taught her how to ride. Holy shit.

Thanks. I spent a lot of time tracking her down. It was a lot of fun to write.
And, yes, I thought she was going to be older!

[Roger Ryan]

I thought the Ice Cube Girl looked real young, but I didn't think she was THAT young. I doubt if you could get away with something like that nowadays. Thanks, Ray. Another great job.
Squeaky Fromme taught her how to ride. Holy shit.

Thanks. I spent a lot of time tracking her down. It was a lot of fun to write.
And, yes, I thought she was going to be older!

A superb interview!

One thing I'm curious about: while she claims no one had ever sought her out regarding Wind prior to you, Ray, I see she is credited in the film under her married surname (according to IMDb.com). Given that she did not have that name until 1990/91, it seems that she must have been contacted by the producers prior to the completion of the film. Or, was her name just recently added to the official cast list (I haven't checked the actual credits in the film)?

[Le Chiffre]

One person's reaction on Facebook (Juan):
"14 years! It would have been a scandal in these times. It was less bad back then."

I suppose that's true. The early 70s were a time when a major film could show a 12-year-old girl ramming a crucifix into her private area, or a naked 13-year-old making out with a man in bed, as in Tom Laughlin's BILLY JACK (and that was rated PG!). A couple of years after the Ice Cube Girl footage was filmed, Polanski got away with drugging and sodomizing a 13-year-old girl partly because he was a famous film director. This kind of scandal may have destroyed the 'Easy Rider' era just as much as JAWS and STAR WARS.

Also from Facebook (Linda):
"OMG, I watched Welles's Othello last night (not having seen the whole thing before) and realized that Desdemona's death scene with the veil is eerily like that ice cube scene!"

I replied that in both cases it was a possible metaphor for the dehumanization or objectification of women.

As Teresa Nersesyan says,

He was a master, I was 14. He was only interested in how I looked — not who I was like everyone else...I was just an object with ice. That was made clear to me by those few on the set, Orson at the lead.

[RayKelly]

One thing I'm curious about: while she claims no one had ever sought her out regarding Wind prior to you, Ray, I see she is credited in the film under her married surname (according to IMDb.com). Given that she did not have that name until 1990/91, it seems that she must have been contacted by the producers prior to the completion of the film. Or, was her name just recently added to the official cast list (I haven't checked the actual credits in the film)?

Filip Jan Rymsza told me they had a staffer track her down, as they did many others, to check on claims and screen credits. Her name was a late addition to IMDb.
During our correspondence, Teresa mentioned someone affiliated with the production contacted her before the Netflix release and invited her to a LA screening, but she is in Spain and was given 3 days notice.

[Roger Ryan]

Thanks for the clarification, Ray.

...Teresa mentioned someone affiliated with the production contacted her before the Netflix release and invited her to a LA screening, but she is in Spain and was given 3 days notice.

Inconveniently handled, but at least someone reached out with an invitation.

[MartynH]

I found the interview a revelation. So much can be gleaned by seeking out the so called lesser players in a project. You never know what you will find. Her observations on Welles and cast are invaluable.

I have had several books published and this has always been a tactic of mine. As Robert Fripp of King Crimson related : "If you want to know about a band, ask the roadies".

Someone noted that you would never get get away with using a 14 year old like that today. Well, this is true, but those times were different, Just after Cream split Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton formed a short lived one album band called Blind Faith. The cover was adorned a 12/13 year old topless girl.

[Le Chiffre]

It was an era of moral decadence for sure, until about 1980, when the Iranian Hostage Crisis and the election of Reagan made the country do a 180, for better and worse. The rise of the "Religious Right" and the one-two punch of Herpes and AIDS that hit around that time was also a cold slap in the face to the Sexual Revolution of the 60s and 70s. I wonder if that is one of the things that caused Welles to decide that Wind was dated and might be better off as an essay film.

Another interesting thing about the interview is that Nersesyan says Welles wanted her because she looked like a baby doll. A baby doll figures prominantly in the latter part of the scene when Oja cuts the eyes out of one and holds them up as if they were earrings. According to the interview, Welles went ballistic because of a lost earring, but Ice Cube Girl is not wearing earrings in the film itself.

[RayKelly]

Nersesyan says Welles wanted her because she looked like a baby doll. A baby doll figures prominently in the latter part of the scene when Oja cuts the eyes out of one and holds them up as if they were earrings.

Interesting observation. It makes the whole scene even creepier. The baby doll Ice Cube Girl watches The Actress disrobe, and the plastic doll gets its eyes gouged out! ("Oh, it’s the sickest story I’ve ever thought up in my life" -- Orson Welles.)

It's also worth noting that there was debate between Jonathan Rosenbaum and Joseph McBride over whether Oja Kodar directed some of the film-within-a-film sequences; specifically the car sex scene with John Dale, bathroom orgy sequence and the toppling of the giant phaluus structure at the end.
Based on the interviews I have done with Bob Random and Teresa Nersesyan, it appears Orson was the sole director of the scenes they were involved in -- which is not to say Oja might not have contributed ideas outside of the shoot.

[JMcBride]

In one of the programs we did on OTHER WIND at the
Telluride Film Festival, Frank Marshall mentioned
that he was inside the giant phallus
in the scene. It was about six feet high,
and he was told by Orson to get in it so it would
topple over on cue. This scene shot in forced perspective was one of those
early scenes for the film-within-the-film shot
in Arizona in 1971 when Frank first came aboard. There
are stills of Orson directing those scenes, though
not one in which Orson and the giant phallus are
in the same shot (cue joke here).

I learned this arcane bit of OTHER WIND casting/production lore at Telluride when I asked what color the penis is supposed to be.
In the Graver/Mazzola work print, it looks black, but in the final film it looks white. Frank Marshall said
it was white, and he knew because he was in it. That's the payoff on the "Or is the camera merely a phallus?"
motif I introduce with my question directed to Hannaford in the car, and as I wrote in Sight & Sound, not facetiously, the
film becomes about "the death of phallocracy." I've always been surprised that audiences don't laugh when the
giant phallus topples over, which I find funny in its deliberately over-the-top symbolism, but I guess by
that point the film is so grave in tone, and the symbolism so freighted with serious meaning, that
it doesn't strike people as funny.

[Le Chiffre]

The "death of phallocracy" idea calls to mind Welles's interest in Robert Graves and the White Goddess theory. That may be the influence of Oja as well, Welles's last great muse.

Yes, I thought the ending seemed too dark and strange to be funny, although i did get the feeling from time to time that the film was intended to be more satirical then what comes across. Some of it does come across, such as your camera as phallus line. Thanks for the insight on that. I didn't make the connection between that and the balloon phallus before.

I wonder what the John Dale dummy losing it's head at the end means.

"Is the camera a reflection of reality, or is reality a reflection of the camera eye? Or is the camera a phallus?"

. The baby doll Ice Cube Girl watches The Actress disrobe, and the plastic doll gets its eyes gouged out! ("Oh, it’s the sickest story I’ve ever thought up in my life" -- Orson Welles.)

I'd like to know what those lost earrings looked like. Eyes? Interestingly, there is an eye ring in the scene.

[Le Chiffre]

Would love to hear Teresa's reaction to the film when she watches it, especially if anything she filmed was left out. Bob Murawski, if I remember correctly, has already stated that the bathroom sequence had to be toned down because some of it was too much.

We still haven't heard Oja Kodar's reaction yet either. Strange, since she was Welles's collaborator on the film.