The movie within the movie- a silent film?

[Tony]

I had a strange thought that Welles made 2 silent movies- Too Much Johnson and The Other Side of the Wind (the movie within the movie). In both there is no dialogue and in both music has been added. And, of course in Wind there are sound effects and the brief speaking of Hanneford- but essentially both are silent. And for the life of me I can't imagine why Welles did this. Was it to make the movie within the movie more dream-like, or perhaps to make it more symbolic, with Oja's character as the doppelganger for Hanneford? And even when Bob Random's character and Oja's escape from the movie within the movie and enter the movie itself, neither utters a word, they remain mute....

Hmmm......

[Roger Ryan]

For contrast? He must have known from the outset that the party scenes would be filled with dialogue, so he conceived of Hannaford's film (or what we see of it) as dialogue-free to provide some relief from the barrage of verbiage the rest of Wind contained. There are other reasons as well: Max David attempting to suss out the plot and Billy failing to explain it would not have worked as effectively if they were talking over a scene or scenes of Dale and the Actress actually speaking to each other - there has to be something immediately unfathomable about Hannaford's footage to motivate David's confusion/disappointment. Having just watched Antonioni's La Notte yesterday, I was struck by how much of the film has Jeanne Moreau's character simply walking past buildings (yes, reflections are used a lot) while being pursued by various men, with little-to-no dialogue spoken.

The fact that Dale and the Actress do not speak in the "real world" of Wind either is a great conceit: it is just like the characters from Hannaford's film coming to life, especially for Dale, the character everyone in the film talks about at some point, but who is like a phantom - perhaps already shot dead by Hannaford's camera?

[Le Chiffre]

Thanks for pointing that out, Tony. It is indeed quite interesting that Dale and Oja's characters do not speak at the party, maybe part of the elaborate hall of mirrors between art and life the film sets up. That's why I was a bit disappointed to see them change the ending that Welles had originally intended in the script. With a single word, "Cut!", Hannaford would have ended both movies at once.

FOUR MEN ON A RAFT was also essentially a silent film, although it would have been narrated by Welles. It could also be seen as a sort of film-within-the-film, a long flashback within the Carnival episode of IT'S ALL TRUE, as Welles originally intended it.

Nice observation on LA NOTTE, Roger. That's one Antonioni I've not seen, but I'll check it out. Quite interesting that the girl being chased is Jeanne Moreau, who was basically replaced in Welles's life and career by Oja Kodar.

[Tony]

I've never heard that before, Le Chiffe- that "Cut" spoken by Hanneford would've ended both movies simultaneously- that's fantastic!

[NoFake]

I've never heard that before, Le Chiffe- that "Cut" spoken by Hanneford would've ended both movies simultaneously- that's fantastic!

And, of course, it would have recalled Welles's playful command at the end of Henry Jaglom's "Someone to Love."

[Le Chiffre]

Yeah, I never thought of that, NoFake. As it turns out, "cut" was the last thing Welles ever said in a movie.

Also strange is the idea that, Hannaford would have ended both Winds at about the same time he was ending (on purpose?) his own life.

[Roger Ryan]

I agree that the use of the word "cut" to end both "films" is an intriguing idea, but there is a slight problem with the logic: Hannaford's statements heard just prior to him declaring "cut" are from one of the recorded interviews Otterlake has provided the cineastes, not from the soundtrack of the film-within-the-film (where we hear Hannaford providing direction to his two leads). In this context, Hannaford's "cut" could only be heard as a playful way of ending the recorded interview. By moving Hannaford's "cut" to the end of the credits, the producers have effectively removed Hannaford's last word from the context of the recorded interview where it can, indeed, be heard as the director ending the film.

[jbrooks]

I agree that the use of the word "cut" to end both "films" is an intriguing idea, but there is a slight problem with the logic: Hannaford's statements heard just prior to him declaring "cut" are from one of the recorded interviews Otterlake has provided the cineastes, not from the soundtrack of the film-within-the-film (where we hear Hannaford providing direction to his two leads). In this context, Hannaford's "cut" could only be heard as a playful way of ending the recorded interview. By moving Hannaford's "cut" to the end of the credits, the producers have effectively removed Hannaford's last word from the context of the recorded interview where it can, indeed, be heard as the director ending the film.

Roger, what I think you're forgetting is that the screenplay (or at least one of the drafts) ended with Hannaford's voice saying "Cut" at the end of the work-in-progress film screening at the drive in. In the screenplay, that voice is described as coming from "the soundtrack of the projected film." It's not a continuation of Hannaford's voice over from the interview tapes. So there is no logical problem with the way Welles intended -- at least at one point in time -- to end both movies with Hannaford's spoken line "Cut."

[Roger Ryan]

Roger, what I think you're forgetting is that the screenplay (or at least one of the drafts) ended with Hannaford's voice saying "Cut" at the end of the work-in-progress film screening at the drive in. In the screenplay, that voice is described as coming from "the soundtrack of the projected film." It's not a continuation of Hannaford's voice over from the interview tapes. So there is no logical problem with the way Welles intended -- at least at one point in time -- to end both movies with Hannaford's spoken line "Cut."

Correct - I should have been clearer that I was referring only to the materials Royal Road had available to construct the ending and how those materials could be best used to approximate the ending Welles wanted.

In the screenplay, Welles created an ending that works well on the page, but would be difficult to realize on film. Hannaford's recorded interview lines are clearly meant to be a summation of the principal theme of TOSOTW (similar to Thompson discussing the jigsaw puzzle-like investigation into Kane's life). Welles implies in the screenplay that additional action takes place following these lines (the Actress leaving the drive-in; the wind blowing down the sets in the film-within-the-film; the rising sun washing out the screen image) before we hear Hannaford on the film soundtrack declare "cut". This is effective in the screenplay because there are only a couple of brief lines describing the action (in a very literary way) following the interview dialogue and before the final word "cut"; because of the brevity, the reader accepts both the interview dialogue and Hannaford declaring "cut" as the conclusion to the film.

However, the actual footage as shot works against this clean resolution. First, the significant amount of footage showing the wind blowing down the sets, the Actress attacking the phallic set dressing, and the Dale dummy's head falling off pushes the recorded interview dialogue further away from the ending of the film, dulling its impact. It also appears that very little (usable) footage was shot of Dale walking through Hannaford's home where the entirety of the recorded interview was meant to be heard, meaning the producers did not have enough "coverage" to effectively play out all of the recorded interview lines. The decision to split Hannaford's interview dialogue into two parts, the first part accompanying the shots of Dale returning to Hannaford's home and the concluding lines to accompany the final shot of the film, strikes me as an inventive way to work with the material at hand and remain true to the intent of Welles' screenplay. This, of course, would change the context of the final word "cut" which would then seem to be the conclusion to the recorded interview (this is what I was getting at in my previous post).

It's been said that Welles had the idea of hearing the word "cut" echo through all of the drive-in speakers and this would have been a way of distinguishing that the word came from the soundtrack of the projected film. Again, I think that there would need to be footage of the speakers for this idea to be realized in the finished film, and I don't think such footage was shot. Moving "cut" to the end of the credits allows it to remain the last word heard in the film which is a nice nod to Welles' intentions.

[Le Chiffre]

Problem is, the majority of people don't really watch credits, and so, wouldn't have heard it. To have Hannaford's last word demoted to a post-credit stinger seems to render it almost pointless, although i did hear a few people chuckle at it when i saw the film at a theatre screening. Most of the audience was already out the door, though.

No way to tell what effect it would have had if it had been left in it's original place, but for me, the whole issue of the mysterious relationship between the two Winds gives rise to another question: did Welles really want them in different aspect ratios? If one of the points of the film was to blur the line between art and life, why make such a clear distinction between the two films? I did like the technique, and it yields some striking transitions between the two Winds, but it also started to seem a bit gimmicky at times.

Furthermore, didn't Hannaford's visual compositions get truncated at top and bottom in the process of converting them to widescreen? I seem to recall reading that Welles wanted the film to be shown in a 1.66 AR (popular in Europe at the time), but which film? Both?

[Roger Ryan]

I asked Filip Jan Rymsza at the 2015 Indiana University Welles Symposium if two different aspect ratios would be used for the completed film (this struck me as a real possibility to help distinguish the "film-within-the-film" footage from the party footage) and he replied that they intended to present the entire film in the 1.37:1 aspect ratio. Of course, this turned out not to be the case. I don't know if Welles left any notes, or had any discussions, concerning varying aspect ratios, but you can usually tell if footage is composed in a way that will allow for widescreen cropping and when it isn't. I don't think there is a single shot in the "film-within-the-film" that looks compromised by being cropped to the 1.85:1 aspect ratio. At the same time, nearly all of the documentary-style footage (the party material) is composed so tightly that any cropping would be detrimental. Was this a conscious decision on Welles' part? Probably inasmuch as he wanted the party footage to feel like a TV news documentary (extreme close-ups of faces; tight compositions overall) while the conceit of the Antonioni-like art film footage would logically demand wide vistas and long shots - that contrast between the two styles of filming would have definitely been part of his plan.