The Answer, My Friends . . . , - Theories on TOSOTW

[Singapore Cecil]

There have been various speculations about
the quality of The Other Side of the Wind
and Welles's motivations concerning the the film.

Lets start a "sounding board" realizing we haven't seen it yet.

The "I'm Still Directing" Theory.
Welles was in his 50's while directing the film and needed to
have an answer as to what project he was working on.
By stretching out the timing of the filming he was able
to say I’m finishing "The Other Side of the Wind"

the “Over the Hill" theory
the idea that Welles was not in good shape and couldn't
direct as well as he had in the past

the “Oja” theory
that Ms. Kodar directed the scenes that she appears in

the “Spanish fire-bagman” theory
that the story that Welles was deceived about the bagman for the film was similar top the Spanish fire. A convenient and uncheckable excuse.

The “it’s a stinker” theory
That it is a blessing that the film has not been released because it’s terrible.

The “Huston oscar” theory
It’s his greatest performance etc.

[Oscar Christie]

An article about TOSOTW and Graver appears in the Sunday Feb. 8 L.A. Times, with a link to a scene from Wind:

www.calendarlive.com/wind

wind clip

[jbrooks]

Thanks for the link. Interesting article, though sadly not much new there.

Is it just me or do we hear the same thing year after year in regards to The Other Side of the Wind. It's always just about going to see the light of day.

If as Graver suggests, the success of the revival of Touch of Evil has helped Wind's prospects, why is it that it is 5 1/2 years since Touch of Evil was re-released and still no Wind?

And I'm afraid to say, one must truly wonder what state the film is in if Spielberg, Stone, and Lucas have all seen it, and none has helped get it finished.

[blunted by community]

if you look at the clips of OSOTW that are available, not one shot is on screen more than a few seconds. most shots are on screen for a fraction of a second. this is how welles intended to edit it, so what he shot doesn't have any continuity like say john ford footage, where all that needed to be done was use the right takes and cut out the slates.
how the heck can any one put it together besides welles?

i didn't know that speilberg, stone and whoever else had seen it and turned it down, but the prospect of a famous director failing at a satisfactory assembly of such a film can't be good for any of their carreers. a guy like schmidlin who is known as a restorer, not a director would get less of a beating if the project stunk.

recently i read somewhere that frank mashal was involved now. that is great news because marshal has a mountain of money.

even frank mazolla that is used to putting together tiny fragments of film into a whole movie turned it down.

[Le Chiffre]

Maybe they ought to just incorporate the footage into some kind of documentary detailing the whole sorry history of the WIND fiasco. That might actually be more entertaining then an Oja/Bogdanovich assemblage passed off as a Welles film.

[Flint]

I think the article's great. Yes, its all stuff we've heard before, but not probably Joe Schmoe. Any amount of publicity for TOSOTW can only be a good thing, and the upcoming retrospective at the Egyptian will only enhance it. As the DVD boom continues to show no signs of stopping, I think we're getting very close to seeing this thing finished and released. SOMEONE is going to realize (and I think very soon) that there is money to be made in providing the needed finishing funds.

-Flint

[Harvey Chartrand]

That's an interesting theory, about how TOSTW consists of so many nanosecond images that it may be impossible to edit. One would assume that Welles had it all figured out in that big brain of his, but unlike the 50-page Touch of Evil guide, he left no notes behind for assembling TOSTW.
Or maybe Welles himself realized that it would take years of steady effort to assemble THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND, that he had created a film that literally could not be edited — even by him!
So maybe this is what is actually holding things up, because I too am weary (after 30 years) of hearing that TOSTW is on the way.

[blunted by community]

years ago i read that welles welles had left detailed editing instruction with graver on how to put the film together. if he did, in this age of digital editing it would not be such a daunting task as it would be to cut and glue clips together, but still no day at the beach. it would be a hair pulling task to build a castle out of all these matchsticks, which welles could do because this is how he was accustomed to shooting. in their poorest days i don't think speilberg, or stone were ever so down and out that they had to resort to making films like welles had to make films.

yeah, harvey. imagine looking at 5000 tiny pieces of footage that a guy that died 20 years ago said could be edited into a full film. knowing welles i'm also sure most of these fragments of film didn't even have slates to tell the editor where it belongs. look at that birthday party scene with the people shooting footage of huston. there are probably 40 cameras shooting stills, 8mm, super 8, and some 35mm-you know that footage has no slates. it's a hair pulling task. what mteal said seems to be the best solution for now. there are numerous versions of all of welles' independent films. OSOTW could have a first release as part documentary and part footage with a tag at the end that says the next incarnation will have less documetary and more footage. make it a trilogy!

the most breath taking scene i've watched is the blow job scene in the car. when OMB aired i got a good print of the BJ scene in the editing computer and for fun and curiosity i started seperating the cuts, putting 3-seconds of white sceen between each fragment of film. some of those clips, in a portion of a second, have so many cuts that i could not be sure that i seperated correctly. when oja is coming in and out of darkness it's incredible to think that there could be 16 or 20 cuts in 4 second span. only welles can assemble this film. but i would be happy to see it in any form. for me any welles is good welles.

[Glenn Anders]

Dear Blunted: A really fascinating description. I have seen some of this footage for THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND, but I didn't remember the subliminal cuts you describe.

It would no doubt be a difficult project, calling up ominous memories of Welles' first adult film, "Too Much Johnson," which was described as a pile of thousands of feet of film footage, snaking around Welles' New York apartment, which neither he nor anyone else could put together for the Mercury Theater stage production of the same name. I believe I'm correct that the whole thing was just abandoned.

You are right, of course, about Frank Marshall being our best hope in bringing the film into theaters. After all, he got into film by working on Peter Bogdanovich's TARGETS, and became an associate producer for the Bogdanovich pictures which followed. Then, along the way, Bogdanovich brought him over to THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND, for which he was the line producer. Both Marshall and Bogdanovich were there and have a personal stake in seeing the picture finally completed. I've seen separate filmed interviews in which each says as much.

And so a team of Marshall, Bogdanovich, and, say, Schmidlin (who I found very impressive) would be an ideal team for the Big Push. I believe recent discussion here has suggested some such a group is at work.

Let's hope so.

Anyway, well done, Blunted.

Glenn

[blunted by community]

glenn, it was amaizing when i seperated the cuts in the bj scene. it was like a 1 1/2 second shot of oja followed by 4 or 5 very fast, tiny shots, a flash of light, a flash of her face, a shot of the winshield wiper, then 4 fast cuts of oja's face in and out of darkness. amaizing stuff. very close to the battle scene in chimes which i also seperated. some of those shots were a mili-sencond of a blur and a scream, and that's it. this is what we now refer to as mtv cutting, and it was first done in touch of evil, the stragulation scene. then it turned up again in the trial in the closet flogging scene, then in chimes, and in OSOTW. after touch of evil all the imitators did it, like hitch in psycho, arthur penn did it in the miracle worker, and in mickey one, even richard brooks did it. they all have welles to thank. welles you could say was the biggest contributor, and the smallest benefator of cinema.

when i did the OSOTW seperation i laid a white card on the base track so when i seperated the scenes the white card would show. i must have had that white card track on shy mode without knowing. i exported it to mpeg and dumped the original file which was an avi file, and huge. a few weeks later i burned the mpeg to disc, and discovered the white card was not there. you get pitch black when the white card track is on shy mode. the whole thing was useless because there was so much black in the original footage.

it was greuling work cutting that up. i'm estimating it must have had 150 cuts? very depressing after all that cutting not to have it. i think but i'm not sure that i might have sent a copy of the chimes seperation to mteal about a year ago. the stragulation scene in touch of evil i started to seperate, and though it's very effective on screen, it was not as radically cut as chimes, or the bj scene. it was interesting looking at the time lines of these seperated scenes and seing the shots getting smaller and smaller from touch, to chimes, to osotw.

that certainly would make a good essay, those scenes, and include the flogging in the trial. put the time-lines in a vertical row seeing how welles' technique got more and more radical over the years, then watching the 4 scenes. first intact, then seperted by 3-seconds of white screen. with sound, and then without sound. what was really interesting was chimes' battle audio track seperated by cuts. you can imagine what that sounded like.

[Glenn Anders]

Very impressive.

Glenn

[Oscar Christie]

Very Impressive Blunto!
Congratulations.

another TOSOTW topic:

The completion money consists of $1/2 million for post production
and $3 million intellectual property.

The portions for Oja and the Shah's brother-in-law make sense,
they are the owners. It's the money for Beatrice that carries Moral Hazard.

At some point her claims should be examined in court and upheld or rejected.

[blunted by community]

the impressive part is the welles did it by shuttling film back and fourth, then cutting the negative, and glueing these tiny, tiny bleeps of film together, making sure the sprocket holes line up right. and if it's not right, unglueing, recutting, and reglueing again and again and again. imagine what a labor of love it most have been for him to put himself through that.

with digital editing i can edit 25 or 30 cuts, watch them taking notes on where i need changes, then hit control-Z, 25 or 30 times, and i'm right back at step one. no such animal in welles' day. i'm using drag and drop digital and it was a long pain in the ass to do but very rewarding afterwards.

it must have taken him weeks of tedious cutting and glueing to get the desired effect.

welles, what a guy. there should be some foundation to dig up and preserve everything he ever did. he's like the benjamin franklin, or the thomas edison of film. no one can hold a candle to him. you can bet when hitch did it in psycho he was not in the editing room himself doing this tedious work, he probably had 3 or 4 studio techs taking his orders.

[Oscar Christie]

How much total time do you think it took him to edit 40 minutes?

[blunted by community]

i don't know how long it would take welles to edit but he lost control of TOE because he edited for 6 months. studio got suspicious. heston watched him edit and said welles works very fast and uses 3 movieolas arranged around him. he sits on a swivel chair and spins around to each movieola. one movieola rewinds, one fast forwards, and the third he edits on. the rewinding, and the fast forwarding movieolas were manned by chumps like edward curtis, who started working with welles on touch of evil but stormed off the job citing personal conflicts. imagine an editor not wanting to flunky for welles. what an incredible, learningful experience that could have been for him.

my second semester in studio lighting i had to flunky for a couple of well known photographers that had A-quality accounts with companies like bacardi, and the doral country club in miami. i did not mind, i learned a lot, and there were semi nude, knock-out babes on the set, so i forced myself to stay and help.

among the credits of the 3 editors, that were most responsible for welles losing control of touch of evil, Virgil vogel, edward curtis, and arron stell, among their credits are films and tv shows like BLONDIE, THE KILLER SHREWS, TARZAN'S FIGHT FOR LIFE (1958), MA AND PA KETTLE MOVIES, BONANZA, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, DAN AUGUST, THE MOLE PEOPLE, MANIX, and PILLOW DEATH.

yeap, i would have listened to the director of THE KILLER SHEWS before listening to the director of CITIZEN KANE.