BRIGHT LIGHTS 55 TOSTW Interview

[Roger Ryan]

I think McBride makes a very good point in wanting to limit the "film-within-a-film" footage: Welles intended the scenes showing John Dale and the girl to be a parody of the kind of youth-oriented/"Easy Rider" excesses of the time. By attempting to make this kind of movie and for the footage to appear so meaningless, Jake Hannaford demonstrates that he has lost control of his craft. This is an important aspect of the story. That's not to say that the John Dale/Girl footage couldn't provide some striking juxtaposition, but McBride's argument is that if you include all of the "film-within-a-film" footage (or make it 50% of the overall running time) Welles' film itself becomes the thing he was trying to parody. The entire story arc as detailed in the script(s) would be jeopardized by having to sit through 40 or 45 minutes worth of interpolated artsy shots showing two characters silently following each other around.

Even the footage edited by Welles would need to be reevaluated since Welles' method was to cut individual scenes together using all available material, then start trimming away shots (sometimes drastically) in order for the individual scenes to play well in the movie as a whole. Welles never got to edit more than a handful of individual scenes, so we don't know how intact he would have left these scenes. Given the completely fragmented nature of TOSOTW footage, the best bet would be to follow the original script(s) in determining what material goes in and what story ideas need to be stressed. Putting everything shot into the final cut would almost certainly result in disaster.

[Glenn Anders]

Precisely, Roger (as you always are).

That's why I stipulated in my original post:

". . . I doubt that "50 percent" of THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND would be made up of that material, but with lightnin[g] edits, a good deal more than we might at first imagine could be legitimately utilized."

I should think that "reality" would by far dominate the movie, as reality does in our lives. Imagery, flashbacks, metaphors, dreams, nightmares . . . films only comment on our experience, from moment to moment. My sense is that Welles would have followed much the same course in his editing.

Glenn

[Tony]

Glenn:
What can I say in response to your tirade? I defended you the other day when you were attacked as being boring. And this is what I get as a response:

" Do you get that?...The hell with it. Go back and CAREFULLY read what I wrote for you. I know what I saw, and I tried to give you a clue. But you don't have one, evidently, nor do you want one!"

C'mon, Glenn: lighten up! At least try to be civil.


Roger: Wasn't Welles parodying Antonioni- particularly "Zabriskie Point", which was just released before Welles started filming 'Wind'?

[Terry]

There were a couple good Floyd songs on the soundtrack, but I've never stumbled across the film (or any other scored by the Floyd in their early days.) Was Zabriskie well-deserving of being satirized?

[Glenn Anders]

ZABRISKIE POINT was indeed "well-deserving of being satirized." In fact, certain portions of it might make a perfect template for the film J.J. "Jake" Hannaford is trying to make in THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND.

Hadji: Do I have to get out the crayons? My frustration was directed at Tony for wanting more detailed descriptions of the footage I'd seen, when you had complained, in effect, that I tend to be bogged down in minutiae. Obviously, if I am to satisfy Tony, I must put you to sleep. Since I literally can't reproduce the film sequences, I really can't avail myself of the pleasure of having it both ways.

All I can say is that I have reviewed about 350 movies on the Internet, and those particular reviews have generated over 400,000 reads. One of my reviews has just achieved its 26,000th customer. No doubt, I should become a quack healer of insomniacs.

Although I was wounded by your remark, Hadji, the source of my frustration was that I couldn't get either of you beyond my failings as a writer. I'm afraid that if we are going to ignore the facts and reasonable judgments to only be critical of writing styles, we better fold our tents and blow away with the other side of the wind.

Lighten up yourselves, guys, I get a lot of laughs out of this site, including some of my own stuff.

"Look into my eyes . . . look deeply into my eyes . . . rest and sleep, Hadji . . . ." :angry:

Glenn

[Terry]

Jesus, James, drop your attitude and go see your therapist.

[Roger Ryan]

Roger: Wasn't Welles parodying Antonioni- particularly "Zabriskie Point", which was just released before Welles started filming 'Wind'?

Yes, that's what Welles himself claimed. I haven't seen "Zabriskie Point" either; in fact, the only Antonioni I have seen is "The Passenger" which I thought was brilliant!

Given that Hannaford was attempting to make a "with-it" youth-oriented movie, I suspect Welles might have had the "boy" character ride around on a motorcycle as a nod to "Easy Rider" which is why I referred to it above. I'm afraid my previous post might have exposed my dislike for Hopper's movie which I do consider self-indulgent despite the fact that it ushered in an era of fantastic filmmaking by other like-minded young (and not so young) directors.

[Kevin Loy]

26,000 reads? Do you do album reviews by any chance, Glenn?

As for Zabriskie Point, I have not seen the film but I do remember an anecdote about it from John Fahey, who was contracted by Antonioni at one point to contribute a score before they had a falling out:

Antonioni's conceptual sequel to Blow-Up is an Italian leftist's goofball cinematic view of late '60s American counterculture. It features a long sequence with nude couples making love in the desert, for which Antonioni wanted Fahey to do the music. When Fahey arrived in Rome, Antonioni showed him the segment in a screening room. "Antonioni says, 'What I want you to do is to compose some music that will go along with the porno scene.' I kept saying, 'Yes, sir.' Then he starts this, 'Now, John. This is young love. Young love.' I mean, that's young love? All these bodies? 'Young love. But John, it's in the desert, where's there's death. But it's young love.' He kept going, 'Young Love/Death' faster and faster. I was sure I was talking to a madman. I'm still sure I was.

"So I experimented. I had instrumentalists come in and told them just to play whatever they felt like. They had to pretend to understand what I was talking about, especially if Antonioni came in the room. That was fun. They were very cooperative. I came up with some sections of music that sounded more like death than young love. It was actually pretty ominous. I played it for Michaelangelo and he thought it was great. So he took me out to dinner at this really fancy restaurant and started telling me how horrible the United States was. We were drinking a lot of wine and I don't remember which one of us started cussing. It started real fast and ended in a fistfight. You have no idea how much that guy hates the United States. What a jerk. I did like 20-25 minutes, but they only used about two minutes. Somebody's driving along in the car and the announcer says, 'And now some John Fahey.' And that's it -- young love and death."

from: http://www.furious.com/PERFECT/fahey/fahey-byron2.html

(and to bring up Kubrick again, people with sharp eyes will see a copy of Fahey's "Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death" in the record store scene from A Clockwork Orange)

As for the idea of the film-within-a-film being too much, perhaps it is. Admittedly, I usually get up and get a drink or fix a snack whenever the "News On The March" sequence starts in Kane these days (which is not to discredit the wit behind the scene...but it really is quite long and not as substantial as the film that surrounds it)...but I still wonder about the effectiveness of the aforementioned scenes in TOSOTW. Maybe 50% of the running time is too much (in fact, it probably is, and I suspect that it is a highly obtuse figure...no matter how much of a 'spoof' the material was supposed to be, I can't imagine Welles spending *half* of the film's running time on the scenes), but I think this mostly boils down to Welles' editing notes. Right or wrong, they were his notes on editing the film, and while they will never be a substitute for Welles cutting the film himself, they are closer to his wishes than any amount of speculation or hearsay will be.

Of course, this begs the question: has anybody out there seen copies of his editing notes for the film (or did I perhaps overlook comments to this extent in previous posts)?

[Tony]

I adore Antonioni, especially his trilogy and "Red Desert", but his English period leaves me cold. It began with "Blow Up" which was, of course, a huge international hit and which featured The Yardbirds and Swinging London, so it was a part of the whole youth culture of the 60s. However, for me, it's the beginning of Antonioni's artistic decline. This must have been a turning point in his cosciousness, for he then went to America to make Zabriskie Point. I believe he filmed it in 69, so it was at the precise point of the counter culture, the black panthers, Woodstock, Hair and Altamont. Boy, did it ever affect him negatively: it's like he lost all his aesthetic judgements, and resulted in one of the worst movies from a great director that I can think of- maybe the worst. It's very painful to watch- you have to see it to understand it's incredible pretension, though this was first evident in the famous final scene of "Blow Up", the mime tennis game.

It's impossible to believe that the same filmaker directed masterpieces such as "L'Avventura" (The Adventure), La Notte (The Night), L' Eclisse (The Eclipse) and Il Deserto Rosso (The Red Desert).

Antonioni must have really inspired Welles, and "The Other Side of the Wind"!

Welles told Bogdanovich:

"I don't like to dwell on things.It's one of the reasons I'm so bored with Antonioni- that belief that, because a shot is good, it's going to get better if you keep looking at it. He gives you a full shot of somebody walking down a road. And you think "Well, he's not going to carry that woman all the way up that road." But he does. And then she leaves and you go on looking at the road after she's gone."

Although the satirical intent of the film within the film, the other "The Other Side of the Wind" is clear, didn't Gary Graver confirm that Welles intended to have at least half of "The Other side of the Wind" comprised of footage from the art film that Hanneford was making? (McBride discusses this). But Antonioni being 58 in 1970 (just 3 years older than Welles) and trying to be so hip, must have turned off Welles, in addition to the aesthetic revulsion he felt about his work. And perhaps even the enormous international success of the ultra-hip "Blow-Up" might have annoyed Welles. Bogdanovich mentions that Antonioni was one of the few directors Welles would criticize in public, on record.

But did Antonioni influence Welles? Certainly the nudity of "Wind" echoes that of "Zabriskie". And Welles was, in a way, trying to be "with-it" with "Wind": he told Bogdanovich: ""It's a film for right now!"

[Glenn Anders]

Kevin: You indeed suggest in your remark about the "News on the March" sequence in CITIZEN KANE another reason why less than 50% of the "Antonioni Film" would be used in a finished THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND. When CITIZEN KANE came out, the theatrical version of "The March of Time" was still big news. Newspapers and people on the street would refer to it -- though, even then, many of the episodes were tendentious and propagandistic. It was audacious of Welles to parody the series so completely. By 1950, people were going out for a smoke when "The March of Time" came on in theaters. What had been so interesting before Television became ponderous, owing as it did so much to the radio techniques borrowed by Time, Inc.

And so, I can see why you find Welles' parody a bit long. Able to remember aptness and sheer fun of joke, I still find the sequence enthralling. In fact, considering its purpose, to send the film's more serious purpose on its way, I wonder how you can fully appreciate the rest of CITIZEN KANE because the last half of the film REALLY slow-w-w-s way down, much as life does.

In the same way, Welles would have been making a statement about the windy stasis of Antonioni films in the 1970's when, as you point out, critics regarded the Italians interminable "still lifes" the work of a new cinematic saviour.

[Kevin, I was speaking only of the movie reviews. I do have a few album reviews, too, but the most "reads" for one of those is about 5,600 -- my list of Ten Favorite Movie Soundtracks (classic scores).]

Tony: It's pretty clear from what footage I've seen that most of "the film within a film" material is meant to be a parody of an Antonioni type picture, or an ironic comment upon Hollywood "reality," or at least a running contrast to Welles' own style -- that is, J.J. "Jake" Hannaford's style, I mean.

Glenn

[Kevin Loy]

Glenn,

You've nailed upon the reason why I can deal with the film itself but not the "News On The March" sequence: The film itself is more indicative of the relative reality of the situation (I say 'relative' because we are dealing with a film, and we're also dealing with the memories of individuals within that film) than the newsreel is.

I'm not against 'slow' films by any stretch of the imagination (two of my favorite film-makers, Cassavetes and Dreyer, regularly made films that are considered to be "slow"...though I don't see most of their films that way) -- in fact, it is the second half of Kane that really gives it depth, as it allows us to focus more on Kane as a person than as a figurehead (by the 'second half', I'm referring to the section starting with Leland's interview), and it also shows (though many people never bother with it) that there was more to Welles the film-maker than mere visual varnish. The newsreel, as well as Thatcher and Bernstein, focuses almost exclusively on the surface gloss, on the word as opposed to the meaning, while the second half takes the opposite stance...for me, at least.

I think another telling aspect of the newsreel is that, when Welles referenced and spoofed it in F For Fake, it was considerably shorter than it had been in Kane. Of course, even in his 'old' age Welles could be audacious and get carried away with ideas (F For Fake is an example of that which happens to work very well...though I admittedly did not think so the first few times that I watched it, and I still find the ending to be a bit out of tune with the rest of the work), so perhaps the 'Antonioni' footage was supposed to take up half of the running time...but given how much time Welles would spend with editing films in his later years, I imagine that 50% was an extremely rough figure at best, and it would have turned out to be considerably less than that as he continually re-worked the footage.

[Christopher]

I'd just like to remind people on the board that the rights to "The Other Side of the Wind" were left exclusively to Oja Kodar in Welles's Will. Beatrice Welles has no claim to the film and can rightly be accused of greed, but Oja is not in the same category. She acted in this film. She also wrote some of the scenes -- in particular the erotic scene in the car for those of you who have seen it. She bought the house in Orvilliers, outside of Paris, where she and Orson lived and where some of the film was shot. So it is inaccurate to say that she made no contribution. She has also invested years of her life trying to get the film finished and shown to the public.

[rizibo]

She has also invested years of her life trying to get the film finished and shown to the public.

So what's taking Oja so long to agree to sign on to the Showtime deal to get the film released?

[rizibo]

I was watching the sequence of TOSOTW in which Billy Bud screens the movie to Studio executive and intercutting between the movie and the interaction of Billy with the studio executive was very well done. It looks like the movie within the movie looks was more than 50% of the total sequence and it worked for me. I think the key to this movie will be how well someone can edit the film to intercut the movie within the movie with the Hannaford party sequences to get the best impact.

[Kevin Loy]

Christopher,

I don't mean to nit-pick (well, perhaps I do without actually intending as much), but...Did Oja actually purchase the house with her own money? And not to sound like an insensitive jerk, but is there really a lot of writing involved with a sex scene, especially one that has absolutely no dialogue?

I don't doubt that she has spent a considerable amount of time working on the project as an actress, and lobbying (to an extent) for something to happen with the footage. I just thought that her request for $1 million, unless they're trying to buy the rights to the film from her, was a bit excessive, whereas Bogdanovich actually *invested* nearly that much money into the film...well, it isn't nearly as excessive as Beatrice, but still...

(Rizibo, I suspect that the million that Oja wants is because the "cable network" wants to obtain the rights to the film, and I guess I can't blame her for not wanting to get off of it that easily...but it could very well be something else, since I am well aware of what happens when I assume...)