The Other Side of the Wind screenplay

[Colmena]

I found a screenplay to TOSotW here:

https://www.scriptslug.com/script/the-o ... -wind-2018

Can anyone date this?

Nota Bene: On p4 it says that Hannaford's film within the film "is not here described."

Is this same screenplay that was published in 2005?, as found here:

https://www.amazon.com/Other-Side-Wind- ... 2866424425

How does it compare to the screenplay that was offered by Netflix, and then withdrawn?

And of course, I'm also wondering how it compares to the completed film!

-- thanks in advance,

Colmena

PS My apologies if this has already been covered. Please direct me there, if so.

[RayKelly]

I found a screenplay to TOSotW here:
https://www.scriptslug.com/script/the-other-side-of-the-wind-2018
Can anyone date this? ... How does it compare to the screenplay that was offered by Netflix, and then withdrawn? ....

You can find the "Netflix" script at http://www.wellesnet.com/orson-welles-scripts-online/

Recently, I have been chatting with a film scholar who has been researching rough drafts, note and scripts for The Other Side of the Wind, some of which he has shown me. (One has names for the film-within-a-film characters played by The Actress and John Dale — Carla and Michael. Interestingly, Michael speaks, but Carla does not). Sadly, Welles was not big on dating his work!

[Colmena]

Thanks for your reply, Ray.

Based on my casual comparison of the first 3 pages of the one I found and the screenplay courtesy of Netflix, they are the same, with the same typed print. Except that the former does not have at diagonal NETFLIX stamp on every page, which is a positive. You also don't have to join scribd to access it.

I'm curious as to how this compares to the 2005 edition-- which is currently priced at $175 or so, at Amazon.

Apologies if I've missed this, Ray, but do you know if TOSotW is coming out on disc? Much obliged...

[Le Chiffre]

This script, like all the other versions of the Wind script I've read, contains Otterlake dressing up like John Dale at the end to fool Hannaford at the drive-in. Does anyone know if this was actually filmed with either Bogdanovich or Rich Little?

[RayKelly]

Thanks for your reply, Ray.
Based on my casual comparison of the first 3 pages of the one I found and the screenplay courtesy of Netflix, they are the same, with the same typed print. Except that the former does not have at diagonal NETFLIX stamp on every page, which is a positive. You also don't have to join scribd to access it.
I'm curious as to how this compares to the 2005 edition-- which is currently priced at $175 or so, at Amazon.
Apologies if I've missed this, Ray, but do you know if TOSotW is coming out on disc? Much obliged...

I have reset the TOSOTW script on Scribd. It was not by intent to make it "premium" content. I guess that is their default.

I have not done a close comparison with the book. If you buy the book, do what I did.... go to amazon.co.uk. It is £21.04 there (about US$27).

The producers are in talks with Netflix about a physical media release. There is no indication that it will happen quickly.

This script, like all the other versions of the Wind script I've read, contains Otterlake dressing up like John Dale at the end to fool Hannaford at the drive-in. Does anyone know if this was actually filmed with either Bogdanovich or Rich Little?

It was filmed with Rich Little, but not Peter Bogdanovich. I have not seen the Little footage, but I was told by a post-production team member that it was obvious from the Little footage that it did not work — and Welles likely realized that himself and chose not to shoot it with Peter.

Specifically, it seemed strangely out of place given the events preceding it: Jakes spurns Otterlake because he did not bail him out financially; Jake's longtime friend Zarah gives him the brush off; an accusation of his closet homosexuality is made public in front of the camera crews; Jake loses his cool and slaps Riche (again in front of the camera crews) — and Otterlake's reaction to all of this is to prank Jake and say "We're hanging tough, Billy ... Let's see if we can get a laugh out of him."

Welles did not leave notes on what he intended in its place. So, Bogdanovich and the producers chose to go with the real John Dale showing up the drive-in gate, which sparks Jake to race off in the sports car.

[Le Chiffre]

I do like that scene, although it's a bit odd that Dale shows up at the house first, and then, zap, he's at the drive-in gate. Not a big flaw, though.

I still want to see the Little footage, including the last scene with him as Dale, which seems like it was intended to be the punch line for all the impressions we've seen Otterlake do throughout the story. If it didn't work, it didn't work, but hopefully it will be part of the DVD package anyway.

[RayKelly]

I do like that scene, although it's a bit odd that Dale shows up at the house first, and then, zap, he's at the drive-in gate. Not a big flaw, though.

Agreed. After Dale walks out of the party house, there is a shot of the vacant pool area. Maybe hanging on that shot a beat or two more would have given more of a sense of the passage of time.

[nickleschichoney]

I’m pretty sure that having Otterlake dress up as Dale was designed to show that Otterlake was a cold, soul-sucking leech intent on owning Hannaford’s legacy. His knack for imitation and general air of phoniness betray someone trying to steal others’ identities, someone whose toxicity would have made Hannaford seem sympathetic by comparison. It might not have worked because it made Hannaford TOO sympathetic when the goal was to deconstruct him.

If you look at the way Welles describes the “You know about the chandelier”/“I’m the authority” exchange in the available script, he writes that Otterlake seems to stake out a claim of “ownership” by saying that. This was the idea Welles had when he shot the scene with Little, I think. The scene as shot with Bogdanovich, by contrast, makes it sound like Otterlake is worried about Hannaford. The idea of Otterlake subtly making a claim of ownership has been abandoned.

In the Bogdanovich version, Otterlake slowly grabs the ancestral throne, as if he’s feeling the weight of inheriting the Hannaford legacy. In the fragments of the Little version that are available, Little’s Otterlake excitedly runs for and grabs the chair when he’s sure everyone is gone. He WANTS it.

Yes, I know the objections to this idea of mine on theoretical grounds that a non-actor can’t play a convincingly dishonest person. Still, the way Otterlake is described in the script and the sleazy way Little comes through on film shows that Welles managed to make this happen. Somehow Welles directed Little in a way that made the non-actor play a convincing phony.

[Le Chiffre]

I'm pretty sure that having Otterlake dress up as Dale was designed to show that Otterlake was a cold, soul-sucking leech intent on owning Hannaford’s legacy. His knack for imitation and general air of phoniness betray someone trying to steal others’ identities, someone whose toxicity would have made Hannaford seem sympathetic by comparison. It might not have worked because it made Hannaford TOO sympathetic when the goal was to deconstruct him.

Could be, but I always thought that Otterlake dressing up as Dale was mainly a nod to Hannaford's desire to dominate Otterlake the same way he was dominating Dale and all his other leading men. Hence, Hannaford's attempt to seduce Mavis. But then, if Otterlake is also emblematic of "New Hollywood" filmmakers in general, it could be a point about most of them being imitators who've made careers for themselves by stealing from the old masters ("She's just gonna keep writing that I've stolen everything from you, Skipper"), who were now being put out to pasture.

In the Bogdanovich version, Otterlake slowly grabs the ancestral throne, as if he’s feeling the weight of inheriting the Hannaford legacy. In the fragments of the Little version that are available, Little’s Otterlake excitedly runs for and grabs the chair when he’s sure everyone is gone. He WANTS it.

That's an interesting point, nickles; sounds almost like the false death of Henry IV scene from CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT ("Wherefore did you take away the crown?"). The problem for me is that I don't feel that I've seen enough of Little's performance to interpret it or judge it one way or another. Only when I see it will I feel I have a fuller grasp on the character's purpose and how it changed (softened?) in the middle of shooting due to the recasting.

Peter Jason said Little was not a team player, but is there any real evidence, besides Bogdanovich's assertion, that Welles replaced Little because he felt his performance was inadaquate? Again, until I see more of Little's performance, I remain skeptical. In fact, in THEY'LL LOVE ME WHEN I'M DEAD, I sensed a fairly strong implication that Welles replacing Little with Bogdanovich was one of the main reasons why Andre Vincent Gomez left the picture, taking a lot of Iranian money with him and throwing the production into chaos (according to Welles).

As far as Otterlake trying to own Hannaford's legacy, the idea of old filmakers being sidelined in favor of young filmmakers does certainly seem to be one of the core themes of the film, just as it was a reality at the time. As was the irony of old filmmakers like Welles and John Ford being so revered by younger filmmakers while at the same being replaced by them, a polite usurping of power. Welles's comment to Bogdanovich about symphony conductors retaining both power and renoun into their seventies and even eighties no doubt reflected how that irony and difference in attitude between the two arts struck a very bitter chord with him. Like Hannaford, Welles was an old autuer looking for a place in the auteur-friendy environment of New Hollywood; only to find in the end that there was no place for him. It was an environment friendly to the young only.

But of course, this analysis leaves out Oja, the co-writer of the script, and the source of a whole other angle to Welles's motivations.

[Wellesnet]

From "Pieces of Time" by Peter Bogdanovich (1973):

'Strangely for a director there is no nostalgia connected with any place in which he shoots a film. If the location is bleak and lonely like Archer City or Wichita Falls or Hays, there is never any desire to return to the scene. And even if it's a city like San Francisco, where there are things to do - having shot there for eight weeks, the impulse is never to go back again - and certainly not to those particular areas where he's shot. Orson Welles put it very well: "When I shoot on location, I sense and see the place in such a violent way that now - when I look at those places again - they're like tombs, completely dead. There are spots in the world that to my eyes are cadavers; because I have already shot there - for me they are completely finished." In another vein, for a movie he's making called The Other Side of the Wind, he wrote these lines, spoken by an aging and disillusioned film director: "The Medusa's eye. Know what I mean? Whatever I look upon finally dies under my gaze. The Medusa's eye, yeah. Somebody once told me about that. Maybe it's true. The eye behind the camera. Maybe it's an evil eye at that. There were some Berbers once, up in the Atlas Mountains, that wouldn't let me even point a camera at them. They think it dries up something in the soul. Who know? Maybe it can...Venice, Angkor Wat, the Pyramids - they're all so many used up movie sets..."