The Other Side of the Wind

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Isa B 10/07/2024 The great Orson Welles was decades ahead of his time. With The Other Side of the Wind, he essentially created "found footage " and the "mockumentary" style of filmmaking way before anyone else conceived the idea. John Huston gives one of my favorite acting performances not only in his career, but in any career. He is truly great in this. I love the score by Michel Legrand, especially the opening song, Les Délinquants. With this picture, Mr. Welles left us with one more innovative work of art from his filmography. It was released 33 years after his death and some 42 years after filming was completed. To think this was filmed between 1970 and 1976 is truly remarkable. Many thanks to the great Peter Bogdanovich and to Netflix for getting this delivered to us. Regarding the film within the film, Orson made something closely resembling the European films that so many filmmakers were releasing back then. He was merely flexing by making the film in that particular style, as if to say, "I can make this strange, psychedelic, avant-garde style of film too, only I can do it better. There was never a more creative genius in the history of film. The Other Side of the Wind is largely about the inevitable betrayal of friendship. The great, fictitious filmmaker, J.J. Hannaford says his goodbyes to Brooks Otterlake in proper Shakespeare fashion. They are both well-versed in Shakespeare. A lot of this was too close to home as Otterlake was played, and brilliantly so by Peter Bogdanovich, who was playing a version of himself. John Huston played a man who wasn't exactly Orson Welles, but he was in there somewhere. Orson directed Peter to "play it like it's us". I actually love how the characters speak to each other in a manner that indicates familiarity. We, the audience, are at times left to scratch our heads, not fully understanding exactly what's being said. That gives this piece a very realistic vibe. A mind blowing piece of cinema and one of my absolute favorite films. I couldn't possibly recommend this motion picture anymore than I do. Watch this unique masterpiece film! 100/100 🏆 See more Alec B 01/05/2024 The concept is deceptively pedestrian but it allows Welles to play around with a lot of different ideas. Most interesting is his examination of how "Auteur Machismo" is ultimately just bullshit, perfectly articulated by the pretentious and shallow film within the film. See more Kyle M 10/23/2023 When Orson Welles comes to mind, he's identified as the auteur behind "Citizen Kane", praised debatably the greatest movie of all time according to some ranks but out of modest respect is considerably one of the greatest. According to the documentary titled after his proclamation "They'll Love Me When I'm Dead", released as complementary to his final film "The Other Side of the Wind", it became his curse. The documentary focuses on the final fifteen years of his life when hoping to put it to rest with not just a comeback in Hollywood but closure to the cinematic achievement he perfected then. He started making the aforementioned film in 1970 with principal photography finished in 1976, but complications prevented him from ever finishing it. Welles passed away in 1985, but those closest to him made a promise to bring his final vision to life. After 48 years of production, "The Other Side of the Wind" finally gets unveiled. The documentary functions routinely but also rather briefly when structuring the portrait of who Orson Welles was. Director Morgan Neville ("Won't You Be My Neighbor?") has taken the initiatives in following after the formerly-unfinished film with accounts going over the decades-long process of finalizing it, especially executive producer Peter Bogdanovich who had a major role in reviving Welles' career through his writings whilst becoming a lifelong friend. We're given minimal biographical details of Welles' beginning, but mainly focus on those fifteen years and what thoughtful insights came up during that period. Frankly, his previous milestones deserved their own sole focus per pre-acknowledged.ds on. Considering the project was his last as a filmed whole, Welles' complex stature gets further reflected and better grasped by personally connective parallels as he strived for artistic perfections. The performatively-committed "Other Side of the Wind" starred John Huston, who frequently directed Welles as their collaboration came full circle, as a legendary but jaded Hollywood director at a media-swamped party celebrating his 70th birthday, screening his avant-garde film-in-progress. He's met with admirers and given unsettling questions about his cast, who appears silent across exploitive expressionism without a solid direction. Set as a comeback and settled as a closure to his "Citizen Kane" expectations, which is inferior but narratively comparable by modernized focus, Welles embraced the artistic state the cinema was going towards in the 70s with a mixed reception by acculturation, but the coordinated cinematography is traced with his signature. From watching "They'll Love Me When I'm Dead" prior as it persuaded to turn the viewing into a double feature and gaining the insightful retrospective, it's personally underlined as he saw himself through Huston's character layered with satirical appreciation towards the director who boosted his career. Both films were released concurrently and proved a worthy double feature clocking around 3.5 hours. If you start with the documentary, you'll be prepped with prerequisite knowledge by enhanced understanding behind Welles' complex stature and the complications he faced that are sporadically occurring in the film industry today. It's also a successful capture of his human side that solidifies the imagery buildup Neville focused on. If you start with the filmic narration, the viewing will make the documentary what it actually is: a lengthy featurette you'd access amid home media's accompaniment to learn more about the history behind the picture. Either way's equally effective, and it helps appreciate Orson Welles' craft even more over what he values, especially the spiritual connections he made with his pictures as reference commentary he profoundly relates to. Film study mainly links Orson Welles to nurtured cinema enthusiasts discovering his prominence towards the form, and the rightly titled "They'll Love Me When I'm Dead" feeds insight that furthers appreciation towards projected creativity – or/and mastery. (B+) See more 02/12/2023 So many great performances and cinematography truly show Welles is worthy the label Auteur. If only today’s Hollywood would give us film to make us think instead of only mind numbing fodder for the discount bin. See more t z 09/19/2022 I'll give it 5 because I need to counter all the bad reviews by people who didn't get it. It's really more between a 3 and a 4, but for what it is it's a 5. Welles didn't have a lot of money to make it. What he did have was talent and time. Still it took him the last 15 years of his life, not counting the decade of pre-production and he still died with it unfinished. It was mired in legal and technical difficulties and risked being added to his list of unfinished films. Fortunately the money was raised and the legal red tape cleared away. That left only the technical problems to overcome. Thanks to wells notes and a work print of a portion of the film as well as the increase of computer power over the intervening years it wasn't insurmountable. The miles of footage was digitized and cataloged and edited into a mostly coherent cut that approximates Welles' vision for the film. The documentary They'll Love Me When I'm Dead is as engaging as the final product, maybe more so, and makes a great companion piece to it. Welles himself said profetically, "Supposing during the course of making the picture that it's more interesting hearing the actors and myself talk about it than making the picture. That will be the picture." See more Bradley H 01/11/2022 Probably not to everyone's taste. It's often an incoherent rambling affair. Viewed in the context of its much more interesting and more easily watchable documentary movie of the making of - they'll love me when I'm dead - it gives background to Orson Welles character and friendships and his relationship with the movie industry. Obviously a talented film maker but his uncompromising nature proving too difficult even for his closest friends. See more Read all reviews

The Other Side of the Wind

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