By RAY KELLY
It’s been nearly 50 years since a conversation between Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich about the plight of aging directors led the late filmmaker to embark on The Other Side of Wind.
Welles filmed, but was unable to complete, his story of a 70-year-old director (played by John Huston) looking for a comeback and his relationship with a young filmmaker on the rise (Bogdanovich). During filming, Welles asked Bogdanovich to promise to finish the movie in the event he was unable to do so himself.
This year, Bogdanovich, with the help of producers Filip Jan Rymsza and Frank Marshall and editor Bob Murawski, made good on that promise. The Other Side of Wind has finally been completed, screened at several prestigious film festivals, released to select theaters and made available to 137 million Netflix subscribers in 190 countries.
Bogdanovich spoke with Wellesnet about The Other Side of Wind and its four-decade journey to the big screen.
Fans have repeatedly asked you since Orson Welles’ death in 1985, “When will The Other Side of the Wind be finished?” So, here is a new question you will no doubt be asked again and again: How do you think Welles would have reacted to the finished film and the considerable effort put into completing it?
It’s a guess, but I surmise that he would’ve been very touched and pleased that we expended our best effort to get it done in the best possible way. And I think he would’ve been very appreciative of that.
As far as the outcome, I mean the way it finally looks, I think it’s close enough to what he had in mind. I think we pass muster.
I’m sure there are things he would’ve changed, but we did the best we could. We certainly tried. We definitely tried to keep his vision of the picture as much as we possibly could without having him here.
The only thing we actually changed, and we didn’t change it much, was the opening of the film, which I introduce because Orson never recorded that. The first thing it says in the script is “O.W. voice over” and he never did it himself. Frank said, “Why don’t you do it?” I felt I couldn’t do it as Peter Bogdanovich, but I could do it as my character, Brooks Otterlake, which would work in terms of the story.
I came up with the idea that the reason it hadn’t been seen in so many years was that Brooks didn’t like the way he came across, which I think is true. I don’t think Brooks would’ve liked the way he came across because he is seen denying Huston’s character the money ― and that is the climax of their relationship. It is a kind of betrayal of trust.
Your colleagues have said the technology has only been recently available to complete The Other Side of the Wind properly. Had the ill-fated Showtime deal you worked on gone through 15 or so years ago, would this story have had a happy ending?
No, I think that Netflix stepping in and the advances in technical abilities worked very much to our benefit.
The short documentary (Ryan Suffern’s A Final Cut for Orson) that Frank produced goes into detail on the technical aspects. It is very interesting and up-to-the-minute. In fact, I did not even know everything they had gone through (laughs).
But I think you’re right, it could not have been done 15 years ago.
Was there ever a moment during the 33 years since Welles’ death that you feared The Other Side of the Wind would never be completed?
No. To be honest with you, I always thought we would somehow get it done. I promised Orson we would. It took a lot of doing.
Frank coming into it and pushing through. Netflix, of course, was critical. Filip was a big, big help. He managed to get Beatrice (Welles) and Oja (Kodar) and everybody to agree to do the thing and got the money to pay them.
How was it working with editor Bob Murawski?
Frank was around for quite a bit of the shooting and I was there for my stuff certainly. We have memories of Orson and the things he wanted done and things he would not have wanted done. Bob was open to the memories we had — and he is a very good cutter anyway.
He did a very good job of imitating, so to speak, the cutting pattern that Orson established with the work he left behind.
What was it about The Other Side of the Wind that captivated Welles?
It came about based on a conversation we had in Guaymas, Mexico, where he was shooting Catch-22 in 1969. He asked about (directors John) Ford and (Howard) Hawks. I told him Ford was considered over-the-hill and Hawks was getting there.
The next morning, Orson said he did not sleep at all that the night before thinking about what an awful thing it was that these great directors were being sent away. He said the great works are done in youth and in old age. “I have a movie I want to make. I want to make it now,” he said.
And that’s how it started ― that was the catalyst for The Other Side of the Wind.
Where would you place The Other Side of the Wind in the Welles canon?
Somewhere among the greats because it is so innovative and different from anything he had done before. It is fresh and unusual.
Again, it is the fall of a great man, like what he had done with Kane. It was a theme of his ― how the mighty have fallen. I think it is as great as anything he did.
John Huston gives a great performance. I think he should get a posthumous Oscar nomination.
I found your scenes with John Huston to be the emotional core of the movie.
The scene in the car, when I stick my head in the window and have that line “What did I do wrong daddy? Our revels are now ended” ― I didn’t play that with John. I played it with Orson. John wasn’t there. Orson was in the car and his only direction to me was “It’s us.”
The two of you had a falling out, which the documentary They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead implies involved a bitchy late night talk show appearance with Welles and Burt Reynolds. But wasn’t it actually over the 1979 movie Saint Jack?
Yes. What happened was Orson said he read a book called Saint Jack and thought it would make a great movie. He very much liked Paul Theroux’s writing and felt it would make an interesting picture. He asked me if could find out who had the rights. It turned out Playboy had them.
Cybill (Shepherd) was in the midst of a lawsuit against Playboy for having stolen several frames of her nude from a print of The Last Picture Show. It turned up in the magazine and she was appalled by it. She sued Playboy and then we found out that Saint Jack was owned by Playboy.
Orson suggested she settle the case and get the rights to Saint Jack. Cybill agreed to do that as a favor to Orson, even though she was winning the case.
Orson said he wanted Jack Nicholson for the part. I called Jack, and he said he would do anything with Orson. Then, it was up to Orson to write a script, and he didn’t write it. He kept stalling and didn’t write it for a year or more. Cybill and (Playboy’s Hugh) Hefner, who was involved, were fed up waiting for him. They said to me, “Why don’t you do it.”
I felt for Cybill because she had given up a very important lawsuit to acquire the rights. I felt Orson had betrayed us. So, I did the picture, which did not help our relationship. Orson took it as a betrayal of trust and we felt there had been a betrayal of trust by him.
Was there was an eventual reconciliation?
Yes, there was a reconciliation. In fact, the last conversation I had with Orson was a week and a half before he passed away.
We talked for a while on the phone. And I said, “Jesus, Orson, I feel like I have made so many mistakes.” And he said, “Well, it does seem to be impossible to go through life without making a great many of them.”
We both admitted we had made mistakes ― and that was the last time we spoke.
__________
Post your comments on the Wellesnet Message Board.