Official OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND Thread - All things OSotW he

[Alan Brody]

I wonder if that's why his new book seems somewhat bitter and resentful in places. McBride having had a role in the film and also being one of the leading Welles authorities didn't stop him from being on the outs with him towards the end of Welles's life. One interesting part of the book talks of Welles angrily refusing to let McBride see his keynote speech for the John Huston tribute that McBride was producing. McBride called this his 'last absorption of Welles's bullying condescension', and refused to ever see him again. And yet one also senses a tone of sadness and regret for that course of action. It may even be a reason why he was cut out of the TOSOTW loop.

[RayKelly]

It may even be a reason why he was cut out of the TOSOTW loop.

Joe McBride's book makes it very clear why he is no longer involved with OSOTW.
According to the book, McBride wanted to be paid $50,000 as a producer to work 18 months on completing the film with Rick Schmidlin. Peter Bogdanovich thought it was greedy that McBride wanted to draw a salary. (BTW, Bogdanovich wanted to recoup $200,000 of his own money that he sunk into the project 30 years earlier).
Further, Oja Kodar objected to McBride being listed as a producer, even though he clearly played a role in making the sales pitch to Universal, Sony and Showtime.
McBride writes that he walked away from OSOTW because he did not want to cause problems that would hamper its completion.

[tonyw]

Naturally, we all hope it will be completed as does Joe McBride. It is really sad that he had to deal with these problems but his championship of Welles is sterling nonetheless.

[Alan Brody]

McBride writes that he walked away from OSOTW because he did not want to cause problems that would hamper its completion.

Too bad this noble gesture didn't help the film's completion. Or did it? Whatever the case, thanks to Lawrence French, many of us have got a copy of the screenplay now, so we do finally have a completed TOSOTW that you can at least read. I stopped worrying about the film years ago.

[Roger Ryan]

Here's a new blog entry concerning TOSOTW with YouTube links to two scenes (two-and-a-half scenes in my opinion). The blogger doesn't have a great grasp on the material, missing out on the fact that some of the footage was supposed to be the "film-within-the-film" shot by Hannaford. In addition, there are a couple of factual errors which are addressed in the responses...

http://febriblog.wordpress.com/2009/07/ ... -the-wind/

[Glenn Anders]

Thanks, Roger, though there is nothing here that we have not seen before, and in better prints, even in Public Domain.

The references to Peter Bogdanovich's certainty of finishing THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND appears to refer to that New York paper article, and to the interview where our own Mr. French talked at some length with Bogdanovich, in the presence of Toddy Baesen and myself., in the Castro Theater, a year or so, or more, ago.

And I do get the impression that the "sex in the car" movie scene is supposed to be related in a connective way to an experience Oja Kodar's character has had or put Director Jake Hanaford through in a "reality" sequence (as they say in pornography these days). If not, it should be, since the "movie within a movie" needs all the anchorage with the main plot that it can get.

Anyway, it's good to see someone out there is still hopeful.

It would be nice, too, if Bogdanovich or Miss Kodar would free up a little more of the freshly edited material that we know should be easily out there (because we've seen some of the raw footage). People with a certain amount of money, in addition to Showtime, might appreciate a little encouragement.

Thanks again, Roger. You are always on top of things.

Glenn

[Roger Ryan]

And I do get the impression that the "sex in the car" movie scene is supposed to be related in a connective way to an experience Oja Kodar's character has had or put Director Jake Hanaford through in a "reality" sequence (as they say in pornography these days). If not, it should be, since the "movie within a movie" needs all the anchorage with the main plot that it can get.

I was just thinking that judging from the available footage, the "film-within-the-film" is basically boy-meets-girl, boy-chases-girl, boy-gets-girl, boy-loses-girl but tarted-up with overtly arty cinematography and lighting. Persumably, the "boy-meeting-girl" scene is not shown but implied since the "boy-chasing-girl" sequence is the first of this footage shown as part of the rushes Billy (Norman Foster) is trying to explain to the studio head. I imagine the "sex-in-the-car" scene (boy-getting-girl, or, in this somewhat more liberated approach, girl-choosing-to-get-boy) would follow as the first footage screened at the ranch. The published screenplay indicates that the scene where Hannaford taunts Dale causing him to walk off the film (boy-loses-girl, or girl-loses-boy/director-loses-boy) is being projected at the ranch just before the power goes out.

What footage from the "film-within-the-film" is supposed to be seen at the drive-in? Is it "The Girl" wandering around the studio backlot alone? According to the formula, there should be a "boy-gets-girl-back" scene, but this would be impossible since Dale has left the picture, right?

I like the idea that, apart from the female empowerment twist, Hannaford's film is strictly a "boy-meets-girl" plot obscured with arty Antonioni-style pretentions.

[Glenn Anders]

Exactly, Roger!

My read is that the back story for your "schema" -- remember when the term, along with "the unreliable narrator," and the "missing plot element" became big in artistic circles during the 1960's and 1970's? -- that schema realized by an increasingly unreliable director, with perhaps a missing plot element himself, should be generated by some previous personal humiliation, which the supposedly macho Hanaford was earlier put through by "The Girl" [or as the result of a humiliation discovered by her]. This conundrum is why the film-within-a-film is such a departure for the old womanizing (secretly "queer) director, why the producers of his previous Hemingwayesque blockbusers are so puzzled.

John Huston might well have bought into Welles' bleakly tragic satire, early on, as a penance for his own sins. Consider that Huston was a very guilt-ridden artist over the price a number of people in his pictures had to pay for the performances he encouraged them to give, performances and facts from his own life which he might rather have forgotten [but as a good artist, did not]. Recall, early in his young manhood [then, a writer] the girl he knocked down and killed when driving drunk (the reason dad Huston sent him to England). Or the earlier car accident he caused which cut the face and broke a tooth of Zita Johann, "the immortal Princess Anck-es-en-Amon" in THE MUMMY, and the estranged wife of John Houseman. There was also the story Huston told Michael Fitzgerald of a captain who kept saluting with the bloody stump of his arm the soldiers of his company as they went mostly to their deaths, trying to cross the Arno River in Italy, while Army Captain Huston was photographing similar scenes for his World War II training film, THE BATTLE OF SAN PIETRO. Or how shaken he was by the emotional toll paid by many of the War's survivors, which he recorded in LET THERE BE LIGHT. [Neither of the latter films were released for years after the War ended, and so, in a sense, they were in vain, substantially irrelevant for the participants (and their families]) who had made the sacrifices. Yet Huston would return to the subjects in two of his major failures, the heavily re-edited THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE and FREUD, (the former starting Audi Murphy, a genuine highly decorated Army hero, on a self-destructive acting career; the latter, continuing with a mixture of sorrow, frustration and contempt the process for Montgomery Clift begun in THE MISFITS). THE MISFITS, with its personal tragedies -- the final death of Arthur Miller's marriage to Marilyn Monroe; her increasing inability to learn lines as an actress, her end the next year by drug overdose; the heart attack which killed the aging Clark Gable a few weeks after taking part in a particularly strenuous horse roping sequence -- recalls Huston's bitter experience on THE UNFORGIVEN, another failure in the eyes of the critics. The production was crippled by an accident in which Audrey Hepburn, everyone's sweetheart, was thrown from a horse which she was riding bareback. She severely wrenched her back, causing her to be put on bed rest while the director shot around her, forced to wear a brace for the remainder of the picture. Not widely known at the time of the accident, she was several months pregnant, and shortly following the finish of the shoot, miscarried the child. For that reason, THE UNFORGIVEN was the only picture which Huston himself said he hated to think back upon.

Without going into the sadder aspects of Huston's family life (which nevertheless produced a couple of admirable third generation actors), a number of other tragic or bizarre aspects might be cited, the most characteristically sardonic of which was the miniature six shooters he gave as welcoming presents to his cast for NIGHT OF THE IGUANA on location in Puerta Vallarte. It was the kind of gesture Jake Hanaford might have made on the set of THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND.

And so, one does not have to look entirely at Welles' life and creations to find inspiration for THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND.

Glenn

[Glenn Anders]

I should note in the way of an apology that today is John Huston's birthday.

Perhaps I should not have been quite so judgmental toward a figure I grew up admiring, a good friend to Orson Welles from near the beginning to the end, and while what I've written above is fairly accurate, a man and an artist remarkably successful in both categories.

We all have our failings, we all are doubled in some way, but few us are unredeemable, as Toddy Baesen and I often reflect upon.

Glenn Anders

[kipling71]

It's been a few months since I've heard anything on the status on the finishing of "The Other Side of the Wind". Some disheartening rumors have been floating around saying essentially that it's all off for whatever reason. Anybody know if it's still happening or what? Has it died again?? Hope not.

[Harvey Chartrand]

It's been retitled "When Are You Going to Finish The Other Side of the Wind?"

[kipling71]

Harvey, you're a very naughty man!

[RayKelly]

This was added to wikipedia on Jan. 17. (I know, I know). Can anyone verify the accuracy of this:

In January 2010, in response to a question asked from the audience after a screening of one of his films in Columbus, OH, Bogdanovich stated that the film had been examined and was in good condition, but that "Orson left such a mess with who owned what" that he wondered whether editing the film would ever be possible.

[RayKelly]

Well, he was in Ohio a couple of days ago http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/arts/stories/2010/01/10/1_BOGDANOVICH.ART_ART_01-10-10_E1_I7G5QL5.html?sid=101

I saw that story on a Google search too, but I'd like to know his full comments. From what I could find, someone may have sent a note on Twitter. I thought the ownership issues had been resolved to Showtime's satisfaction. I am curious if someone new popped out of the woodwork.

[NoFake]

RayKelly wrote:
This was added to wikipedia on Jan. 17. (I know, I know). Can anyone verify the accuracy of this:

In January 2010, in response to a question asked from the audience after a screening of one of his films in Columbus, OH, Bogdanovich stated that the film had been examined and was in good condition, but that "Orson left such a mess with who owned what" that he wondered whether editing the film would ever be possible.

The quoted part is so much like Bogdanovich's almost identifiably informal way of speaking, I'd be surprised if he didn't say it.