The upcoming The Other Side of the Wind, directed by Orson Welles and co-starring Peter Bogdanovich, is not first project pairing of the two filmmakers.
Their relationship dates back to 1961 when Bogdanovich organized a Welles film retrospective, the first in the United States, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Welles, living and working in Europe at the time, was unable to attend — but he did read, and reportedly liked, the 18-page monograph Bogdanovich had written to accompany the MoMA retrospective.
“(Welles) is a master stylist of the American screen, and though he is too little understood or appreciated in his own country, one of its most representative artists,” Bogdanovich wrote.
Published by MoMA and distributed by Doubleday & Co., it offered a critique of Welles’ work from Citizen Kane (1941) through Touch of Evil (1958). noting at its conclusion that Welles, then 46, was at the height of his powers and at work on Don Quixote.
Seven years later, Welles met with Bogdanovich at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Bogdanovich brought a copy of his book, John Ford, for Welles. The gift led to the two men collaborating on the interview book This Is Orson Welles, which was published years after his death.
Copies of the long out-of-print MoMA monograph can be found at Cinefile and other online archives. Below is a PDF of the of Bogdanovich’s 1961 critique.
(THE CINEMA OF ORSON WELLES, written by Peter Bogdanovich; The Film Library of the Museum of Modern Art, Doubleday & Company, 1961)
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