The Italian film journal Bianco e Nero (Black and White) has published a special issue looking at the role streaming services like Netflix play in the future of cinema.
The latest issue of the oldest film publication in Italy includes Rewriting the Wind, an illuminating piece by author Alberto Anile (Orson Welles in Italy) on the completion of The Other Side of the Wind.
“To be truthful, one should beware of Netflix… Amazon and other future great platforms still to come,” Anile begins his essay. “The financial, fruition, distribution and even aesthetic impact they are all having upon Cinema is far too big to allow critics and film-lovers to take lightly.”
However, Anile quickly notes a “true action of financial and cultural heroism” by the streaming giant— financing the completion of Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind.
“Without Netflix’s finances said film would not currently exist, or simply be fragments within hundreds of small boxes scattered across Europe and America,” Anile wrote.
Netflix came through when French and Iranians investors and Hollywood kingpins did not, Anile stated.
Even a crowd-funding effort with support from fans failed to come close to meeting its goal, he added.
Anile accurately summarizes the decades-long struggle to complete the film, and the eventual success of producers Filip Jan Rymsza and Frank Marshall. He also give a shout out to Morgan Neville’s They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead and Ryan Suffern’s A Final Cut for Orson.
Special thanks to Anile for noting how it was Ray Kelly’s “well-informed” Wellesnet that broke the news of Netflix’s involvement 11 months before the official announcement was made.
Published quarterly, Bianco e Nero is funded by Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (Center for Experimental Film Cinematography).
The special issue, No. 594/595, is entitled Netflix and Beyond.
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