By RAY KELLY
Should Hopper/Welles be considered an Orson Welles film?
The documentary, which premiered this week at the Venice International Film Festival and will be streamed at the upcoming the New York Film Festival, is not in the final form Welles intended. Rather, it is a fragment of a project that never developed beyond an embryonic stage. Yes, Welles directed it, and some may call it an “Orson Welles film,” but there must be an asterisk next to it — like Roger Maris’ 61 home run season.
The previously unseen interview footage assembled by The Other Side of the Wind producer Filip Jan Rymsza and editor Bob Murawski captures an engrossing conversation between Welles and Easy Rider director Dennis Hopper. The extensive black and white footage shot with two 16mm cameras in November 1970 was meant not merely for Hopper’s cameo in The Other Side of the Wind, but, according to Beatrice Welles, for use in a never-produced, and never publicly discussed, documentary by her father on Hopper.
What we have in Hopper/Welles is something akin — though obviously far, far superior — to the Munich Film Museum assembly nearly two decades ago of Filming The Trial, a 90-minute question-and-answer session shot at the University of Southern California in 1981. The single-camera USC footage was meant to be part of a larger documentary on the making of Welles’ 1962 film adaptation of the Franz Kafka novel.
But unlike the USC footage, Welles never appears on screen in Hopper/Welles. Instead, his rich baritone voice is heard off-camera. If Welles had chosen to proceed with a proper documentary on Hopper, perhaps he would have had cinematographer Gary Graver shoot inserts at a later date, as he did with an interview contained in his 1978 documentary Filming Othello. We will never know.
Hopper/Welles is a real-life counterpoint to Welles’ fictionalized The Other Side of the Wind, which paired New Hollywood director Brooks Otterlake (played by Peter Bogdanovich) opposite Hollywood veteran Jake Hannaford (John Huston).
At various points in the conversation with Hopper, Welles, who had not yet cast Huston, slips into the role of Hannaford. (“I must have made eight movies where the heavies are the guys who sold the dope.”) This will no doubt confuse some viewers, especially when it comes to the fascist views espoused by the fictitious Hannaford, which differ sharply from those of the left-leaning Welles. (“In my old age, I am starting to dig them a little bit because they are starting to make bombs,” he says of the youth movement at one point. “I am an old-fashioned nihilist. I always hated the commies.”) Even Hopper gets confused by this role playing, asking Welles at one point if he is speaking as Hannaford when they discuss the Hollywood blacklist.
While Hopper/Welles may not be what Welles envisioned for this black-and-white footage, it certainly has its own unvarnished and hypnotic appeal. Hopper/Welles offers cineastes a chance to be a fly on a very dimly lit living room wall as two maverick filmmakers talk about Christianity, revolution and, most importantly, their shared passion for their craft.
In a magically meta moment given the backdrop of The Other Side of the Wind, Hopper speaks of a 25-year old novice who has been shooting a totally improvisational movie out of his own pocket in the Southwest for the past four months. Hopper feels sorry for the young man because it will cost him $500,000, which prompts laughter from Welles, who was no stranger to self-financing his work. “I guess he didn’t like money very much,” Hopper offers. Welles counters, “Maybe, he loves movies.”
Early on, Hopper discusses his breakthrough film, Easy Rider, and his frustration over audience reaction to the violent end of its lead characters.
“I think my symbolism is a little too subtle for most people, unfortunately. I meant for them both (shotgun-toting pickup truck occupants and cocaine smuggling motorcyclists) to be outlaws,” Hopper said. “The guys who are riding the bikes are also outlaws, but it does not justify them being killed at the end by these other outlaws.”
Welles interjects: “I think everybody can see that but an idiot redneck.”
Hopper disagrees, adding, “The young kids supposedly think that Peter (Fonda) and I are some tremendous heroes who ride through the night, smuggle dope and get it on.”
Despite assertions by some that Hopper was high during the shoot, he is very lucid; smoking Marlboros, drinking a gin and tonic and chowing down on the pasta dinner Welles served up for him. As for the clear-headed Welles, he seems to have developed an affinity for Fresca by late 1970.
Over the course of 130 minutes, the two men touch upon left-wing politics and pressure put on them by the FBI. Welles, 55, says, “I used to be number one on their shit list;” and Hopper, 34, adds he didn’t “feel secure enough to talk about anything political” after agents visited his home.
A clearly frustrated Welles repeatedly attempts to get Hopper to reveal his politics, but he remains evasive.
“I am not a Marxist-Leninist — and I am not John Wayne,” Hopper says. “I am just caught in the middle somewhere, but I am not a middle-of-the-roader either.”
Hopper is far more willing to talk about filmmaking. When Welles opines on the role of a director as god or magician, Hopper revels about the joy of directing himself in feature films.
“I really enjoy acting in my own films,” Hopper says. “It’s such a relief not to have someone screaming at you… I always figured that directors really hated actors. They didn’t like actors at all.”
Welles adds, “I think directors are bound to both love and hate actors — it’s like sex. There is a parallel relationship between a sexual relationship and that of a director and his cast … there is courtship and conquest.”
If true, Hopper/Welles shows us a sly Welles wooing a dinner partner who is adept at playing hard-to-get — which makes eavesdropping on this encounter even more fascinating.
HOPPER/WELLES
Director: Orson Welles
Producer: Royal Road Entertainment (Filip Jan Rymsza)
Co-producers: Grindhouse Releasing (Bob Murawski) and Fixafilm (Wojciech Janio)
Executive producers: Jon Anderson, Jonathan Gardner
Cast: Dennis Hopper, Orson Welles with Janice Pennington and Glenn Jacobson
Director of photography: Gary Graver
Cutter: Bob Murawski, a.c.e.
Assistant editor: Dov Samuel
Camera operators: Gary Graver, John Willheim
Assistant camera: Connie Graver
Gaffer: R. Michael Stringer
Sound: Bob Dietz, Jussi Tegelman
Title design: Garson Yu
Running time: 130 minutes
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