By MICHAEL HINERMAN
Orson Welles took a lot of flak for his late-period commercial work, but for many of my generation of movie-lovers growing up in the 1970s and early ’80s, those little thirty-second vignettes were our first introduction to the master showman. Whereas the great figures of classic cinema were mostly distant strangers, aged, remote, and implacable, Welles was a cheerful, intimate presence, avuncular yet oddly child-like, and above all, fun.
That massive, black-garbed, figure with his rumbling, authoritative, intimate voice, and the cheerful, conspiratorial glint in his eye became indelible for us; and rather than diminish Welles, only served, by bringing him closer, to make him more inspiring. When I first saw F for Fake sometime around 1982, I felt I already knew that man, and that the commercials were part of Orson Welles’s ongoing magic show.
[pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]This is the deal that was meant to be; it’s the deal that ‘The Other Side of the Wind’ wants, and needs; it’s a deal that Orson Welles, with his populist instinct and his love of technological innovation, would have been excited by. [/pullquote]
While Welles’s Paul Masson commercials have become iconic, my favorites were a series of spots he did for early cable company, Preview. One of them has since surfaced via YouTube, but it is missing the outrageous introductory line that my equally outrageous Welles-loving friend and I quoted endlessly, accompanied by the appropriately Wellesian upraised eyebrow: “If variety is the spice of life, then Preview is surely the paprika…”
Preview was part of a series of technological revolutions in media that has since allowed entirely new generations of movie lovers access to films, including Orson’s, that were once almost impossible to see outside of infrequent repertory shows and late-night television. As a young, obsessed teenager, I used to take the train into Boston to catch screenings of rare Orson titles like The Trial, the Scottish Macbeth, and the preview version of Touch of Evil, all of them shown in worn, battered, faded prints.
I remember bursting into tears when a scheduled showing of Othello was canceled because the theater was unable to locate a print. That essential title remained elusive for me until the miraculous restoration spearheaded by Beatrice Welles, Michael Dawson, and Julian Schlossberg. I now own a copy, and can watch it whenever I please.
I first saw Mr. Arkadin via a dreadful VHS copy of the butchered public domain version. Now, a superb Mr. Arkadin set from Criterion, which contains three versions of the film meticulously restored by Stefan Drossler and Claude Bertemes, with the invaluable assistance of Peter Bogdanovich and Jonathan Rosenbaum, allows me to watch the film(s) whenever I please.
Welles’s masterpiece, Chimes at Midnight, was once virtually invisible, and diminished by age and technical flaws when it did surface. A pirated copy of the Studio Canal restoration downloaded to YouTube allowed me and thousands of others to see Chimes as if for the first time, and more closely akin to how Welles wanted it to be seen. Now, rights issues cleared up after decades of acrimony, Chimes is being shown in theaters to hugely appreciative audiences, with further dates being added because of demand. A Blu-ray release is forthcoming, which I will purchase, so that I can watch Chimes whenever I please.
Technological innovation allows that which is timeless to be born again under potentially more favorable conditions, while facilitating access to a new, greatly expanded audience. Today’s pioneers are companies like Netflix, which first brought DVD’s to our mailboxes, making thousands of rare and hard-to-find titles available at the click of a mouse. With the addition of streaming service, which eliminates the time lag, and the need for physical media, an audience of 75 million subscribers in 190 countries has been created, and which needs to be served. Netflix is now poised to become the greatest film distributor the world has yet seen.
And just as the old Hollywood studios were built by savvy exhibitors who needed product to fill theater seats, Netflix is now creating and funding its own original content. Series such as Orange Is the New Black and House of Cards have been critical and popular successes, and have become pop-culture phenomena. The 2015 war drama Beasts of No Nation, directed by Cari Joji Fukunaga, and starring the great Idris Elba, won the Marcello Mastroianni Award at the Venice International Film Festival. Netflix ponied up millions to secure the distribution rights to Beasts, proving that it is serious about this business, and about quality, with dozens of projects lined up for 2016 and beyond. These days, if variety is the spice of life, then Netflix is surely the paprika…
The news that Netflix has offered up $5-plus million to fund the completion of Welles’s unfinished, forever-just-out-of-reach The Other Side of the Wind is therefore, to my mind, a dream come true. Thirty years after his untimely death, interest in Orson Welles is at a fever pitch. The 2015 centenary of Welles’s birth triggered a huge outpouring of affection and regard for that remarkable magician and his captivating work. Books are being published; documentaries are being shown; revival screenings are selling out. I doubt that there has been a more auspicious time to see The Other Side of the Wind completed, and I doubt there was, is, or will be an organization better suited to put that desperately anticipated film before a larger, more appreciative audience than Netflix.
Credit to producers Filip Jan Rymsza, Frank Marshall and Jens Koethner Kaul for beginning the delicate process of untangling the knot that is The Other Side of the Wind. Credit to Peter Bogdanovich and Joseph McBride for keeping hope alive during the long, sometimes seemingly hopeless decades. Credit to Beatrice Welles for stepping into the limelight to bring this and others of her father’s projects to the attention of the world. And credit to Oja Kodar, Welles’s creative heir and partner, for not abandoning Wind to time and memory, and for not settling for the easy score. After Welles’s death, Ms. Kodar could have taken the money and run. That she didn’t is testament to her, to Welles, and to The Other Side of the Wind.
That Ms. Kodar has been mistrustful to the point of obstruction during these negotiations is regrettable, but understandable, given the treatment Welles received over the years from dim-witted studio hacks and impecunious financiers, much of which Ms. Kodar witnessed. She has every right to be skeptical. This is a project close to her heart; Ms. Kodar stars, and co-wrote the screenplay – she’s been intimately involved with Wind since inception. When Sasha Welles, Ms. Kodar’s nephew and representative, writes to Wellesnet’s indefatigable proprietor Ray Kelly that “For decades we have been optimistic, otherwise we wouldn’t be trying for so long to get this film released,” there is no reason not to believe him.
But there is a time to set aside skepticism and mistrust, and that time is now. There is time to set aside anger, hurt, and bitterness, and that time is now. This deal has appeared, as if by magic, at the perfect moment. Despite apparently insuperable obstacles, each impasse has been broken, and the process has moved forward, becoming better, richer, and fuller with each step. This is the deal that was meant to be; it’s the deal that The Other Side of the Wind wants, and needs; it’s a deal that Orson Welles, with his populist instinct and his love of technological innovation, would have been excited by. And I believe that Oja Kodar, who knew Orson Welles so intimately, will recognize this, and let her and Orson’s child go.
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Michael Hinerman is a long-time contributor to Wellesnet under various pseudonyms. Like Orson Welles, Mr. Hinerman loves masks, charlatans, and fakes.
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