Dennis Hopper makes an all-too-brief appearance in Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind, but the relationship between the two filmmakers and their careers interested an Australian researcher.
A paper, The Friendship Between Orson Welles and Dennis Hopper: A Study of Similarities Between Two Hollywood Exiles, was recently published by Joanna Elena Batsakis at Monash University in Melbourne, where she is working on her thesis on the Easy Rider filmmaker.
“In terms of contact, Welles and Hopper met before Easy Rider was made: as they were both part of the studio system,” Batsakis told Wellesnet. “Hopper admired Welles as an actor and for all his Citizen Kane accomplishments… Welles offered advice during the editing of Easy Rider, and a few years later The Last Movie.”
This led to Hopper’s cameo in The Other Side of the Wind, she said.
He filmed his rambling bit at Welles’ home in November 1970 — several years before the party scenes with John Huston as Jake Hannaford were shot. The conversation was filmed by Gary Graver with Welles off-camera prompting him as Hannaford.
Only a small bit of what was filmed that night appeared in the finished movie. He was one of several filmmakers to be featured in The Other Side of the Wind; others included Henry Jaglom, Paul Mazursky, Curtis Harrington and Claude Chabrol.
The Friendship Between Orson Welles and Dennis Hopper is available for purchase at tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10509208.2019.1633896
Hopper passed away from cancer at the age of 74 in 2010 — eight years before the released of The Other Side of the Wind.
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