The Other Side of the WindArtist express themselves through their craft; but how much of the craft is true of the artist? The Other Side of the Wind was directed by Orson Welles, and shot over forty years ago, and had long been thought to be the eternally stillborn swansong of the legendary filmmaker. Released in 2018, it becomes a revealing time capsule and critical indictment of Hollywood--simultaneously presented as the nexus of movie production and a destroyer of dreams. Welles's final picture tells the story of an aging filmmaker named J.J. "Jake" Hannaford (John Huston) on both his seventieth birthday and the last day of his life, as he screens the raw cut of his own ultimate act of cinematic expression--a film dubbed "The Other Side of the Wind"--for friends, enemies, and sycophants alike.
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The legend of The Other Side of the Wind almost overshadows the film itself. As the opening preamble illuminates, production began in 1970, and Welles reportedly shot a hundred hours of footage for the film. The film is described as being intended to be Welles's "comeback" to Hollywood, yet watching The Other Side of the Wind gives the impression that it was more of an unsubtle dig at the superficial dream factory than a request to rejoin its society. Virtually all of the characters in the film are caricatures of real people in and around Welles's entourage, including Hannaford himself as Welles, despite proclamations to the contrary. This has led to people drawing obvious comparisons between this film and other self-referential movies--like Fellini's 8 1/2--and not without good reason; although Welles often waxed self-reflexive, The Other Side of the Wind seems to be more than that. As with Welles's subversion of the documentary in F for Fake, The Other Side of the Wind is predisposed to ripping away the artifice of film (and its community) paradoxically through artifice. Hannaford is regarded by his fans and his inner circle--referred to as the "Hannaford mafia" by his self-appointed "acolyte" and friend, Brooks Otterlake (Peter Bogdanovich)--as a man who is larger than life. As such, a cult of personality has developed around him, evidenced by the frenzied enthusiasm of his colleagues and critics swarming to attend his birthday party held at the ranch of his friend (and perhaps one-time love interest), Zarah Valeska (Lilli Palmer). In a nod to Welles's famous (and fashionably late) entrance in The Third Man, Hannaford doesn't even show up until almost twenty minutes into the film, although he is the singular topic of conversation on the lips of everyone beforehand. John Huston's brilliant performance as Hannaford merges the weariness that comes from being perpetually misunderstood with the sharp cynicism of a disillusioned man. He has become painfully aware of how his notoriety has only made him a bigger target for vultures and hyenas to tear away at his proverbial flesh for their own sustenance--including a film critic named Juliette Riche (Susan Strasberg), who strategically interjects herself into conversations at the party to sow discord among Hannaford and Otterlake at key moments. Hannaford's reputation is designed to parallel Welles's own--he is forever living in the shadow of himself. When the paparazzi surrounds him with cameras at his birthday party, eagerly snapping photos while flashbulbs blast away like strobe lights, Huston's iconic smile is immediately recognizable as a substitute for a sneer directed at the obsequious crowd of media lickspittles. Consider when Hannaford is driving in his convertible, and a smarmy reporter assails him with that tired interview question about whether the "camera's eye is a reflection of reality" or vice versa, adding "or is it a phallus?" to punch it up for his article. Hannaford's exasperated reply is the only one that such a banal question warrants: "I need a drink".
Like how F for Fake has been described (over simply) as a "documentary within a documentary", The Other Side of the Wind is presented in a cinéma vérité style, and includes a "film within a film", one sharing the same name as this picture. Hannaford's "The Other Side of the Wind" is a vivid experience and has virtually no dialogue--the aesthetic polar opposite to the main story--approaching what is sometimes referred to as cinéma pur, or "pure cinema". Scenes from Hannaford's film are intercut throughout The Other Side of the Wind, both as it is being screened for an irritated movie producer named Max David (Geoffrey Land) by one of Hannaford's lieutenants with a sweet tooth named Billy Boyle (Norman Foster), and when Hannaford screens it himself for the party. When Hannaford tries to show his experimental film at the party, the projector repeated breaks down, forcing the final scenes to be shown at a drive-in. Although it is virtually impossible that Welles could have had any inkling as to the extreme period of time before The Other Side of the Wind would finally be released, it feels unmistakably like a nod to how the fates seemed to conspire to keep his film from seeing the light of day, just as it is with Hannaford. Hannaford's film is deliberately "arthouse", including copious scenes of nudity and sexuality between his unnamed lead Actress--played by Oja Kodar, who is credited along with Welles for writing The Other Side of the Wind--and a handsome young actor named John Dale (Bob Random). Hannaford's latest opus is implied to be one that uses sex and youthful indulgences as a way to reconnect with his younger audiences, pushing the envelope on content in an effort to remain relevant--a conceit that has often been levied against veteran filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock and his film, Frenzy. Hannaford's film constantly walks the cinematic tightrope between erotic and exploitative, and between what is expressive and what is absurd. Scenes from this "film within a film" feel oddly prescient today, as if its existence alone was somehow able to influence erotic films including Y Tu Mamá También and even Risky Business, and the lurid, stylized expressiveness of filmmakers like Nicolas Winding Refn. The difference between Hannaford's movie and the main story is so striking that when one of the most alluring moments--where the Actress seduces the equally silent Dale in a moving car--cuts away to Hannaford watching his own film, it seems like all the color has been drained out of the real world. (Of course it has, since much of the "real world" is depicted in black and white, because it can't compete with the power of Hannaford's imagination.) The Actress--having earlier torn off her rain-soaked garments in a nightclub bathroom--unzips her raincoat while situated between Dale and her boyfriend, who is driving the car at the time. As she straddles Dale, flashing red and green streetlights flicker by, and the only sounds to be heard are the car's wiper blades beating back the driving rain and her beaded necklace rhythmically slapping against her bare chest. Hannaford and his audience at the party are utterly silent, engrossed in the raw sexuality of his celluloid fantasy.
The film within a film is also designed to explore themes of masculinity versus femininity, just as it contrasts reality and fantasy. Hannaford speaks to this directly when the discussion of God comes up at his party, and he describes God as a woman, using sexism to tease that it makes the lack of logic in the universe easier to understand. Yet he also opines that were there a difference in his sex, he would be just like God--a moment of posturing designed to maintain his public persona of confident bravado. Hannaford has been described as a cinematic cipher for Ernest Hemingway, who is treated as a scion of masculinity. His past is alluded to have included events similar to those credited to his literary counterpart, like running with the bulls and an enthusiasm for young women and firearms. His retinue includes another protegee named Jack Simon (Gregory Sierra), a macho rival to Otterlake who often antagonizes Hannaford's favorite disciple, and who has presumably shaped his perception of what it means to be a man after Hannaford. There are insinuations that Hannaford maintains a testosterone-driven facade to conceal his inner desires from the public, so that they cannot be used against him by a vindictive media. The evidence to this that speaks loudest is his cold fury toward his erstwhile leading man, John Dale, who walked off his film after Hannaford deliberately humiliated him during a love scene with the Actress. The story of how he was "found" by Hannaford is that he was literally pulled from the ocean and transformed into a cool, androgynous poster boy for Hannaford's cinematic vision--reminiscent of Joe Dallesandro or even Robert Pattinson--with Hannaford acting as his "Svengali". It is presented that Hannaford is sexually involved with the Actress, yet his spiteful "gift" of a finger bone to her at his party is similarly designed to humiliate her; he has all of the bitterness of a lover spurned. An effete English teacher of Dale's named Dr. Bradley Pease Burroughs (Dan Tobin) shares with Hannaford that his former student's first name was originally "Oscar", and makes subsequent comparisons between Dale and the ambiguous sexuality of author Oscar Wilde. The needling Riche is ultimately the one who throws her conclusions about Hannaford's romantic reputation in his face, provoking a violent outburst from the weary auteur. It is less important that these details imply that Hannaford was a closeted homosexual, but that he is a man divided between conflicting desires. Hannaford presents himself as an embittered cynic, always armed with a smirk and a witty retort courtesy of his acerbic wit. But softer moments--especially between him and his long-time friend, Valeska, who throws him the birthday party in the first place--shows that he longs for meaningful companionship more than anything. His father--also a famous stage performer--committed suicide, and it is clear that Hannaford never got over his feelings of loss and betrayal that accompanied it. Hannaford's reasons for becoming a filmmaker come from a desire to express his existential doubts to others without the risk of being criticized as a person. (This is why Riche represents the greatest threat to his emotional welfare.) Consider how his "Other Side of the Wind" is meditative, vulnerable, and even self-deprecating, culminating with the Actress literally ripping apart the symbolic manifestation of his masculine exterior.
It is possible that I have imagined this, but I believe that Orson Welles once said--perhaps in F for Fake--that if he had not become a filmmaker, he would have been a magician. From his days trolling the Eastern seaboard with his infamous 1938 radio broadcast, "The War of the Worlds", Welles has performed his magic in the tradition of magicians before him by establishing a set of rules and then subsequently breaking those rules, captivating his audience by defying expectations. The lingering question of The Other Side of the Wind is whether it is about Orson Welles, or if it is meant to merely suggest that it is for the purposes of intriguing its audience. There are certainly similarities between the public persona of Orson Welles and Jake Hannaford, and Welles would have been keenly aware of them. All of the events leading up to and including Hannaford's party are recorded by multiple video cameras, as though he were making a movie out of his own life--and is that so different than a semi-autobiographical mockumentary? There is a moment where Hannaford states that "tonight, it's all on the record", directly acknowledging that he is candidly bearing his soul to the impartial eye of the camera which has made him both into the superstar that he is and has deprived him of the blessings of a private life. Hannaford's self-exposure is both cathartic and punitive, a form of release that is as much play as it is penance. It is ironic that a man who has built his career out of crafting cinematic fiction would be driven to tear down the fourth wall so completely. All of these statements seem to ring as true for The Other Side of the Wind as they do for Orson Welles...or do they? The true magic of Orson Welles's final opus is in how it teases the audience to consider how much (of anything) is true, and how much is a fabrication. And Orson Welles has the last laugh, because he gets to keep this secret to himself; after all, no one can ask him for the truth until we meet again on that other side of the wind.
Recommended for: Fans of a highly self-aware cinematic exploration about movies and filmmaking by one of the most influential filmmakers of all time--impossibly released almost a half of a century after it's production began. The Other Side of the Wind is simultaneously contemporary and a visitation to an age gone by, and is a fitting capstone to the legacy of the great Orson Welles.
Like how F for Fake has been described (over simply) as a "documentary within a documentary", The Other Side of the Wind is presented in a cinéma vérité style, and includes a "film within a film", one sharing the same name as this picture. Hannaford's "The Other Side of the Wind" is a vivid experience and has virtually no dialogue--the aesthetic polar opposite to the main story--approaching what is sometimes referred to as cinéma pur, or "pure cinema". Scenes from Hannaford's film are intercut throughout The Other Side of the Wind, both as it is being screened for an irritated movie producer named Max David (Geoffrey Land) by one of Hannaford's lieutenants with a sweet tooth named Billy Boyle (Norman Foster), and when Hannaford screens it himself for the party. When Hannaford tries to show his experimental film at the party, the projector repeated breaks down, forcing the final scenes to be shown at a drive-in. Although it is virtually impossible that Welles could have had any inkling as to the extreme period of time before The Other Side of the Wind would finally be released, it feels unmistakably like a nod to how the fates seemed to conspire to keep his film from seeing the light of day, just as it is with Hannaford. Hannaford's film is deliberately "arthouse", including copious scenes of nudity and sexuality between his unnamed lead Actress--played by Oja Kodar, who is credited along with Welles for writing The Other Side of the Wind--and a handsome young actor named John Dale (Bob Random). Hannaford's latest opus is implied to be one that uses sex and youthful indulgences as a way to reconnect with his younger audiences, pushing the envelope on content in an effort to remain relevant--a conceit that has often been levied against veteran filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock and his film, Frenzy. Hannaford's film constantly walks the cinematic tightrope between erotic and exploitative, and between what is expressive and what is absurd. Scenes from this "film within a film" feel oddly prescient today, as if its existence alone was somehow able to influence erotic films including Y Tu Mamá También and even Risky Business, and the lurid, stylized expressiveness of filmmakers like Nicolas Winding Refn. The difference between Hannaford's movie and the main story is so striking that when one of the most alluring moments--where the Actress seduces the equally silent Dale in a moving car--cuts away to Hannaford watching his own film, it seems like all the color has been drained out of the real world. (Of course it has, since much of the "real world" is depicted in black and white, because it can't compete with the power of Hannaford's imagination.) The Actress--having earlier torn off her rain-soaked garments in a nightclub bathroom--unzips her raincoat while situated between Dale and her boyfriend, who is driving the car at the time. As she straddles Dale, flashing red and green streetlights flicker by, and the only sounds to be heard are the car's wiper blades beating back the driving rain and her beaded necklace rhythmically slapping against her bare chest. Hannaford and his audience at the party are utterly silent, engrossed in the raw sexuality of his celluloid fantasy.
The film within a film is also designed to explore themes of masculinity versus femininity, just as it contrasts reality and fantasy. Hannaford speaks to this directly when the discussion of God comes up at his party, and he describes God as a woman, using sexism to tease that it makes the lack of logic in the universe easier to understand. Yet he also opines that were there a difference in his sex, he would be just like God--a moment of posturing designed to maintain his public persona of confident bravado. Hannaford has been described as a cinematic cipher for Ernest Hemingway, who is treated as a scion of masculinity. His past is alluded to have included events similar to those credited to his literary counterpart, like running with the bulls and an enthusiasm for young women and firearms. His retinue includes another protegee named Jack Simon (Gregory Sierra), a macho rival to Otterlake who often antagonizes Hannaford's favorite disciple, and who has presumably shaped his perception of what it means to be a man after Hannaford. There are insinuations that Hannaford maintains a testosterone-driven facade to conceal his inner desires from the public, so that they cannot be used against him by a vindictive media. The evidence to this that speaks loudest is his cold fury toward his erstwhile leading man, John Dale, who walked off his film after Hannaford deliberately humiliated him during a love scene with the Actress. The story of how he was "found" by Hannaford is that he was literally pulled from the ocean and transformed into a cool, androgynous poster boy for Hannaford's cinematic vision--reminiscent of Joe Dallesandro or even Robert Pattinson--with Hannaford acting as his "Svengali". It is presented that Hannaford is sexually involved with the Actress, yet his spiteful "gift" of a finger bone to her at his party is similarly designed to humiliate her; he has all of the bitterness of a lover spurned. An effete English teacher of Dale's named Dr. Bradley Pease Burroughs (Dan Tobin) shares with Hannaford that his former student's first name was originally "Oscar", and makes subsequent comparisons between Dale and the ambiguous sexuality of author Oscar Wilde. The needling Riche is ultimately the one who throws her conclusions about Hannaford's romantic reputation in his face, provoking a violent outburst from the weary auteur. It is less important that these details imply that Hannaford was a closeted homosexual, but that he is a man divided between conflicting desires. Hannaford presents himself as an embittered cynic, always armed with a smirk and a witty retort courtesy of his acerbic wit. But softer moments--especially between him and his long-time friend, Valeska, who throws him the birthday party in the first place--shows that he longs for meaningful companionship more than anything. His father--also a famous stage performer--committed suicide, and it is clear that Hannaford never got over his feelings of loss and betrayal that accompanied it. Hannaford's reasons for becoming a filmmaker come from a desire to express his existential doubts to others without the risk of being criticized as a person. (This is why Riche represents the greatest threat to his emotional welfare.) Consider how his "Other Side of the Wind" is meditative, vulnerable, and even self-deprecating, culminating with the Actress literally ripping apart the symbolic manifestation of his masculine exterior.
It is possible that I have imagined this, but I believe that Orson Welles once said--perhaps in F for Fake--that if he had not become a filmmaker, he would have been a magician. From his days trolling the Eastern seaboard with his infamous 1938 radio broadcast, "The War of the Worlds", Welles has performed his magic in the tradition of magicians before him by establishing a set of rules and then subsequently breaking those rules, captivating his audience by defying expectations. The lingering question of The Other Side of the Wind is whether it is about Orson Welles, or if it is meant to merely suggest that it is for the purposes of intriguing its audience. There are certainly similarities between the public persona of Orson Welles and Jake Hannaford, and Welles would have been keenly aware of them. All of the events leading up to and including Hannaford's party are recorded by multiple video cameras, as though he were making a movie out of his own life--and is that so different than a semi-autobiographical mockumentary? There is a moment where Hannaford states that "tonight, it's all on the record", directly acknowledging that he is candidly bearing his soul to the impartial eye of the camera which has made him both into the superstar that he is and has deprived him of the blessings of a private life. Hannaford's self-exposure is both cathartic and punitive, a form of release that is as much play as it is penance. It is ironic that a man who has built his career out of crafting cinematic fiction would be driven to tear down the fourth wall so completely. All of these statements seem to ring as true for The Other Side of the Wind as they do for Orson Welles...or do they? The true magic of Orson Welles's final opus is in how it teases the audience to consider how much (of anything) is true, and how much is a fabrication. And Orson Welles has the last laugh, because he gets to keep this secret to himself; after all, no one can ask him for the truth until we meet again on that other side of the wind.
Recommended for: Fans of a highly self-aware cinematic exploration about movies and filmmaking by one of the most influential filmmakers of all time--impossibly released almost a half of a century after it's production began. The Other Side of the Wind is simultaneously contemporary and a visitation to an age gone by, and is a fitting capstone to the legacy of the great Orson Welles.