Thoughts on "The Other Side of the Wind"

To a modern viewer, the making of The Other Side of the Wind may be more interesting than the film itself.

Directed by Orson Welles, star of the silver screen and director of such undisputed classics as Citizen Kane (routinely called the greatest film ever made) and Touch of Evil, The Other Side of the Wind was Welles’ final motion picture. As was his prerogative during the latter part of his life, Welles produced the film independently, and shot it over the span of five years; filming as much as he could at a time with his assembled cast and crew and then breaking for an even longer period of time in order to finance its completion.

Welles successfully produced a handful of movies in this unorthodox but ultimately effective manner. 

The Other Side of the Wind was not one of them.

Running into financial and legal challenges before the film could be edited and distributed, Welles lost the rights to his own movie and was forced to abandon the project. The film that was to be his final masterpiece went unseen for generations.

That is until now.

Reassembled after more than 40 years, film buffs the world over can finally view Orson Welles’ mythic final project on Netflix.

The Other Side of the Wind tells the story of Jake Hannaford (John Huston), an aging, boundary-pushing film director (obviously modeled on Welles himself) who is in the midst of completing his experimental opus. Screening what footage he has shot for friends and industry professionals at his 70th birthday party, Hannaford quickly begins to make more enemies than allies, and it appears as if he will never finish the film.

The biggest question which goes annoying unanswered in the film is: what is this movie about? It appears that in his lifetime, even Welles was uncertain. Some have suggested that Welles’ vision metamorphosized time and time again in the five years that he was working on the project. And this is certainly reflected in the film. The Other Side of the Wind comes off as scatterbrained and incoherent in places with plot threads being picked up and dropped at random.

Yet, through all of this, The Other Side of the Wind manages to hold a hypnotic quality over its audience. Even if one does not fully comprehend what the meaning is behind the images playing out on screen, the pictures which Welles and his longtime cinematographer, Gary Graver, have painted with the camera are fascinating and haunting nevertheless.

In many respects, The Other Side of the Wind can be regarded as a primary document, providing a unique perspective into the changing cultural landscape of 1970s Hollywood. The days of the big studios and even bigger movie stars had faded quickly and Welles – who had returned to America from self-imposed exile in Europe to complete the movie – must have felt lost. That changing tide is reflected beautifully in the film, and Welles satirizes the key players of this cultural revolution within the film.

Just as Huston’s Hannaford is a stand-in for Welles, Peter Bogdanovich – who in 1975 was a young, up-and-coming director and close friend of Welles’ – plays Brooks Otterlake, a young, up-and-coming director and close friend of Hannaford’s.

What else is the film about? Welles manages to comment on toxic masculinity, points out the futility of the muse in an artist’s life, critiques new-wave experimentalism, and still finds time for a shoot-out and brawl which makes The Other Side of the Wind a densely-packed two hours.

Orson Welles was always on the cutting edge of moviemaking, and his last film reinforces that sentiment, showcasing techniques which would not become standard for several more decades. The Other Side of the Wind is no Citizen Kane but it is a strange, haunting film which even after 40 years is not ready to give up all its secrets.