The Other Side of the Wind (found Orson Welles film; 1969-1976)

Writer and director Orson Welles.

Status: Found

Date found: 02 Nov 2018

Found by: Netflix

The Other Side of the Wind was an unfinished, unreleased film written and directed by Orson Welles that was shot between 1969 and 1976. The film stars John Huston, Bob Random, Peter Bogdanovich, Susan Strasberg, and Oja Kodar.

Plot

The plot concerns an eccentric Golden Age film director trying to recover from a career slump. He plans to make a new film in the tradition of the "New Hollywood" movement but is killed in a car crash soon after, and friends and reporters question if his death was a suicide. In going through the footage of a recent birthday party, they discover that he had harbored several secrets.

Production

As Welles began filming, he first focused on the film-within-a-film. As with many of Welles' unfinished projects, financial problems forced him to stop filming multiple times. Conversation scenes were often shot as much as a year apart due to the fact that Huston hadn't been cast yet. Ultimately, the film was about half completed, but since one of the financiers of the film was the brother-in-law of the recently-deposed Iranian Shah, Iranian authorities seized the film and stalled it indefinitely. They have since released the film, and the negatives currently reside in a vault in Paris to this day.

Release and Availability

Although two copies of the workprint are in existence, and despite numerous announcements by producers and directors (including Bogdanovich himself) that they would complete the film, a debate about the ownership of the film has delayed progress. The project was largely unedited, and Welles left ten hours of raw footage behind, of which only a few short clips had managed to surface to the public.

On March 14th, 2017, Netflix announced that it acquired the worldwide distribution rights to The Other Side of the Wind, and would seek to complete and restore the film.

On November 2nd, 2018, Netflix officially released a restoration of the entire film to their website.

Gallery

A scene from the One Man Band documentary.

See Also

• The Deep (partially found unfinished Orson Welles film; 1966-1969)
• The Merchant of Venice (partially found Orson Welles film; 1969)
• Moby Dick—Rehearsed (lost Orson Welles footage of London stage play performance; 1955)
• The Dreamers (partially found unfinished Orson Welles film; 1980-1982)
• Citizen Kane (partially found colorized footage of drama film; late 1980s)

External Link

• The full remastered film. Retrieved 02 Nov '18