The Orson Welles movie that took 48 years to make
Hollywood is littered with tales of movies that faced immense challenges. Productions halted by inclement weather, directors’ eccentricities leading to multi-year shoots, or funding drying up halfway through a movie. But among these tales, one particularly fascinating story surrounds a film that took nearly half a century to make, attached to the legacy of a director who is often hailed as one of the greatest of all time.
This director’s artistic brilliance was unparalleled, but so were the challenges he faced, particularly in the latter part of his career, none other than the mastermind behind the universally acclaimed Citizen Kane. Orson Welles was a visionary who, despite his genius, constantly found himself at odds with the mechanisms and financiers of Hollywood. It’s a tale of a film that was intended to be a stunning comeback but ultimately failed to herald anything… until nearly 50 years later.
It was The Other Side of the Wind that Welles envisioned as his magnum opus, a work that would satirise the very industry that had once crowned him its prince. The story was ingenious, portraying the life of a director, played by directing heavyweight John Huston, at his 70th birthday party as he sought financing for his comeback film. With elements that mirrored his own life, Welles’ film was a bold mix of autobiography and film-within-a-film.
However, the film’s production was far from smooth. Beginning in 1970, Welles had optimistically informed his cast that shooting would only span a few weeks. But, plagued by budgetary constraints, the shoot stretched on for six long years. Even then, 15 years after they began, by the time Welles died in 1985, only a 40-minute segment of the film had been edited. The legendary movie lay dormant, its rights scattered among various stakeholders, making its completion seem almost impossible.
Enter Netflix 30 years later; the streaming giant that decided to pick up the gauntlet. With pockets deep enough to appease each and everyone, they embarked on the arduous task of sifting through hours of footage, piecing together a coherent narrative in the absence of Welles’ guiding voice.
To ensure the undertaking retained the integrity of Welles’ vision, Netflix enlisted the film industry’s crème de la crème, including renowned editor Bob Murawski of Spider-Man and The Hurt Locker fame, and sound mixer Scott Millan who engineered the soundscape of Skyfall. The talented Michele Legrand, a previous collaborator of Welles, was brought on board to provide the film’s soundtrack.
The culmination of this journey, both the four-year post-production by Netflix and the 48-year process from conception, was a grand premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 2018. Welles would be happy to know that it was almost universally well-received. And alongside The Other Side of the Wind was another gem – a documentary titled They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead, detailing the tumultuous creation of Welles’ last film. His vision was finally realised, ensuring that his legacy as a cinematic genius would never fade.
