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Lost and unfinished Orson Welles film set for release Lost and unfinished Orson Welles film set for release
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A legendary lost movie by Orson Welles is to be completed by the film-maker Peter Bogdanovich and screened to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Citizen Kane director’s birthday next year, reports the New York Times.The Other Side of the Wind was shot between 1969 and 1976 and stars actor-director John Huston in the self-reflexive tale of an obsessive veteran film-maker struggling to complete his final movie despite the collapse of the Hollywood studio system and the rise of a new wave of younger directors. Welles never completed it before his death in 1985 at the age of 70 but he did leave behind a 45-minute edited work print which was completed prior to the negatives being removed from his control in a row with financial backers.More than 1,000 reels have reportedly been languishing in a Paris warehouse for much of the intervening period against the backdrop of legal battles between rights holders, who include Welles’ daughter and sole heir Beatrice, his longtime companion and collaborator, Oja Kodar and a French-Iranian production company founded by the brother-in-law of the shah of Iran. A legendary lost movie by Orson Welles is to be completed by the film-maker Peter Bogdanovich and screened to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Citizen Kane director’s birthday next year, reports the New York Times.The Other Side of the Wind was shot between 1969 and 1976 and stars actor-director John Huston in the self-reflexive tale of an obsessive veteran film-maker struggling to complete his final movie despite the collapse of the Hollywood studio system and the rise of a new wave of younger directors. Welles never completed it before his death in 1985 at the age of 70, but he did leave behind a 45-minute edited work print that was completed prior to the negatives being removed from his control in a row with financial backers.More than 1,000 reels have reportedly been languishing in a Paris warehouse for much of the intervening period against the backdrop of legal battles between rights holders, who include Welles’s daughter and sole heir Beatrice, his longtime companion and collaborator, Oja Kodar and a French-Iranian production company founded by the brother-in-law of the shah of Iran.
Bogdanovich, who also appears in the movie as a young protege of Huston’s maverick director Jake Hannaford, was asked by Welles to complete the film in the event of its creator’s death. Along with producer Frank Marshall, best known for the Indiana Jones films, he has been instrumental in the fight to secure the negatives. “He just turned to me rather casually during lunch and said, ‘I want you to promise that you will finish the picture if anything happens to me,” The Last Picture Show director, who in the 1970s was indeed a leading light of a new wave of young film-makers, told the Times of his 1970s conversation with Welles. “I was shocked and said, ‘Nothing is going to happen to you.’”Bogdanovich added: “He did some very complicated editing before it was taken away from him. I don’t even know if I can approximate that kind of cutting because it is very fragmented and idiosyncratic. All we can do is the best we can, using the script, his notes and what he has left.”The Other Side of the Wind is both the title of Welles’ movie and the film-within-a-film which Hannaford is desperate to complete in an effort to restore his fortunes. The feature is said to have been shot using a variety of film stock, from eight to 35mm, and variously in colour and black and white, as well as still photography. In a prescient echo if the currently popular found footage subgenre, Welles had reputedly hoped to use the varying styles to simulate video footage taken by students, critics and lesser known directors who had brought cameras to Hannaford’s 70th birthday party, which forms the centrepiece of the movie. Bogdanovich, who also appears in the movie as a young protege of Huston’s maverick director Jake Hannaford, was asked by Welles to complete the film in the event of its creator’s death. Along with producer Frank Marshall, best known for the Indiana Jones films, he has been instrumental in the fight to secure the negatives. “He just turned to me rather casually during lunch and said, ‘I want you to promise that you will finish the picture if anything happens to me,” The Last Picture Show director, who in the 1970s was indeed a leading light of a new wave of young film-makers, told the Times of his 1970s conversation with Welles. “I was shocked and said, ‘Nothing is going to happen to you.’”Bogdanovich added: “He did some very complicated editing before it was taken away from him. I don’t even know if I can approximate that kind of cutting because it is very fragmented and idiosyncratic. All we can do is the best we can, using the script, his notes and what he has left.”The Other Side of the Wind is both the title of Welles’ movie and the film-within-a-film which Hannaford is desperate to complete in an effort to restore his fortunes. The feature is said to have been shot using a variety of film stock, from eight to 35mm, and variously in colour and black and white, as well as still photography. In a prescient echo of the currently popular found-footage subgenre, Welles had reputedly hoped to use the varying styles to simulate video footage taken by students, critics and lesser known directors who had brought cameras to Hannaford’s 70th birthday party, which forms the centrepiece of the movie.
“This is like finding the Land of Oz or some lost tomb,” Josh Karp, who has written a book about the movie, told the Times. “This film is art imitating life and life imitating art. It’s become so mythical because of what happened with all the failures to finish it and the players involved.”The negative reels were controlled by Beatrice Welles under French law protecting artists’ rights, and she had previously refused to allow them to be removed from storage. Kodar, 73, is to provide the work print, which she has been storing at her home in Primosten, on the Adriatic coast in Croatia, since Welles smuggled it out of Paris in 1975 and had it shipped to California.“I am going to sign the contract,” the actor, who also appears in the film, told the Times. “The catalyst is the hundred-year anniversary and everybody is moving in a kind of wave. When I finally see it on the screen, then I will tell you that the film is done.”“This is like finding the Land of Oz or some lost tomb,” Josh Karp, who has written a book about the movie, told the Times. “This film is art imitating life and life imitating art. It’s become so mythical because of what happened with all the failures to finish it and the players involved.”The negative reels were controlled by Beatrice Welles under French law protecting artists’ rights, and she had previously refused to allow them to be removed from storage. Kodar, 73, is to provide the work print, which she has been storing at her home in Primosten, on the Adriatic coast in Croatia, since Welles smuggled it out of Paris in 1975 and had it shipped to California.“I am going to sign the contract,” the actor, who also appears in the film, told the Times. “The catalyst is the hundred-year anniversary and everybody is moving in a kind of wave. When I finally see it on the screen, then I will tell you that the film is done.”
Beatrice Welles said she had been inspired to release rights by a visit from producer Filip Jan Rymsza, of Los Angeles production company Royal Road, and Marshall. “It took the right people to come along,” she said. “They wanted to talk to me and did not want any outsiders. Until now this movie has been under lock and key under French law. I had the good fortune to be able to protect it. When we talked, we laughed and joked. It was just this amazing rapport. What came through to me was their true love of art.”Also starring Bob Random, Susan Strasberg, Joseph McBride, Lilli Palmer and a young Dennis Hopper, The Other Side of the Wind will be released via Royal Road to coincide with Welles’ 100th birthday on 6 May 2015. Marshall, a line producer on the film’s original shoot, is to help Bogdanovich with the editing process. Royal Road will aim to court financing at next week’s American Film Market in Santa Monica, California. Beatrice Welles said she had been inspired to release rights by a visit from Marshall and producer Filip Jan Rymsza, of Los Angeles production company Royal Road. “It took the right people to come along,” she said. “They wanted to talk to me and did not want any outsiders. Until now, this movie has been under lock and key under French law. I had the good fortune to be able to protect it. When we talked, we laughed and joked. It was just this amazing rapport. What came through to me was their true love of art.”Also starring Bob Random, Susan Strasberg, Joseph McBride, Lilli Palmer and a young Dennis Hopper, The Other Side of the Wind will be released via Royal Road to coincide with Welles’ 100th birthday on 6 May 2015. Marshall, a line producer on the film’s original shoot, is to help Bogdanovich with the editing process. Royal Road will aim to court financing at next week’s American film market in Santa Monica, California.
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