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Bogdanovich's provides an update on what's going on with this film.

Interesting. As much as I want Captain Bandanna and Kodar to have final say on this, I'm skeptical about weaving the footage into a documentary about the making of the film, especially when CB says that it's the only way to placate Beatrice.

Peter Bogdanovich wrote:We’re going to put the whole thing in the form of a documentary about the making of a film... If we don’t do that, we’ll have a problem with Beatrice Welles (who controls the Welles estate).

Peter Bogdanovich wrote:We’re going to put the whole thing in the form of a documentary about the making of a film... If we don’t do that, we’ll have a problem with Beatrice Welles (who controls the Welles estate).

I share in your sentiments exactly; I just went from tremendously excited to entirely disappointed within three minutes. While I think there are few, if any, people in the world who can make a reasonable attempt to execute Welles' vision better than Bogdanovich, I still have little faith that it will be a successful attempt. To me this just screams disappointment, particularly given the lack of good news in the last few years.

Improvised footage from the film.

the second of those two clips has a little bit of footage of Dennis Hopper (with a huge beard) discussing filmmaking... he looks a bit like Charles Manson, though.

Veddy interesting. Here's hoping the whole thing sees the light of day soon. Paging Captain Ascot.

Year ago I was a researcher for a Welles biography. I think a fitting finale for "Wind" would be to just put all the raw footage on the internet and let people cut their own versions. I think the big buy would love it.

Dale

Nothing wrote:

Peter Bogdanovich wrote:We’re going to put the whole thing in the form of a documentary about the making of a film... If we don’t do that, we’ll have a problem with Beatrice Welles (who controls the Welles estate).

Where are the emoticons for a machine gun, blood and Beatrice Welles?

Dale wrote:Year ago I was a researcher for a Welles biography. I think a fitting finale for "Wind" would be to just put all the raw footage on the internet and let people cut their own versions. I think the big buy would love it.

I like the way you think. That is a great idea.

SheriffAmbrose wrote:

Dale wrote:Year ago I was a researcher for a Welles biography. I think a fitting finale for "Wind" would be to just put all the raw footage on the internet and let people cut their own versions. I think the big buy would love it.

I like the way you think. That is a great idea.

Brilliant idea! That would really be interesting.

Of course, it would also be nice to see what Welles was thinking on with this film. At a Welles restrospective at the U of Washington some...yikes...20 years ago, Gary Graver showed a reel of cut footage. Part of it involved a young man running around an empty back lot (which would be interesting just to see the back lot before they were turned into subdivisions), and another reel involved Oja Kodar having sex with a guy in the passenger seat of a car while another guy drove. Supposedly this was Welles first sex scene.

What struck me was that the piece felt very much of it's time....lots of hippy fashions. And how strange it was to see Welles work in color.

Dale

F For Fake, too was in color (I know he didn't shoot a lot of it... but he did shoot his own footage for it)

And, if memory serves, several other unfinished projects: The Merchant of Venice and The Deep, for example.

Not to mention the "Carnival" sequence of IT'S ALL TRUE, which was shot in color.

Point well taken, but those films were more documentary than drama...thought I'm not familiar with the French one. "Other Side" was the first drama footage of Welles' I'd seen in color. Was "Arkadin" shot in color...or am I just thinking of some lobby cards I saw long ago?

Anyway, I'm not sure Welles' cinematic genius is the kind that translates well to color. There's something about the one-step-removed from reality of BW that helps his dreamlike work. Oddly enough, another director who didn't translate well to color was Capra. I suppose the same argument could be made of Billy Wilder.

Dale wrote: Was "Arkadin" shot in color...or am I just thinking of some lobby cards I saw long ago?

You're thinking of some lobby cards you saw long ago. Arkadin is standard b&w 1.33 OAR.

Captain Ascot says they're hoping to clear all the rights issues and get access to the Showtime controlled negative that's sitting in a Paris lab within the next month and aiming for a Cannes premiere.

I'll be guardedly optimistic and not scream like a schoolgirl or Bobby Hill, but that would be amazing.

Dale wrote:Point well taken, but those films were more documentary than drama...thought I'm not familiar with the French one. "Other Side" was the first drama footage of Welles' I'd seen in color. Was "Arkadin" shot in color...or am I just thinking of some lobby cards I saw long ago?

Anyway, I'm not sure Welles' cinematic genius is the kind that translates well to color. There's something about the one-step-removed from reality of BW that helps his dreamlike work. Oddly enough, another director who didn't translate well to color was Capra. I suppose the same argument could be made of Billy Wilder.

I see your point about Welles and b&w, although 'The Immortal Story' looked well.

Although I'm a Welles completist and no doubt will acquire a dvd of 'The Other Side...' if released during my current incarnation, I don't have high expectations

Antoine Doinel wrote:Captain Ascot says they're hoping to clear all the rights issues and get access to the Showtime controlled negative that's sitting in a Paris lab within the next month and aiming for a Cannes premiere.

Though I certainly wouldn't mind having this film released within a few months, I have a feeling he means Cannes 2010.

Cde. wrote:Though I certainly wouldn't mind having this film released within a few months, I have a feeling he means Cannes 2010.

I was thinking the same thing, but I think he might mean the footage that's sitting the Paris lab, they may end up showing at Cannes as a taste of what's to come. But yeah, I don't think we're seeing a completed film until 2010 at the earliest.

Update on the film near the end of this interview with Bogdanovich.

Apologies if I'm posting this in the wrong place, but it seems that a release of Other Side of the Wind is still on the cards, at least according to a report in this morning's Observer. Of course, "hopefully in the next few weeks we will know" is a long way from "it's definitely going to happen", but I'd been under the impression that this project had sunk without trace. Heartening at least to know that people have been working on this under the radar, including Mr Bogdanovich.
While I'm here, can anyone confirm the existence of a 210-minute version of the BBC documentary The Orson Welles Story, referred to by Jonathan Rosenbaum and the Wellesnet web site? I can't find any evidence that this has ever been broadcast - the standard UK version seems to be the 2-part 165-minute version. Perhaps the 210-min version is simply a rough cut?

The Observer's headline is quite premature. Nothing is "set" at this time; the lawyer's statement is not that different from what we've been hearing for over a decade. Still, the possibility of a resolution to the lawsuit in a couple of weeks is better than all hope being abandoned.

I'm not aware of a version of the BBC documentary that runs longer than 165 minutes. In fact, that one is the longer version given that the program was edited down to 150 min. for it's U.S. showing. The additional 15 minutes found in the BBC original deals primarily with Welles' work as an actor in films he did not direct; the U.S. edit kept the focus strictly on Welles' own films.