8. The Other Side of the Wind
The Other Side of the Wind is the kind of experiment keeping us intrigued and confused!
It is the last film of Orson Welles released posthumously in 2018 combining the many hours of footage filmed over years. Its production spanning decades was extremely difficult, but it was finished thanks to many collaborators and crowdfunding.
To put it simply, The Other Side of the Wind is a mockumentary of sorts about Hollywood and Welles himself. It is the story of the last days of Jake Hannaford, a famous director, celebrating his 70s birthday at a star-studded party where he screens scenes from his unfinished comeback movie.
It is also the story of the tumultuous making of that film-within-the-film because of the tension between the protagonist and Jake.
The party scenes consist of black-and-white footage where many actors satirically portray characters based on real persons, including contemporary filmmakers and critics. Whereas the movie, shot in color, is an abstract art-house project, clearly inspired by what was/is seen as European “pretentious for nothing” Cinema! Which is quite ironic considering The Other Side of the Wind ends up being itself a unique prestige oddity but not necessarily an accessible one.
