The trailer of The Other Side of The Wind, the final film by Orson Welles, offers a glimpse into the master director’s passion project.
The Other Side of The Wind was shot for six years between 1970 and 1976. Shooting was halted from time to time because financiers kept backing off. Rights to the unfinished film were acquired by Netflix in 2017. A new post-production crew was hired to assemble the footage into the final film that will be premiered at the 2018 Venice Film Festival on August 31. The film will be released on Netflix on November 2.
The Other Side of The Wind stars American director John Huston as Jake Hannaford, a has-been filmmaker modelled on Ernest Hemingway. The film, shot like a mockumentary, explores Hannaford’s efforts to procure funding for his final unfinished film, also called The Other Side of The Wind. Peter Bogdanovich stars as a young filmmaker who is a protege of Hannaford. Welles’s film features a fractured narrative in the style of his 1973 film, F for Fake.
The trailer introduces Hannaford as “the Ernest Hemmingway of Cinema”. Susan Strasberg, playing a film critic modelled on Pauline Kael, wonders out loud, “I just want to know what he represents.” This is followed by a frenetically cut montage of images that highlight Hannaford’s mind. Oja Kodar, Welles’s partner late in his life, stars in a prominent role.
The film is accompanied with a Netflix documentary, They’ll Love Me When I Am Dead, directed by Morgan Neville. The documentary chronicles the making of The Other Side of The Wind.
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