Orson Welles's previously unreleased The Other Side of the Wind is to finally have its premiere, more than 40 years after he last shot scenes for it, at Venice film festival today.
The late director filmed segments of the unfinished movie, which features John Huston, Oja Kodar and Peter Bogdanovich, between 1970 and 1977. The film was shelved after its original production run was plagued by financial difficulties. Welles reportedly continued to work on it until his death, in 1985.
The footage was kept in a safe in Paris until March 2017, when the producers Filip Jan Rymsza and Frank Marshall – Welles’s original production manager on the film – decided to try to rescue it.
Netflix, which will make the completed and restored movie available for screening, and for release in some cinemas, on November 2nd, says The Other Side of the Wind is about a grizzled director, JJ Hannaford – played by Huston – who returns to Los Angeles after years in Europe with plans to complete his own comeback film.
“Both a satire of the classic studio system and the new Hollywood that was shaking things up, Welles’s last artistic testament is a fascinating time capsule of a now-distant era in moviemaking as well as the long-awaited ‘new’ work from an indisputable master,” it says.
Deadline reports that Welles did not cast Huston as his lead until three years into production and that a seven-minute sex scene was filmed at three locations over two years.
