This one is special, the last movie by Orson Welles

This one's a dose - Tonight's "stay at home" movie, just hit Netflix, it's the last movie by Orson Welles - The Other Side of the Wind. It's sort of a movie in a movie in a movie, begun in 1970, shooting on and off until 1976, revised until the mid 80's when Welles died. It is about a movie director, who dies while making a movie, which is about what happened to Welles, who never quite finished this. It was finally released in 2018. Way back when, I recall seeing Welles, a frequent guest on talk shows, looking like Jabba the Hut, never shy to remind everybody about how great he was.
So, part of this is the story of the director, part is the movie he's making. Part of it (mainly the director part) is in black and white, part is in color (the movie being directed). The monochrome part harkens back to the stark look of noir film and German Expressionism, the color part is full of 70's Kodacolor tints. The black and white part is full of noir angles and high contrast, and went off the scale with face wrinkles in actors who had some age on them.
The plot line is chaotic and often I had no idea what was going on, but it did come to some sort of conclusion. To make things even more confusing, director Peter Bogdanovitch (himself a Welles fan) was a character and NOT the director of this movie, and just about everybody else seemed like someone you almost recognized, including a main character who is a near-clone of Jim Morrison.
I have no idea what to do with this, but I might watch it again, presumably the only last movie about a director who's making his last movie directed by Orson Welles, who was making HIS last movie. Damn.

I liked your description more than the movie


I also liked Orson Welles more than his movies.

I'm a huge Welles fan, but I really didn't like this movie. It was semi-incoherent, tried too hard to be different or avant-garde, and it was evidently put together just to show what a "genius" Welles was. I don't suppose he ever planned on finishing it. He was a genius at getting financial and talent help from those who idolized him.

However he was able to pull together some famous people, including Bogdanovich, John Huston, and others, whose sole purpose gave the impression of being involved just to confirm Welles' importance.

It was worth watching, chiefly to have seen what it was like, but I couldn't recommend it otherwise.

Yeah, definitely. He was trying too hard. By this point in his career, it seemed like Welles was a self-parody. I would not recommend it other than as film history. I have to admit that I never really bought into the idea that Citizen Kane was the "greatest movie ever". This one seemed like Welles had gone over the edge into believing in his own myth.

I actually loved this film. I'd especially recommmend it to people who like Welles' F For Fake. He basically retained the cinematic style of that film, but in this case it's a purely fictional story. I'd also recommend the accompanying documentary, They'll Love Me When I'm Dead.

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Cobpyth's Movie Log ~ 2019

It was interesting, but way too tricky for me. It seemed as though Welles got a textbook on 50 cool movie tricks, and decided to use all 50 of them at least 4 times in a 2 hour movie.....how 'bout if we switch too high-contrast black and white for 30 seconds, how 'bout if we do a flashback, how 'bout if we switch narrative perspective without telling the audience, etc.

Yep, great film.

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Too weird to live, and too rare to die.