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.
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.