Ladies and gentlemen, good evening.
This is the story
of Orson Welles' last movie,
The Other Side of the Wind.
Uh, this is May 11th, 1971,
The Other Side of the Wind.
Orson Welles. Um...
- Sound roll number eight.
- Rolling.
'Cause you always start announcing
it before I roll. All right, now,
I'll announce it.
Scene 58, take one.
What you're about to watch
is made up of fragments of the materials
that Orson and others left behind.
Many of Orson's films started
with a death...
and so does ours.
When Orson Welles died yesterday,
he was,as he had been most of his life,
in the midstof several film projects.
It was the end of a career
that had once promised so much.
He was a giant of a man
who made Citizen Kane,
who oncescared America half to death
with his War of the Worlds.
He'd been called a genius
almost from birth.
He wasreading at two,
performing Shakespeare at ten.
Regrettably, his later years never matched
the promise of his early years.
He drifted off to lesser work
and grew enormously fat.
Movies were never finished.
There was this one,
The Other Side of the Wind,
about a world-famous filmmaker.
Perhaps Welles' vision of himself.
How we sum up a person's life
and the truth of that life
are rarely he same thing.
Almost any story is almost certainly
some kind of lie.
But not this time.
This time, the story
of The Other Side of the Wind
is being told by the people
who were there:
cast and crew, friends and family.
- My God, you're shooting from over there?
- Why not?
Orson said,
"They'll love me when I'm dead."
No, Orsondenied ever saying that.
- It's almost true.
- It's not true.
Our movie starts long before
things went wrong.
And they did go horribly wrong.
But it begins at a moment of promise
for Orson.
Let's watch.
Mr. Orson Welles.
Every time you'd mention his name,
people would say,
"What did he do since Citizen Kane?"
Citizen Kane,
the greatest motion pictureever made.
He made such a great movie and then...
"Whatever happened to Orson Welles?"
Every list of great films,
many of them lead with Citizen Kane
and say it's the finest film made.
Um...
- Do youagree?
- No, certainly not.
- That's interesting.
- My next oneis though, that's the...
- The Magnificent Ambersons?
- No.
- The one I'mpreparing at this moment.
- Oh, the next one.
That's gonnamake history.
- Could yougive us the title of that?
- I haven'tdecided what it is yet.
Oh!
It would become a last big effort
in his lifetime.
The chance to say,
"This is my masterpiece."
What will really be the big basic
differences between this picture
and anythingelse you've ever done?
Because everything else I've ever done
has been controlled,
every frame is controlled.
But I would like to take a whole story
and make the picture
as though it were a documentary.
The actors are gonna be improvising.
Have you done that kind of thing before
with other...
Nobody's ever done it before, you know.
But that seems to me like
shooting and shooting,
and aren'tyou afraid the end result
won't have any control?
- I keep...
- Not a bit,no, I really am not.
I can't evencount
the number of times I heard Orson say...
The greatestthings in movies
are divine accidents.
"Embrace that accident."
And my definition of a film director
is "the man who presides over accidents."
They're these divine accidents.
It's theonly thing that keeps films
from being dead.
Every time one would happen, boom!
Genius wouldcome out.
Everywhere, there are beautiful accidents.
There's a smell in the air, there's a look
that changesthe whole resonance
of what you expected.
Sometimes I've had those accidents.
I made a picture in which somebody
reached through a window in Touch of Evil,
and found the egg...
And we made a whole scene about it,
you know.
But I wannago further.
Then on the basis
of what you've said,it sounds as though
the whole thing is going to be a series
of your "divine accidents."
- If we'relucky.
- If you'relucky.
That's right. You know,
we're going to go fishing for accidents.
Which Ithink can be very exciting,
you know?
Yeah, yeah.
Do you feel any kind of resentment
for whatHollywood did to you,
or failed to offer you?
At the time,
Orson had lost his ability
to finance his own work in America.
You are in some sense an exile,
aren't you?
- You've beenout of America a long time.
- Yes, yes.
Orson hadbeen in Europe for two decades.
Because he felt very betrayed
by Hollywood.
I think he was permanently traumatized
by Touch of Evil.
The studio said,
"God, Welles is functioning
at such a level of brilliance.
We're gonna make
film after film with him."
That's what you think.
Then they saw a rough cut of it.
They were so horrified that I was fired.
And nobody's ever explained
what horrified them.
After Evil, nobody would touch him.
They really wouldn't.
The popular press
had forgotten about him.
People weren't chasing Orson down
to work with him.
I think I have to make
a very successful box office picture.
I think I'mgetting too old
not to have made one.
- Orson needed a comeback film...
- And?
...and it had to be strong.
It's one thing to know what you want,
it's another thing
to know howto go through the door
when it opens.
Hollywood was changing
in the '70s, changing huge.
The new Hollywood began around '66.
Bonnie and Clyde,
Five Easy Pieces.
Easy Rider.
The kids with beards were taking over.
We are children playing games,
when we create.
Which is what movies are to me,
and what drama is to me, it's a game.
Thirty-five-year-old men
had taken over show business.
The studios didn't know anymore
what was making money.
The studios were collapsing.
When Warner Brothers stopped
making cartoons, it was over.
In the new Hollywood,
everybody had this incredible reverence
for Orson Welles.
He was somewhere between
Zen master and God.
I mean, sure, Citizen Kane
was maybe the greatest film ever made,
but I'm noteven sure it's his best film.
- Lady From Shanghai.
- The mirror sequence.
- Oh, wow!
- Wow!
How could you even think to do that?
He was a prototypical
independent filmmaker.
Oh, my God, yes.
Chimes isthe most perfect film ever made.
The chance to make my films
in America's...
has been very hard,
but I think it's getting easier.
Pictures are becoming more adventurous.
The opportunities ahead of me are greater,
much than they were five years ago.
Orson wanted in because he wanted
to do a film about Hollywood.
It was the siren's call
that drew Orson back to Hollywood.
And this is wherethe story really begins.
In abungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel
on the 4th of July, 1970.
One day in 1970, near the 4th of July,
I was atSchwab's Drugstore in Hollywood.
This is cameraman Gary Graver.
He shoteverything Orson directed
for the last 15 years of his life.
Tell us howyou met Orson Welles.
I read in Variety that Orson
Welles was at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
I went back to the phone booth,
called him up...
...and to my surprise,
he answered the phone.
- "Hello?" I said, "Oh, Orson Welles?"
- Hello?
I said, "I'm Gary Graver,
I'm an American cameraman."
- Come andtalk to me.
- "I've got to talk to you."
I want totalk to you now!
And he said, "Get over
to the Beverly Hills Hotel right away."
Wow!
I raced over to the Beverly Hills Hotel,
knocked on the door,and there was Orson.
- I said, "I'd like to work with you."
- Why?
Orson said, "We'll make some tests,
and if I like what you do,
we'll start a script."
And I wasvery nervous about it.
Cut. Go back again. Stop it!
Gary, you must listen to me.
The tests, as you see here,
are shots of Orson
sitting inthe Beverly Hills Hotel
bungalow thathe rented,
and I was shooting him.
He said, "You're the second cameraman
that's called me up.
The first one was Gregg Toland
on Citizen Kane."
He says, "Now you.
So, it must mean good luck.
I would like to work with you."
And we began to make a movie called:
The Other Side of the Wind.
The Other Side of the Wind. What is that?
You could drive yourself nuts
trying to get an answer to that one.
The conceit of this movie
is that it is actually two movies in one.
The Other Side of the Wind
is divided into two sections.
There is the film which is made
by documentary cameramen,
which is the story of the last day
of the director's life.
And there is the film
which is made by the director,
which hasjust broken down
for lack of funds.
And thesetwo stories
almost simultaneously move together.
So, what is this film about?
- It's the story of an old director.
- Yeah?
A generation even older than me.
It's difficult to imagine that.
The OtherSide of the Wind
is a movie about an aging film director.
The darlingof Hollywood
who fell out of favor.
The great American film artist...
That gets rejected in Hollywood,
goes to Europe...
And comesback to Hollywood.
It was athinly-veiled version of himself.
Okay. Wouldthat make him
an autobiographical character for you?
No. Everybody will think
it's autobiographical, but it's not.
Yeah. Bullshit.
- Of course it is.
- It must be autobiographical.
A hundred percent Orson.
No doubtit's an autobiographical movie.
He hated that.
He didn'twant to be analyzed
through his films.
Ten-hut!
Actually,
The Other Side of the Wind started
because of a conversation I had
with Orson.
Who is thisman?
Peter Bogdanovich started
as a film historian.
And Orson, he was my hero.
He said, "Isn't it a pity you can't do
a nice little book about me?"
I said, "I'd be happy to do
an interviewbook with you."
He said, "Fine, let's do it."
And hesaid...
You know why I was sleepless last night?
Why?
I've got a story that
I've worked on for many years.
I said, "What's that?"
"Well, it's about an older film director
and a young film director,
and the betrayal
of theirfriendship."
Not that itmatters.
I am crazy enough to do that
in preference to anything else.
- Oughta make it right away.
- Right away.
"I must make it now."
Cut.
He calls me up and he says,
"What are you doing Thursday?"
And I said,"I'm going to Texas
to start my first film."
But this was before all that.
Orson said, "What time is your plane?"
I said, "Three o'clock."
He said, "Can you meet me at noon
where the planes fly low over thestreet?"
I said, "Yeah, okay. What are we doing?"
"I'll tell you about it when I see you.
Just meet me at noon."
- Take one, second...
- Let me announce it.
Bus Studio,Scene 55, Take one!
The mic all right?
At first, he had me playing a cineaste,
you know,a guy who writes about movies.
Mr. Hannaford? Uh, Mr. Hannaford.
Jake Hannaford's
the leading character, an old director.
Mr. Hannaford, uh,
in the body of your film work,
how significantly would you relate
the trauma of your father's suicide?
Orson had me do it
like Jerry Lewis. And it was like,
"Mr. Hannaford, do you think
that the cinema is like a phallus?"
Orson thought that was hilarious.
I did some stuff like Jerry
and broke myself up.
He said, "Don't laugh!"
He wanteda free train.
All right, come back! Come back!
Sun got in the lens.
Mr. Hannaford!
Mr. Hannaford?
It's a crazy picture.
It's not a work of fiction,
it's a little of everything.
You either hate it or loathe it,
like most people.
It's kind of a departure in moviemaking.
The Other Side of the Wind
is structured around a party
being thrown for the director,
Jake Hannaford.
This gives him a chance to assert
his relevance
amongst the biggest names
of the new Hollywood movement.
Orson began shooting fragments
of this scene,
and would continue to do so
for the next five years.
Chabrol, take one!
During theparty scenes,
Orson wanted to have actual filmmakers...
Thanks.
...on camera.
- But then...
- For Henry and Paul!
Roll five, take one.
He wanted afight of two young directors.
- Don't condescend... Don't patronize me.
- Let mefinish. Well, let me finish.
- If you're really an honest man...
- Can I talkto him?
- Yeah, but ifyou're an honest man...
- May I speak with him or not?
Uh, Dennis Hopper showed up.
Dennis Hopper, filmmaker,
extraordinary leading actor.
He got incredibly stoned...
...and wasdebating Jake Hannaford.
- Jake, everybody knows about you.
- Yeah, I know.
With the lead role
of Jake Hannaford not yet cast,
Welles played the role of the director
off camera.
Do you believe movies are also magic?
Right.
When Elvis Presley was 21,
he came to me and said...
he's gotta do this fight scene.
He says, "I've never hit a woman before.
Gotta hit Debra Paget."
And I said, "But you don't
really hit people in movies."
He says, "I suppose you're gonna saythey
don't really shoot realbullets at people.
I've seenthe wood splinter off the wall."
- He saidthat?
- Yeah.
Yeah, but aren't you
confusing reality with magic?
In otherwords,I believe
people will believe anything in movies.
Reality isalways poor,
weak stuff compared to magic.
Orson was a big believer in magic.
The ideathat maybe...
maybe what you see isn't real.
You may have wondered
why I look so peculiar on the television.
And it's partly, I must confess to you,
the fact thatyou see my nose as it is.
He's really a very handsome man.
He always hides it with different noses.
He doesn't like it,
he thinks it's too weak-looking
or something. I love his nose.
He changes noses? Oh.
In most of the films that I appear in,
I put on a false nose,
usually aslarge as I can find.
He said, "All my life,
I've hidden behind masks."
And he had created a wall
with these masks,
hiding thereal Orson.
The Other Side of the Wind
is entirely masked.
In other words,
the party shot by a documentary crew
is in a style that wouldn't have been
my style as a movie director.
And the movie within a movie
is an impersonation by me
of my director character
trying to make an art movie.
It's not my film.
- It's a film by the character.
- Yes!
You will see the movie within a movie
is not a movie I would ever have made.
There was no plot.
Essentially it was about my character
chasing a girl,
chasing her around or something.
A little game of "catch me if you can."
It was pretty clear
the film that Hannaford's making
is Orson'sattemptto satirize
European atmospheric cinema.
Which waspopular back in the '60s.
And it was very amusing to make,
because I had the freedom, the joy,
to make a film that is not a film
by Orson Welles.
Yes.
Because it's a film made with a mask.
With this film,
Mr. Welles is a professional
who's become an amateur.
And itworked.
Pretty much everything
he was doing was to save money.
Because Orson paid for the shoot himself.
Gary Graver provided him with
a small, proper crew.
Oh, boy!
By the way, Frank Marshall,
producer of Indiana Jones,
- wasn't he part of the crew?
- Yeah.
It was before I understood
what a producer did.
There's a glorious sense
of freedom and innocence
that Welleswas always yearning for.
Because they were making things up
as they went along.
We have an entire crew
who would let him do anything.
The only one who didn't give him any flak
was Oja.
Her name...
is Oja. Oja Kodar.
The star and the co-writer
of the movie within the movie was
a young Croatian artist, Oja Kodar.
She was also Orson's lover.
Orson just loved Oja,
it was the love of his life.
And he considered her
an artistic collaborator.
When we first met...
um...
I was very young...
To me, he looked somehow menacing.
With his cape...
he was a personification
of the wind itself.
But I knew the other side of this wind.
Because Orson was the wind
that was capable of caressing you,
lifting you, making you dance.
Time for a confession.
- Um... he was also married.
- Good night, Oja.
Olga... I call her Olga.
That's her real name, you know?
My father was fascinated
by this double life.
It became intriguing
and it was not boring,
this unbelievable double life.
Why my mother stayed married,
I'll never know.
But... that's her choice.
We'll leave Miss Kodar aside,
for the moment.
Orson had been shooting
this material for years
with his own money, in the hopes
that he could raise moremoney
to finish when people saw
what he wasshooting.
But I don't think he tried to get funding
from the studios at first.
In fact, Orson was sneaking
into abandoned studio backlots
under assumed names
and filmingan elaborate critique
of Hollywood itself.
Was it vengeance?
The Magnificent Ambersons
was the beginning
of what we can call...
the period of betrayal.
My father was betrayed by a lot of people.
Did he bring that on himself? Who knows?
Maybe.
Whilst editing The Magnificent Ambersons,
Orson was practically ordered
by the US government
to go toBrazil to make a documentary.
And so I arranged to film
a voodoo witch doctor.
And I came back to the office
and found that, on my desk,
in a script of the film...
was a long, steel needle.
This was the mark of the voodoo.
While I was in South America,
the studio previewed Ambersons
and said it was too down-beat.
And theystarted cutting it.
The editor used to send him
telegrams saying,
"Come back from Brazil.
They are re-shooting The Ambersons.
We are all under contract.
We can do nothing against that.
You are the only one who can stop that.
Come back."
And hedidn't.
I was fired by the studio.
I never recovered from that attack.
They destroyed Ambersons
and destroyed me.
I didn't get a job as a director
for years afterwards.
He was considered somebody
who didn't care that much
about the commerciality of a project
by many in Hollywood.
Therefore, Orson needed to get financing
from untraditional sources.
And, eventually, it worked.
But, regarding the money,
it's complicated.
When I was there,
it was a Spanishproducer...
- Andrs Gmez.
- Right, Andrs Gmez.
I was not afinancier of the film,
but I did find some money.
We had some money from Gmez,
but we needed more.
So, Orson found French producer
Dominique Antoine.
Yeah, so I had the money at that time
because Ihad made an association
with the brother-in-law of the Shah.
The Shah of Iran.
And he had a dictatorship.
The brother-in-law and I created together
a company
called Les Films de L' Astrophore.
L' Astrophore.
The Iraniancompany that was Paris-based.
So, I said to Orson, "The Other
Side of the Wind,of coursewe do it."
I believe she came
with a satchel full of money.
Orson was like the Cat of Cheshire.
With a smile from one ear
to the other one. And he was purring.
- Money makes miracles.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
You're a bad boy, and you know it.
Confused?
Don't worry about it.
It's not the most important thing.
What is important
is that Orson finally had the money
for his comeback film.
What he didn't have was a leading man.
I remember one time we were in Paris,
and he'd already shot a lot of footage
without the leading character.
Would you play the director?
Who should play it is John Huston.
Huston is the best,
and I'm the second best.
If I can't get Huston,
there's nobody else but me.
Yeah.
And he's sort of pacing
up and down the street, saying,
"But why should I give it to Huston? It's
a great part, I should play it myself."
If I should ever...
get close enough to the pearly gates
to have an argument
with the man who opens them,
I would suggest that the reason
to let me into heaven
is that Ididn't play that wonderful part.
And gave it instead to John Huston.
It's a pieceof unselfishness
which I have regrettedever since.
John Hustonwas
the sexiest old devil I ever met.
I'm trying to live...
live life asbest as I possibly can.
Why'd he want John Huston?
They lovedeach other, they were brothers!
The thing about Orson Welles
and my dad is that they were really
able to live up to their own mythology
and campthat up a little bit.
It is a lot of smoke and mirrors.
You don't know what's real and what's not.
And that'swhat they're playing with.
They'd known each other for so manyyears,
and they were both rapscallions.
John loved Orson Welles.
And he received a call one morning,
and he said, "Oh, my God!"
And I said, "What?" He said, "It's Orson.
He wants meto come to Carefree, Arizona."
Gary called me at about 10:00 at night.
"Mike, can you be in Arizona tomorrow?"
"Orson's putting together
a ten-day shoot."
Would I come down for ten days.
He needed me.
To go to the desert
in the middle of nowhere.
"It's gonna be like summer camp,
I don't know if there's any money.
- Are you interested?"
- And I said, "Yes."
- "Yeah. That sounds like fun."
- Absolutely.
I'm in mycar driving to Arizona.
I suddenlylooked up
and there was the Zabriskie Point house.
It's clearly no coincidence
that the location that Orson chose
to shoot in Arizona
is in fact the house next door
to the houseAntonioni blew up
in Zabriskie Point.
On The Other Side of the Wind,
Orson wanted to push further
than Antonioni.
Orson was the ultimate
independent filmmaker.
I was part of a core crew, not of 80,
but of sixpeople plus Orson.
He wanted to be in a kind of circus.
Full ofyoung people.
I fell right in the vat of cream.
You know,
I fell right in the middle of it.
For me to have the luck
to work with Orson Welles,
oh, it was so exciting,
even when it was difficult.
I mean, the first day of shooting,
he fired the sound man.
Can you please just slow down?
Otherwise I'm going to fall off the car.
Everybody's job was really difficult.
I had built sets, schlep sets,
hung lights.
This young kid, so anxious
to get this thing for Orson
- that he ran through the plate glass.
- Shattered it.
Fortunately, I was going so fast...
He was in the living room
before the pieces of glass
had finished cascading down to thefloor.
- Oh, it's great.
- It wascrazy.
It is insane,
but it's the kind of thing that happens
to people who are working like Orson.
I picked John Huston up at the airport
in Phoenix.
I said, "Mr. Huston,
I'm thrilled you're here."
I said, "We've been waiting for you
for three years to be in this film.
We've been shooting around you."
And Huston looked really alarmed. He said,
"You've been acting in this picture
for three years?"
Write thatdown, somebody.
Cut.
- I fuckedthat up.
- Lets do it once again.
The little campier still, but masculine.
Once again.
The Other Side of the Wind
is not a complete departure for Orson.
And it reflected
the processthat Orson had been going
through in Europe in making his own films.
Welles' exile had meant
that he was exiled from the facilities
of Hollywood.
I have a different style
as a director,
because I know of things I can't ask for.
For example, with Othello,
there's a fight scene
where a punch is thrown,
but then production had to shut down
while Orson went off
to make more moneyas anactor.
And the reaction shot
of the guy getting punched
was shot two years later
and a thousand miles away.
It worked.
Who would've thought that was possible?
Good evening.
Now...
the first thing you're probably asking
yourself is, "What is Orson Welles
doing as thehost of a comedy show?"
I met Orson on Kopykats, a show
we did with a bunchof impersonators.
Starring Rich Little.
I was in the studio doing a routine
called "Famous Celebrity Sneezing."
I said, "Orson Welles, sneezing."
I did not know that he'd just come
into the studio. I went...
"Aah-aah-choo."
And he put his arm on my shoulder
and said...
"I never sneeze."
We clicked.
Well, gee, Orson, I don't know how
this show could afford you.
He phoned me at home, and told me
about this movie, Other Side of the Wind,
and would I be interested in playing
a wide-eyed, young director.
I said, "Well, great.
Just on one condition. That I have
to shoot my scenes in about three weeks."
He said,"Oh, no, no.
I'll probably need you for about a week."
When I was introduced to John Huston,
Orson went up to him and said,
"John, thisis Rich Little.
He's one of the world's
greatest impressionists."
And John Huston said:
"Oh, well,
then we're gonna get along fine,
because I'm into art, you know."
"No, no, not that kind of impressionist.
He does voices."
"Why would he do that?
Why couldn't they get the real people?"
Orson populated the film with characters
based on the icons of the film community.
Like screenwriter John Milius.
Film critic Pauline Kael.
I just want to know what he represents.
And the head of
Paramount Pictures, Robert Evans.
I started tofigure out that Rich Little's
supposed to be Peter.
The character was a young,
successful director who did imitations.
And that'swhat Peter did.
I'm PeterBogdanovich.
What's the word I say? Oh, action!
And so then I started to think, "Well,
is John Huston supposed to be Orson?"
I rememberthinking, Oh, my gosh,
this is starting to get really weird.
I can remember one time we shot a scene...
Brooksie.
- Right hereby your side, skipper.
- You knowwhat I'd like for my birthday?
Cut.
John couldn't drive.
And he nevertold us this.
- My camera's gone out.
- Oh, Jesus!
- Certainly, it was a stick-shift.
- Give me themagazine, quick!
And I was kinda worried,
'cause I had to return the car.
- It's stopped.
- The magazinejammed.
The carstopped, too.
Let's put it in drive. In "D."
It looked like we were gonna go
right into the lake.
John said to me,
"Oh, Rich, you'll get good billing."
'Orson Welles, John Huston,
and Rich Little,
all drowned'."
This is a picture about the love of death.
You came to my party after all.
Get in. I'll drive you.
This is Jake Hannaford's
70th birthday party.
He died at the end of it.
And there was some question as to
whether it was an accident or suicide.
So, what you're seeing
is a reconstruction of the...
- Roll tape!
- 40, David, take six.
...made up of all this
different footage, all put together.
- Mr. Hannaford.
- Happy birthday, Jake!
The whole documentary, the kind
that we're all so accustomed to today,
he wasinventing.
Happy birthday!
And for that, Gary was probably
an ideal cameraman,
because Garywas very fast.
Gary Graver was the key person
on the film.
He was the closest person to Orson.
Gary was really like the son
Orson didn't have.
Orson and Gary, father-son...
No. Not so much.
- Orson isn'tvery paternal.
- Action.
Go back! Go back, back up,
back up. Quickly!
- Up! Up! Up!
- Bossy, yes.
Paternal, no.
Slower! Stop!
Move slowly!
My father Gary's enthusiasm
for filmmaking
was something I don't think
I've ever seen equaled.
Every moment that my dad
was not actively engaged in shooting,
he looked atthat as time lost.
Gary and I, we got married when I was 21.
And if he was scheduled
to be home at 10:00,
and it went until 4:00 in the morning,
oh, well, he stayed.
Action!
Gary did as he was told.
Orson put the camera where he wanted to,
and Gary was, you know, just his slave.
Orson would have the camera to
his eye and he'd say, "Come here, Gary."
And then he'd move his head to the side,
and he said, "This is it, see it?"
And I had tomake it exactly right.
When I look back on it,
it's so complicated.
You wanted to please him,
because you knew he was such an artist.
I mean,anything was possible with Orson.
Everything had to happen right away,
even when we didn't quite understand
what we were doing.
There was no script.
He wasconstantly writing it
as he was going along.
And fiddy-owney-owney-own!
Sometimes Ihad trouble
understanding some of the lines.
What?
I rememberone line was
the great "anonymous gang-shag."
"And the cool, dim, anonymous gang-shag."
And I didn't know
what that meant actually.
Would somebody please tell me
why I'm going to a stupid party
with all these stupid dummies?
I had no idea
what all these dummies were.
There were dummies out by the pool.
They were there 'cause Orson said,
"Let's put these dummies out there."
But it was like, "Well, why?"
Didn't make any sense to me.
But Orson knew exactly what he wanted.
Every part of it was here.
To Baker,one.
We weredoing a scene and Orson said...
Now a midget goes from behind you...
All of you feel
midgets touching your feet.
"Midgets running between your legs."
- All right.
- Keep acting?
Its whatyou do to make this work, right?
Orson said, "Everybody look up!
Midgets on the roof!"
I said, "Orson, what the heck
is this midgets bit?"
And he said, "We're going to put
the midgets in later, in Spain."
And then walked away.
The rule of thumb was
Orson knows what he's doing,
don't question anything. Just do it.
I'm not sure he knew where this movie
was going, and, um...
I'm not sure anybody did, actually.
It's quite clear that Rich wasn't
comfortable with Orson's process.
Wasn't a team player.
Realistically, I suppose
he was counting down the days
until he knew he had to leave.
My three weeks was up, and I had to leave,
because I had club engagements
that I can't get out of.
And if I don't show up I'm gonna be sued.
And I thought to myself, "Oh, my gosh,
I'm not gonna be able
to finish this part."
Well, here's what I remember happened.
It was thelast night.
The film was practically finished.
We were supposed to shoot
this big scene.
We went toget him, Saturday morning,
he was gone.
We were allthere waiting for him,
and he never showed up.
As I recall, he wanted to go
to New Orleans for something.
He had anengagement in Las Vegas.
Allegedly, Orson's secretary
had been having a relationship
with Rich Little.
He missed his wife
and he was tired of working.
Orson said, "No! You're on a contracthere
for the next..." And he left and went.
You don't dothat to Orson.
He felt betrayed.
I could've come back later
and finished the scenes.
We neverdiscussed that, and I...
That always puzzled me.
I thought, "They're gonna have to do
all those scenes over again.
Oh, my gosh! I can't imagine."
It was crazy.
I have replaced actors
on the second week of shooting.
But after seven weeks...
it's impossible.
I called him, I said, "How's it going?"
"Terrible.
I just blew 25 Gs
and I don't have that kind of bread.
I had to pay off Rich Little."
- "Why?"
- "He can't act!"
"Oh, gee, I'm sorry to hear that.
What are you gonna do?"
"I don't know what I'm gonna do.
I just can't use any of his stuff."
He is a rough magician, isn't he?
So I said, "That's terrible,
Orson. Why don't I play it?"
He is a rough magician, isn't he?
And then he said,
"Well, you're playing that other part."
I said, "You can just cut me out of that."
All right, men! Let's get organized.
Now where shall we start?
John Huston goes, "Peter, how many
movies have you actually acted in now?"
"Well, this is my second, Mr. Huston."
"Two? Makes it easy to count!"
Scene threeX, take one.
Ah, red light.
- No, we...
- Mr. Hannaford.
Oh, shit, I'm sorry. I'll do that again.
- Start again?
- Yeah, do it better.
- You mustdeal with every situation.
- Okay.
Why snap your finger? We're not cutting.
Uh-uh.
Orson said, "Play it like it's us."
In case you haven't noticed,
Peter Bogdanovich went from playing
exactly who he was in 1970,
a young writer,
a celebrated movie director.
My book onHannaford's been canceled.
Indefinitely.
Yeah, the first five chapters took
the two of us three and a half years.
Finally, Ijust had to start
directing myself so I could eat.
- Ha! Good. Now right away...
- Do another one. Right.
- Action?
- Action.
I had tostart directing myself
so I could eat!
- Cut! Verygood.
- That wasgood.
At that time,Orson had
more influence on me than anybody.
There's a number of myths
about you already,
even though you're young. Likethe fact
that you had a goal set for yourself
that youwould make a movie
at the same age Orson Welles did.
Oh, I wanted... I thought I'd be a failure
if I didn't make a movie
at least by the time I was 25,
which is when Orson made
Citizen Kane, and I was a disaster
'cause I didn't make one until I was 27.
My filmsaren't like
his films, but he inspired me.
Their relationship started
as mentor/mentee.
But Peter was at the top
of an arc of a meteoric rise.
You're as successful as you are
and you have a gorgeous lady,
as you do have.
Cybill, uh...
Yes, let's not discuss what...
Yes, go ahead.
You have her, you have four pictures
in a row that make 30 million dollars.
A guy has to learn to hate you.
Bogdanovich had outpaced his mentor.
Orson realized, "He has money, I don't.
I'm OrsonWelles, he's not.
- What's wrong?
- The future.
What's the matter with it?
We cannot all be masters.
Nor all masterscannot be truly followed.
I remember,
we were sitting at lunch one day,
and on top of the refrigerator was this
industrial size bag of Fritos.
Orson tore the top of it off,poured most
of the contents onto the kitchen table,
sat down, took a big bunch of Fritos,
put it in his mouth.
So, of course, I did the same thing.
Absolutely out of the blue,
Orson just turned to me and said,
"If anything happens to me, I wantyou
to promise me you'll finish the picture."
I said, "Oh Jesus,Orson,
why do you say a thing like that?
Nothings gonnahappen to you.
Why do you say..."
"I know, nothing's gonna happen."
Hey, why pick on me?
I mean, theman is infested
with disciples. I'm the apostle, lady.
The film deals with the betrayal
of friendship.
Movies and friendship.
Those are mysteries.
He tested people with that.
Betrayal canonly come
if there's an initial love present.
- You two arevery close, aren't you?
- Yes, I'dlike to ask you about that.
Orson created an environment where
others would get sucked into it.
It was all within Orson's control.
And he wascreating an inevitability.
She's gonnasay I stole everything
from you, skipper,
I'm never gonna walk away fromthat.
Well, it's all right to borrow
from each other.
What we must never do
is borrow fromourselves.
We winked and nodded at each other,
which was like,
my God, this is going to happen.
This inevitability is going to occur.
'Course you're close, you two.
You have to be.
You have no choice.
Orson had gone to
the looking glass and passed beyond it.
The story was now being re-written
in real time.
There was ascene in which Hannaford
comes into the party
with a blond teenager on his arm.
She was pretty young.
What was her name, Mavis Henshaw?
- What's yourname, sweetie?
- Mavis Henscher.
Actually, she was this little
waitress we found at a breakfast place.
Want me tobring you another scotch?
And we just went... That's Mavis.
She didn't know who Orson Welles was.
She didn't know who John Huston was.
And there were times
when their combined energies
could barelyget a performance out of her.
- Ready?
- Thank you. Action.
Action!
Oh, Ithought he was gonna say
his part first.
- You say it.
- All right.
Say it.
Gee, I don'tknow,
I have school tomo... No, wait.
Absolutely dreadful actress.
But why would Orson
wanna do that to himself?
She's kind of a Cybill Shepherd take-off.
Was she?
Oh, okay.
Clearly Orson was giving Peter
a hard time about hisrelationship
with Cybill Shepherd
after Last Picture Show.
Cybill was19, I think,
when Peter discovered her.
With Orson, you never quite know
what is gonna happen.
Peter said, "Orson's making fun of me
and thingsI've said to Cybill."
- Tomorrow's Sunday, Mavis.
- Pardon?
You'll beflying down with us to Mexico.
Gee, I don'tknow,
I have school on Monday.
I'll, uh, write a note to your teacher.
That's it.
I was supposedly, like, his girlfriend
and I was really young,
and he was very old.
He's like, "Mavis! Mavis! Come here!"
It was... It was very strange.
Mother seemsto think a little young blood
would be good for us.
- You could beright at that.
- Well, she's always right.
Excuse me, fellas,
I think we have a confrontation.
- Once again. John?
- Yeah.
You took a look back at the girl
after "She's always right."
Excuse me, fellas,
I think we have ourselves a confrontation.
In this story, Hannaford takes away
this blond girl fromPeter's character
whos kind of a crude, sexual power play.
We like yourlittle friend.
"We like your little friend."
She's mine.
- Cut.
- Again.
Again.
He thrivedon friction.
So, the oldman can still score.
How he scores and who he scores with,
now that, my friend, gets us
into some very interesting country.
I think Orson was fascinated
by this macho thing.
It's part of where the concept
of The Other Side of the Wind
was even born.
The whole mystique of the, uh...
the he-man.
This picture we're gonna make
is against he-men.
The initial conception
of The Other Side of the Wind,
that it was gonna be
a little bit of a satire ofan obsessively
masculine character, like Hemingway.
So, it's no coincidence this film
takes place July 2nd,
the date of Hemingway's death.
Hemingway?
That, uh,left hook of his was overrated.
And the character displayed certain
tendencies of, perhaps,
latent homosexuality.
He wants to fuck him. He wants to fuck
his leading man. Don't you see that?
Don't you see that there in his movies?
And he can't acknowledge that.
Orson was very comfortable
with himself and his feminine side.
But he could fall
right into a guy-guy role.
I think Orson was always kind
of interested in that duality in men.
You've had so much written about you,
and you were so far ahead of your time
in achievement.
Has your success made you less willing
to challenge than you were in those times?
Oh, I think not at all.
I think I'm much more of a...
of a renegade than I was then.
- In what way?
- Oh, in about every way.
The best scene I've seen
in The Other Side of the Wind
is the sex scene in the car,
from the film within the film...
which is seven minutes long
in the version Welles edited.
Yes, it's long, long.
Everybody talks about the sexy car scene.
I remember ithaving
quite an impression on me.
I remember being in my mid-teens,
and having the screening of this footage.
The footage of Oja was remarkably erotic.
Of her in a car
uh, with a hose being poured over the car,
creating all these droplets and the...
the windshield wipers going.
The car never moved,
and they had a couple of guys with hoses.
Hundreds of feet of garden hoses.
We robbed water from all of his neighbors.
I did all the little things on set.
And Orson yelled down to me, "Hey kid,
pick up that hose and make rain."
What?
One of our paraplegic friends
was pushed down the road,
holding twolights in his hands,
impersonating car in a motion.
The movie inside the movie,
it's aboutlove, about sex, aboutdesire.
It's incredibly hot.
And it's unlike anything he'd ever done.
His earlier films were rather prudish
in theirtreatment of sexuality.
He was, he called himself prudish.
And he didn't think filmsneeded nudity.
Come, Desdemona.
I have but an hour of love
to spend with thee.
Orson felt that explicit sexuality
was distracting from the art
in the narrative.
He said, "It just shows
a lack of imagination."
He nevertalked about sex.
That's why Oja such a shock.
I think the things I contributed
to his creativity was the eroticism.
I introducedthe sex.
I ask Orson,
"How do you want me to do this?"
"Well," he said, "any way
you feel like it. It'syour story."
So, I thought what kind of female
I should be.
So, Idecided to be a praying mantis.
Wow, myword!
She sat on his lap and made love to him
while hercharacter's boyfriend
was driving the car.
Her chain beating against her breasts.
He ask Oja, Give animal look.
I still remember the fantastic color,
the rhythm, the pulsing rhythm. Its like
a cinematic equivalent of an orgasm.
But he shot that over,
like, a three-year period.
He shot part of it in his driveway
in Los Angeles, and then
he shot moreof it
in his backyard in France.
At one moment,
it's Gary Graver with false hair,
playing the young guy.
The film isan exploration
of Orson's desire.
The writer Peter Bartel
described The Other Side of the Wind as
"a desperateventure
shared by desperate men."
As production lagged on,
the financiers and the crew
became restless.
Gary wouldbe pleading with Orson,
"I gotta eat."
Once in awhile, Gary would
actually have to work to make money.
Gary wouldtake other jobs in B movies,
just so that he could afford
to work for Orson.
He's the only guy I know who
worked with Orson Welles and Ed Wood.
Gary shot this film,One Million AC/DC.
It was theworld's first
bisexual dinosaur movie.
What's that?
Don't worry,it can't eat us in here.
Its not what Gary wanted to have
as his trademark in his career.
The Other Side of the Wind was the film.
This was gonna be his claim to fame.
This is the one that would
take him tonew heights.
Orson said, "Gary, if you get a job
on another movie, you come to me.
If I need you, you can't do it."
Ultimately, I think he found the
easiest path towards making all this work
was to doadult films.
Gary did alot of porn.
Hundred or so films that he never
wanted to have his name associated with,
he workedunder an assumed name.
Akdov Telmig.
That's "vodka gimlet" spelled backwards.
He was shooting these
semi-porn movies
and he asked me if I wanted to be a part
of this one called 3 A.M.
I think thatwas...
it had pornographic elements to it.
And Orson knew thatthis was important
to Gary,to get this movie done,
so he wanted to help him.
He came over and he was at Gary's house,
and they cut it together.
And Orson ended up
cutting the shower scene, yeah.
Yeah.
Excuse me.
- Oh!
- Yeah, it'stotally true.
Orson was very decisive. He was very like,
"Okay, we need to cut here, we gothere."
There was no pharumphing around.
It was like,"I need to get this
off the docket,
so I can get Gary back to workagain."
Gary's work never ended.
He got worndown on it, for sure.
I think there were two occasions
that he was hospitalized for exhaustion.
He justphysically was collapsing.
Now, Gary. Gary?
- You all right, Gary?
- You feel all right?
Yeah, I'm all right.
I think hemight have thrown
the towel in with any other director.
And he would try. He would tell Orson,
"I can't." But somehow,
Orson would always find a way
to get him to change his mind.
The costs were tremendous.
You don't gothrough
multiple divorces unscathed.
Orson would push you
to the point where you said,
"Fuck you, fat man,
and take that legend
and shove it where the sun don't shine."
And just at that moment,
where he could feel
that he had gone too far,
he would wrap his arm around you
and basically say,
"Have I told you whata great job
you've been doing for me lately?"
There's no doubt about it that he
seemed to be doing everything he could
to alienate as many people as possible.
But why? What is all that about?
It's strange.
I fear dying
before I have accomplished something
that I'm...
not ashamed of,that I'm even
a little proud of. I'm afraid...
that I will be taken away
before I have justified
the luck and joy that I've had.
Relax totally.
Relax your face, sad, empty.
Empty. Nowsay, "Many happy returns,"
so I hardly hear you.
Many happyreturns.
You pronounced it too carefully.
Many happyreturns.
There is a...
inconclusiveness, or a lack of definition
that is basic to this effort of Orson's.
You know, was it some sort
of endless odyssey?
We'll never know.
Orson knew what he wanted. Heknew.
- Take 21.
- Action.
What happened to the lights?
But, unless you have a brain
that works like that,
how doesanyone else know?
It was this circus of scattered souls.
We were totally out of reality.
What was happening on the set
was so much like what was happening
in the movie.
It was like, "Wait a minute.
That's Orson.
Is it? Orson, is that you?"
"No, that's John Huston. It's not me."
John didn't know what Orson was doing.
He said,"I just can't figure out
what the hell he's putting together."
Come forwardwith your matches,
looking, everybody, quickly.
But it's Orson, it'll be something.
Test one, take one!
Keep moving here.
One night in particular,
I waslisteningto John and Orson,
and John was saying, What the hell
is this movie about, Orson?"
And Orson said,
"It's about a miserable prick.
This is his swan song.
It's about us."
My father felt that film was
a sort of slightly vulgar art-form.
He made one for themand one for himself,
and was able to play the system,
more like a poker player.
Orson couldn't have been
more different, yeah.
My father was such a perfectionist,
and movies were his canvas.
Every shot of my father's movies
are a painting.
And Orson's linewas that Huston
was willing to sell out.
I kept waiting for my big scene
with John Huston,
the one time he was supposed
to really interact with me.
One day, we were shooting and I said,
"Where's John?"
He hadn't been around for a while,
and one of the crew said, "He's off
making some little film somewhere."
It was a huge success.
Masterpiece, they called it.
It was wonderful for my father.
A Kipling story
in the Atlas Mountains was heaven,
heaven on earth.
But to think that, at that moment,
the industryis not paying the same amount
of respect to Welles is sad.
He once turned to me and he said,
"Citizen Kane is the greatest curse
of my life.
Every time I do anything,
people start comparing this to where
it stands vis--vis
what they call
the greatest American movie.
This is my curse."
No other director has ever been held up
to such an impossible standard.
What The Other Side of the Wind is about
is, in a sense, a bookend
to Citizen Kane,
about the tragic end of...
somebody who had become great...
and then hadlost his place in America.
Well, you know,
Orson said...
"No story has a happy ending,
unless youstop telling it
before it's over with."
The tragedy of
The Other Side of the Wind
started withAndrs Vicente Gmez.
He was ourSpanish co-producer.
I'm not sure how much I can say
about this without getting into...
um... muddy legalwaters.
Yeah, I was there and I really,
to this day, don't know...
Whoa... Oh, wait a minute. I do know.
Oh, this story I can't tell.
Andrs Gmez had supposedly put up
a couple of hundred thousand dollars
towards production costs
on The Other Side of the Wind,
and was on the set. He left,
and we were told that
he was going to pick up
the next trancheof investment,
something in the order
of a quarter of a million dollars.
We were running out of cash
and we kept, "Where's Andrs?
Where's Andrs? When is he comingback?"
Well, he never did come back.
I've heard that he vanished with some
money, but I don't know if that's true.
I don't know... He may have vanished
with his own money.
The problem is everybody
got their information from Orson.
Nobody has direct evidence
of how the money disappeared.
I read that he blamed me
'cause of the finance fiasco,
which is totally untrue.
I made a settlement with him.
There was no complaint,
there was no anything.
If it wastrue, why didn't they make
any claim to me, you know?
It created chaos. I mean,
suddenly we're not filming.
And thenwe're even blaming each other.
You canimagine what happens to morale.
And then we're just all sorta,
"What's Orson gonna do?"
Mark it.
Go!
Orson certainly was having trouble
getting the film finished,
and when the production
had to move to Los Angeles
and needed interiors that could work
to double the Arizona house,
Peter hadOrson move into his house
in Beverly Hills to shoot there.
What happened is, I think Orson
sort of took advantage of that.
Peter told Orson
he could stay at his house
for maybetwo, three weeks a month.
Right on!
Well, he stayed on and off
for three years.
Right on!
Peter and Cybill Shepherd
were living in the east wing.
It was a very large house.
And he ate a lot.
Ah, the French champagne...
has alwaysbeen celebrated
for its excellence.
Fudgsicles!
He had to have them all the time.
He got very angry
if there were no Fudgsicles.
And I had strict orders
never to disturb him.
And then I smell smoke one day.
He was in the downstairs guest room.
And I followed it down
up to the door and tap-tap-tap,
"Orson, is everything okay?"
"Yes, it's taken care of."
He'd put a lit cigar in his robe pocket.
He was miserable.
He was never as fat as he was then.
And it was because of the movie.
Over time,
Peter gave more to Orson
than he ever imagined
he was going to give.
Don't give up the ship, eh, Brooksie?
I'm not.
It's really embarrassing
because he's broke.
Don't think I'm not ready to...
Don't think I'm not ready
to put up a fight for you.
I think, for a long time,
you could sort of justify,
"Well, Orson needs me.
I'm helpinghim, maybe something good
will come out of it."
It's you I'm thinking of.
- God, I don't...
- Don't touch anything.
"It's you I'm thinking of."
Right into the door, that one.
It's you I'm thinking of.
At a certain point, it was like,
it should be time for Orson to...
to go, but Orson's not going,
and how do I sorta...
try to tellhim to do that?
We who somehow glow
a little in his light...
the fireflies,
he doesquite often swallow whole.
It's a factthat some of us,
he chews on rather slowly.
Cut.
Orson commandeeredPeter's screening room
and turned it into his editing suite.
There he worked all hours,
piecing together
The Wind.
This is a Moviola.
It's amachine for editing film.
Orson decided
on a completely new approach.
Orson cut it.
He cut it, every take, ina lot of parts
- and he reconstructit.
- Action!
Curtain.
- Curtain.
- A film is...
never right
until it's right musically.
- I ended up working as an editor.
- Cut!
I spent six months on what I call
the bathroom orgy scene.
There were 500 edits.
And I spent six months with him editing
two frames here, five frames here, six...
He kept editing it a little bit more
and a little bit more.
His whole concept
of The Other Side of the Wind
was evolving, that's what he said.I said,
"Well, how can it be evolving now?"
He said, "It's all in the editing."
I've never forgotten.
"It's all in the editing."
The jigsaw pieces were separated by
breaks in time.
Jesus, withall your troubles,
what's one lousy leading man?
There was noway for the picture
to beput together, except in my mind.
Jesus, what's one lousy leading man?
Cut!
It was funny, 'cause,
after all that,
Orson still wanted Hollywood
to embrace him.
And I thinkhe thought that the AFI
uh, Life Achievement Award
was going to be that moment.
The AmericanFilm Institute
presents a salute to Orson Welles.
I was the Founding Director
of the AFI.
I started the Life Achievement Awards.
To salute an outstanding individual
for hislifetime contributions
to the art of motion pictures.
We concluded that Orson
should be the next recipient,
but The Other Side of the Wind intruded.
Peter was mymedium.
Stevens called me.
Peter said, "Orson would like
to show something
from his new film,
The Other Side of the Wind."
I said, "Fine."
It was a bigdeal,because we were trying
to sell the movie then.
He wastrying to sell the film.
He thought he was going to get
the moneyto finish it.
Which was not unreasonable,
but it would grow ever more complicated
as we gotnearer to the time.
Nobody exceeded Orson in charm
when heturned it on and he came to play.
This was all of Hollywood there.
What a better forum to present
the movie at? I mean...
Now, how about a look
at the future of our gifted friend?
The Other Side of the Wind.
It's about a celebration in honor
of a famous movie director
who is not Orson.
And all of the movie freaks and filmmakers
in the world are in at this bash
that I'm talking about,
including a brilliant young director
who, by another coincidence,
is not Peter Bogdanovich,
but isplayed by Peter Bogdanovich.
Orson thought the AFI was
that moment where everyone was going to
give him hisjust desserts.
This picture is beautiful.
And so are you, dear Orson.
This honor I can only accept
in the name of all the mavericks.
And don't imagine that this
raggle taggle gypsyo
is claiming to be free.
It's just that some of the necessities
to which I am a slave
are different from yours.
He was not sucking up to the audience.
He was basically saying,
"Fuck you," to the audience,
"Why haven't you acknowledged
my genius today?"
Let us raise our cups then,
standing as some of us do
on opposite ends of the river,
and drink together
to what really matters to us all.
To our crazy and beloved profession.
To the movies, to good movies.
To everypossible kind.
Orson makes a great speech.
And then he worked in
a clip of his new film.
The scene...
that you're going to see
takes place in a projection room.
Waiting there is the big studio boss.
The stooge is trying to sell
the unfinished movie that Jake is making,
for which heneeds end money.
I just think it was sad.
He waspractically begging for money.
- What happenshere?
- I'm not really sure, Max.
- You... You better ask Jake.
- I'd better read the script.
There isn't one.
Jake, hes justmaking it up
as he goes along.
He's done itbefore.
Nobody gavehim a dime.
He thought he was going to attract
somebody who would open up the vault
and say, "Whatever you need."
And hedidn't get it.
All right, go home!Whogives a shit?
You stiffs can put all this stuff
together. We'll have our own movie.
A real movie!
A real movie!
Maybe shejust don't love us
like she used to.
Maybe.
Orson said to me once that,
"Los Angeles is the only city where
every road leads to the airport.
If you'rehere, Hollywood can't wait
to get you out of here."
The cloudsaround our film
were gathering from all directions.
The newHollywood ended around '75.
Star Wars and Jaws were blockbusters,
not personal films,
and changedthe atmosphere.
I did have the chance,
right after the tribute,
of reviving my career in America.
But it wasdestroyed by the Iranians.
Iran's Islamic revolution.
Many foreign-owned businesses
and their assets confiscated
without payment.
Financing got into deep trouble.
The Iraniancompany,
they simply shut off the spigot.
You see, the Shah himself
was thebrother-in-law of our producer.
When he was overthrown by the Ayatollah...
...the film wasconfiscated by somebody...
Well, here it is...
if anybody wants to see it.
...and sent to a vault in Paris.
The Iraniansattempted to move it
out of Paris only two months ago.
Orson sued to finish his film.
Then, you know, he got fucked.
The Frenchcourt locked
The Other Sideof the Wind in a vault.
Orson couldn't have access to the film.
When you hear the cry,
"Death to the Shah,"
it doesn't come entirely
from the Iranian people.
Now, pretty much everything was shot
by this time.
And Orsonwas heartbroken.
I didn't wanna...
don't wanna be introduced,
because I don't want this to seem
like a formal occasion.
That stops right now.
Stops right now. Back.
About ten feet,
you get a much better shot.Zoom.
Sir, my question is a little bit personal.
What are the greatest events of your life
in relationto your work as a film star?
The greatest moment is always
when you know the money's in the bank.
The point is, you have fallen in love
with an impossible medium,
because it's so hard to get the money
for your pictures.
It's so hard to get the distribution.
I believe we should work
in the constant recognition
of the fact that we are lucky
to be working,
and that our luck is too great
to confuse it
with ultimate justice.
Particularly,
since any intelligent person knows
that there is no justice in the world.
Of any kind.
My God, it's vodka.
This...
That's all. Don't go on
shooting me laughing and saying nothing.
Come on, Idon't want...
I don't want footage of myself...
Sometimes I try to imagine Orson
having different bedrooms
in different hotels.
And the door to this room is locked.
And under the bed
are hidden boxes and boxes of film.
Who knows?
A number of the things
you've done, films you've made,
have gone on for a verylong time.
You've come back to them, picked them up.
Yeah, there are only two
main projects which are unfinished.
Don Quixote.
And the other one,which has been
much longer is The OtherSide of the Wind.
I don't know how many other pictures
Orson's got somewhere
that werenever finished. A few, a few.
The Deep was finished.
He just needed to loop the actors.
But he never did.
The Merchant of Venice.
If you are listening to Orson,
the soundwas stolen, that's the reason
why he didn't finish the picture.
The Dreamers.
The Dreamers was a major project that
would've been a really beautiful film.
Do you like to finish
a picture and be done with it?
Are youhappy when it's all done and cut?
No.
No, because you always hope
you can make it better.
I hate every kind of goodbye.
And everytime those lights go out,
it's a little death and a little goodbye.
I have a feeling,
for which I have no evidence,
that henever wanted to finish
The Other Side of the Wind.
I always thought that we would
never finish the film until he died.
Because...
he felt that if we finished the film
he would die.
On the other hand...
This question:
Orson did not like to finish his films.
There is really no logic in it,
because not to finish his films
would have been suicidal,
and Orson loved life.
And life for him
mainly consisted of making the movies.
It implied that he would act
in other director's movies
in order to finance and to direct his own.
Then just before the end,
he would throw away
all this money and effort,
which he invested into his film,
for thesheer pleasure
of not finishing it.
The myth of him not wanting
to complete his films
is complete and total nonsense.
Such bullshit.
He wanted to finish them correctly.
I mean, look at the movies
that were finished.
Hello!
One can only imagine
what the pain and suffering
he endured through the years
when he did finish.
Kane. Othello. Macbeth.
Stranger. Mr. Arkadin. And The Trial.
Touch of Evil. Ladyfrom Shanghai.
Immortal Story.
Chimes atMidnight. F for Fake.
And, of course,
he did everything to continue
with The Other Side of the Wind.
I used to see him at Ma Maison,
a Frenchrestaurant in Los Angeles.
He would eat there seven days a week.
He'd go to Ma Maison for lunch.
He had his own table,
and therewas mostly business involved.
I mean, like Burt Reynolds.
Jack Nicholson.
Henry Jaglom was a regular.
- I'll finishthis.
- Yes.
Chewing theburger.
He wasn'tthe ogre
everybody thought he was, at all.
This weird notion
that Orson was sitting around Ma Maison
doing fuck all
is insulting.
Miss Tracy. Prepare the standard
rich and famous contract
for Kermitthe Frog and company.
We'd had all these lunches
and we talked about everything.
And he was focusing on getting
the filmback so he could finish
The Other Side of the Wind.
We created a company called Weljag.
And we lied and we claimed to have
several million dollars
to pay the Shah of Iran's brother
the million and a half he was asking for.
And that would free the film.
He was outrageous.
He was willing to completely lie,
because he didn't have any respect
for the stupid process
that had held his film back.
So, we wentand we testified.
The great part of the film
was madebefore there was a partnership
with the Iranians.
We were appealing
on the basis of the CodeNapolon,
that says the artist owns the film.
It's close to being finished,
but the failure of the Iranians
to pay the money they were supposed to
delayed us for years,
and severalactors died.
That's what his whole focus was,
finishing The Other Side of the Wind.
And then the French judiciary announced
the producer owns the film.
Not Orson.
So, he'sback to stage one.
You have to protect yourself.
There are subjects we don't think about.
You know, it's like avoiding the mirror.
I don't muchlike to look
in any form of mirror.
In Orson's life,
there's a sense of the essential
untrustworthiness of people.
It's a world view,
and that reallydoes run
pretty well through everything.
After that, I knew I couldn't trust him.
He was mad.
Betrayal was key to all of Orson's work.
They're mostly about
two guys who love each other,
and one betrays the other.
Gosh, this is difficult territory,
but it must have stemmed
from something in his life.
Actually, it starts as early as you like.
There are a number of betrayals
in Welles' childhood...
I don't like a pair of eyes...
...that were absolutely fundamental
to him, formative to him.
...staring at me.
His childhood was a mess.
With no look in them.
His mother died, died on his birthday.
And then his father was a drunk.
He told hisfather that he didn't
wanna see him unless he was sober.
His fatherdied.
Suicide, take one.
Welles was convinced
his father committed suicide.
"Would-be suicide?"
Drank himself to death in a hotel
room in Chicago when Welles was 15.
- Announce it again.
- Suicide, take two.
This was the greatest
source of guilt in his life.
And he said, "I don't think
you can get over your guilt."
He said,
"You have to live with your guilt."
This treason...
is a theme that you use in other films.
Either people betray their best friends,
or they betray their values
in which they believe.
- Yes.
- Uh...
Which is worse, do you think?
I suppose it's to betray
the values in which you believe.
There we are!
Now we found the difference between us.
To me, the worst thing
is to betray a friend.
We were very close for a while.
And I lovedhim, and I think he loved me.
I like him. I like him very much.
I consider him a true friend.
And I ask you to welcome him.
Burt Reynolds.
But Bert Reynolds and Orson,
they said acouple of not very nice things
about me, on television.
We have a mutual friend,
of course,Peter Bogdanovich.
That's right. As a matter of fact,
you have me to thank for the fact
that you were asked to be
in the picture which was probably
the least successful of any in your past.
My feeling was that the picture
needed you.
Yeah.
No, it needed a lot more.
That's right.
I had the distinction
of getting him on this show
and having him host the show.
- How did you get him off?
- Well, that was the thing.
This is the one that hurts.
This is a scene
we both hoped we'd never get to.
Hey.
Remember when you first appeared
on that location of mine?
Yeah, I didn't even have
fare back home. Just that...
secondhand tape recorder.
A raggedy-ass kid.
So, I wrote him a note in which I said,
"I tuned in last night to see
what you think about me
and I guess I found out."
And he sentme back a envelope...
The envelope.
...with two letters in it.
One said he was absolutely horrified
and that he felt he'd betrayed
our friendship.
And the other letter said I deserved it.
He said, "Take your pick."
What'd I dowrong, Daddy?
You can kissmy sweet ass.
Last Picture Show, Paper Moon.
Some of those early films.
They said, "Bogdanovich is
the best we've got. He's on his way."
They don't say that anymore.
What happened?
Peter, due to personal situations,
ended up on the rocks in a number of ways.
But Orson was way beyond
being on the rocks.
Orson wasthe rocks
and the waves and the wind.
Cut.
Many years later,
we started talking
on the phone again a bit.
But it wasn't the same.
And I said to him,
"I feel like I made so many mistakes."
And he said,
"Well...
it does seem to be impossible
to go through life
without making a great many of them."
He diedwithin a week later.
Our next speaker has been Orson's friend
and cameraman for about 15 years,
and a friend, very good friend. Underline.
He worked onThe Other Side of the Wind
and F for Fake...
At the memorial, Gary broke down.
That was abig piece of his life gone,
you know?
He had morecontact with Orson
than he did with his children.
The thing that's sad to me really is that
I wanna talk to Orson.
I wish I could talk to him
and tell him a lot of things
right now. That's...
that's what probably
makes me feel saddest of all.
It just broke your heart.
He said stuff like,
"I don't know what to do tomorrow."
You know?
And, uh...
He said, "I wake up every morning,
what I do is
I call Orson and he tells me
what I'm supposed to do today.
And I don'tknow what to do tomorrow."
Gary ended up with Orson's ashes
in the trunk of his car
for a year and a half,
waiting for... where are we gonna
bury him, you know?
I'm sorry for all the...
great things that Orson did
that were never shown.
And that's why I keep after you, Gary.
I keephoping The Other Side of the Wind
will be released.
This... This is what we started
The Other Side of the Wind with.
Arriflex.
And thenOrson could look there.
There was a work print
amidst Gary's belongings.
And he did try to cut the movie
before he died.
But...
without Orson, it didn't track.
Gary wouldhave the story perfect in
his head, he just couldn't get it on film.
But without any doubt,
I believe that my father would've
- immediately answered "yes."
- Yes.
That he would do it all over again.
A lot of people wanna see
The Other Side of the Wind get made.
It is the greatest movie
never released, you know.
What did Orson really mean by it?
What is its... its true form?
It's aneternal quest.
I shot Someone to Love,
which is Orson's last movie as an actor,
before he died.
And he turnsto me and he says...
"We come into the world alone,
we die alone, we live alone.
Love and friendship is the nearest thing
that we can find
to create the illusion
that we arenot totally alone."
So, I'm working on that, after Orson died,
and I get a knock on my door.
And it's John Huston.
He says, "You have footage of Orson
that I haven't seen."
I said, "Well, I'll put it up for you."
As far asthis movie is concerned,
it seems to me you've got your ending.
Why?
Because we have come to the end.
- I'm glad youcame today.
- So am I.
Thank you. Stay a little longer?
Really can't go on recording this.
- Why?
- It's got toosweet.
I'm notgonna say "cut."
I'll say "cut." I'm a director.
- Say it...
- Cut!
- Say it intothe camera.
- What?
- Say it intothe camera.
- I did.
Can you doit again?
You want meto say "cut" again?
- Into thecamera...
- Wants to improvise
and do it twice. Cut!
Huston turned to me and he said,
"He let you do that?"
He said, "Oh, that's wonderful.
I've always wanted him on film laughing.
That was so... "And he started crying.
He started crying, Huston.
Watching Orson laughing.
Clips of films, the cans,
the years of work and ideas.
Did Welles see it all as an endless loop
full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing?
Or, perhaps for him,
failure was simply
a more interesting ending.
Orson talked about ways to
re-imagine The Other Side of the Wind.
How did heput it?
Supposing, during the course
of the picture, that it turns out
that it's more interesting hearing
the actors and myself talk about it
than making the picture.
That will be the picture.
Oh, maybe that's what
he was talking about.
Maybe he wassaying that The Other Side
of the Wind was like a documentary.
At one point, he was talking about
turning it into a documentary.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
As he always had done,
innovating with the form.
You were showing people
making a movie.
So, it waslike a documentary.
See what I mean?
It's that... It's that free.
Maybe it isn't even the picture.
Maybe it's just talking about
making the picture.
We're justgonna go.
Let me show that again.
Maybe it's just talking about
making the picture.
Well, that makes perfect sense to me.
I remember him talking to me about that.
It's all in the editing.
The Other Side of the Wind
and his lifewere inseparable.
The whole documentary
that we're all so accustomed to today...
he wasinventing.
Well, who's gonna watch this film?
What kind ofpeople do you think
are gonna be your audience?
That's a wonderful question.
I hope everybody.