"Is the camera eye a reflection of reality or is reality a reflection of the camera eye... or is the camera merely a phallus?" -Pister (Joseph McBride)
Forty-eight years in the making and an unfinished product unseen by the public until 33 years after the death of Orson Welles, "The Other Side of the Wind" is an astonishing piece of filmmaking. It's both a product of the era in which it was originally conceived and filmed and more innovative than most movies of today. The dual narrative is highly self-reflexive. There's the unfinished film-within-the-film, which shares its title. The outer film is about filmmaking, with all of the shots being from the cameras of the documentary filmmakers following the birthday party of director Jake Hannaford, and about spectatorship, with the party's screening of his film-within-the-film. The entirety that we see is explained in the introductory narration by Peter Bogdanovich to have been later assembled from this found footage--a fictionalization of the very thing Bogdanovich and company did with the footage shot by Welles--piecing together the story of a dead man. This camera eye is a phallus, too, which is part of the pivotal role played by the actress and real-life lover and collaborator of Welles, Oja Kodar.
The outer film's central character, director Hannaford, is part Ernest Hemingway faux machismo and suicidal tendencies, part autobiographical surrogate for Welles and part the actor who portrays him, John Huston. He's the auteur, independent filmmaker from classical Hollywood, receiving adulation from the New Hollywood set and failing to complete one last film due to much the same reasons that Welles did: lack of financing, an actor left (Rich Little was originally cast in Bogdanovich's part), the director was unorganized and died. Meanwhile, the success of New Hollywood filmmakers is represented by Brooks Otterlake, a version of the actor he's portrayed by, Peter Bogdanovich, who during filming was at the peak of his career commercially. Reportedly, even the young blonde amateur fetching drinks for Hannaford is a reference to Bogdanovich's real-life actress and mistress Cybill Shepherd. There's also the unflattering portrayal of the film critic, a stand-in for Pauline Kael, who among other things penned the defamatory "Raising Kane," which denigrated the role of Welles in co-writing "Citizen Kane" (1941).
Hannaford only appears in the film within as the directorial voice of God during one scene, and while all of the critics, students and young directors chatter ad nauseum about the meaning of his work in the outer narrative, the film he made seems almost transparent in its meaning despite the muteness of its actors. Putting aside the parodying, similarities and homages to the European art cinema of the likes of Antonioni, Fellini and Godard, which others have already detailed, the meaning of the film within recalls the contemporaneous essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" by Laura Mulvey. Both are about the predominantly-male gaze of cinema and the Freudian interpretation of that pleasure owing to castration anxiety--hence the phallic camera. As plotless as the film within appears, it begins traditionally enough with the pursuing gaze of John Dale. This culminates in a nightclub scene where Nudie films play as films-within-the-film-within-the-film, and Kodar is gazed upon entering the bathroom orgy. As if empowered by the gaze, she proceeds to act out fantasies of emasculation. First, there's the doll, with her finger providing a phallus, which she threatens to cut off with scissors before removing its eyes (and, thus, perhaps its controlling gaze). She, then, cuckolds her lover by having sex in a car with Dale, chases after him and threatens him with scissors, before finally stabbing an inflated phallic tower. Naturally, she's nude through most of this, which reveals the central conceit of so-called castration anxiety being woman's lack of a penis. There are also the dummies of Dale, which are literally emasculating the absent actor. His homosexuality further diminishes the heterosexual patriarchy of the male gaze that Mulvey protested.
In the outer film, the actress appears powerless, if indifferent, to this gaze, as cameramen continue to film her continued mute role in life. The shooting sequence, perhaps, is an exception, but, again, this comes by direction of Hannaford. She's further othered by the white men for her supposed Native-American ethnicity and is referred to as "Pocahontas." By the end, however, the Hemingway-type masculinity gives way--even that this was ever a film myopically obsessed with an aging director of past glory. His voice remains, but see who controls the gaze and, thus, shares the gaze of the spectator, as well as the gazed upon. The transition from the opening studio lot, to studio set in disrepair in the film within, to drive-in theatre also belies the demise of old Hollywood values. This seems to me a more subtle twist than the kind Welles employed in his prior "F for Fake" (1973), also with Kodar.
Stylistically, this is brilliant. There's a definitive role for the camera, with shifts between film formats, aspect ratios and between black-and-white and vibrant color. There are numerous shots of reflections through glass, as if reflecting the dual and self-reflexive narrative. It reminds one of the multi-layered mirror shots in "Citizen Kane" and "The Lady from Shanghai" (1947), the latter mirror maze of which is also recalled in the maze of the studio set in the film within. The editing is extraordinary. I wonder how much Welles intended and how much might be a modern spin by Bob Murawski. Either way, by my count this has an average shot length of barely 2.5 seconds, which even for today's action flicks is rapid fire. Nor are the shots easy to count: besides some only lasting a split second (the opening shots of cameras, e.g., features 25 shots in under 20 seconds), the cuts are frequently disguised by the rotating camerawork, flashing lights of cameras or changing color schemes, such as in the car sex scene. As much as its jazz score, the editing here has tempo.
Partially, "The Other Side of the Wind" will forever be unfinished, and its film within decisively so. And like our surrogate spectators within the film, viewing that tortuous production, there's been many stoppages, fraught with behind-the-scenes turmoil, preventing us from seeing it, but this has only added to its meaning.
Forty-eight years in the making and an unfinished product unseen by the public until 33 years after the death of Orson Welles, "The Other Side of the Wind" is an astonishing piece of filmmaking. It's both a product of the era in which it was originally conceived and filmed and more innovative than most movies of today. The dual narrative is highly self-reflexive. There's the unfinished film-within-the-film, which shares its title. The outer film is about filmmaking, with all of the shots being from the cameras of the documentary filmmakers following the birthday party of director Jake Hannaford, and about spectatorship, with the party's screening of his film-within-the-film. The entirety that we see is explained in the introductory narration by Peter Bogdanovich to have been later assembled from this found footage--a fictionalization of the very thing Bogdanovich and company did with the footage shot by Welles--piecing together the story of a dead man. This camera eye is a phallus, too, which is part of the pivotal role played by the actress and real-life lover and collaborator of Welles, Oja Kodar.
The outer film's central character, director Hannaford, is part Ernest Hemingway faux machismo and suicidal tendencies, part autobiographical surrogate for Welles and part the actor who portrays him, John Huston. He's the auteur, independent filmmaker from classical Hollywood, receiving adulation from the New Hollywood set and failing to complete one last film due to much the same reasons that Welles did: lack of financing, an actor left (Rich Little was originally cast in Bogdanovich's part), the director was unorganized and died. Meanwhile, the success of New Hollywood filmmakers is represented by Brooks Otterlake, a version of the actor he's portrayed by, Peter Bogdanovich, who during filming was at the peak of his career commercially. Reportedly, even the young blonde amateur fetching drinks for Hannaford is a reference to Bogdanovich's real-life actress and mistress Cybill Shepherd. There's also the unflattering portrayal of the film critic, a stand-in for Pauline Kael, who among other things penned the defamatory "Raising Kane," which denigrated the role of Welles in co-writing "Citizen Kane" (1941).
Hannaford only appears in the film within as the directorial voice of God during one scene, and while all of the critics, students and young directors chatter ad nauseum about the meaning of his work in the outer narrative, the film he made seems almost transparent in its meaning despite the muteness of its actors. Putting aside the parodying, similarities and homages to the European art cinema of the likes of Antonioni, Fellini and Godard, which others have already detailed, the meaning of the film within recalls the contemporaneous essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" by Laura Mulvey. Both are about the predominantly-male gaze of cinema and the Freudian interpretation of that pleasure owing to castration anxiety--hence the phallic camera. As plotless as the film within appears, it begins traditionally enough with the pursuing gaze of John Dale. This culminates in a nightclub scene where Nudie films play as films-within-the-film-within-the-film, and Kodar is gazed upon entering the bathroom orgy. As if empowered by the gaze, she proceeds to act out fantasies of emasculation. First, there's the doll, with her finger providing a phallus, which she threatens to cut off with scissors before removing its eyes (and, thus, perhaps its controlling gaze). She, then, cuckolds her lover by having sex in a car with Dale, chases after him and threatens him with scissors, before finally stabbing an inflated phallic tower. Naturally, she's nude through most of this, which reveals the central conceit of so-called castration anxiety being woman's lack of a penis. There are also the dummies of Dale, which are literally emasculating the absent actor. His homosexuality further diminishes the heterosexual patriarchy of the male gaze that Mulvey protested.
In the outer film, the actress appears powerless, if indifferent, to this gaze, as cameramen continue to film her continued mute role in life. The shooting sequence, perhaps, is an exception, but, again, this comes by direction of Hannaford. She's further othered by the white men for her supposed Native-American ethnicity and is referred to as "Pocahontas." By the end, however, the Hemingway-type masculinity gives way--even that this was ever a film myopically obsessed with an aging director of past glory. His voice remains, but see who controls the gaze and, thus, shares the gaze of the spectator, as well as the gazed upon. The transition from the opening studio lot, to studio set in disrepair in the film within, to drive-in theatre also belies the demise of old Hollywood values. This seems to me a more subtle twist than the kind Welles employed in his prior "F for Fake" (1973), also with Kodar.
Stylistically, this is brilliant. There's a definitive role for the camera, with shifts between film formats, aspect ratios and between black-and-white and vibrant color. There are numerous shots of reflections through glass, as if reflecting the dual and self-reflexive narrative. It reminds one of the multi-layered mirror shots in "Citizen Kane" and "The Lady from Shanghai" (1947), the latter mirror maze of which is also recalled in the maze of the studio set in the film within. The editing is extraordinary. I wonder how much Welles intended and how much might be a modern spin by Bob Murawski. Either way, by my count this has an average shot length of barely 2.5 seconds, which even for today's action flicks is rapid fire. Nor are the shots easy to count: besides some only lasting a split second (the opening shots of cameras, e.g., features 25 shots in under 20 seconds), the cuts are frequently disguised by the rotating camerawork, flashing lights of cameras or changing color schemes, such as in the car sex scene. As much as its jazz score, the editing here has tempo.
Partially, "The Other Side of the Wind" will forever be unfinished, and its film within decisively so. And like our surrogate spectators within the film, viewing that tortuous production, there's been many stoppages, fraught with behind-the-scenes turmoil, preventing us from seeing it, but this has only added to its meaning.