425. The Other Side Of The Wind; movie review

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND
Cert 15
122 mins
BBFC advice: Contains strong sex, nudity, discriminatory terms

I wish I had £20 for every time someone has said to me: "I bet you'd like to work in the movie industry."
No, I wouldn't. Maybe it's different among the low-budget film-makers but I am sure big studios are festooned with luvvies and those who spend their lives kowtowing to keep their jobs.
I can imagine the fawning which circles the flavour of the month until they become the flavour of last month.
Was this the message which Orson Welles intended in The Other Side Of The Wind?
Well, we will never REALLY know because he dies 30 years ago but it seems likely.
This is because he left hundreds of hours of footage and had actually completed 40 minutes of the movie before funds ran out and it became mired in legal wrangling.
Indeed, the story of how The Other Side Of The Wind came to be released is far more arresting than the film itself.
For decades, studios and Welles' next of kin have been at odds over whether life should be breathed into the project.
One of those at the centre of the disputes has been Oja Kodar who was Welles's partner during the latter part of his life and who starred in the movie.
She plays the star of the film within a film, cavorting naked on screen at the preview showing of an allegedly ground-breaking movie by a renowned director, played by John Huston.
Welles' finished picture centres on the screening at a Hollywood mansion in which gossip, back-stabbing and ingratiation are to the fore.
Its home-movie style gives the impression that it is grabbing some of the partygoers off-guard as their eccentricities and duplicitousness are exposed.
Fans of Welles will no doubt appreciate the movie's release after all these years and it will be a feast for students of film.
And it is another demonstration of the power of Netflix that it has managed to release the movie at all.
However, it is very much an insider's movie and is a bit of a struggle for average cinema-goers such as Mrs W and me.
To us, there was a sense of the Emperor's New Clothes and art for art sake. Citizen Kane it ain't.

Reasons to watch: The history of Welles' final work
Reasons to avoid: It is a dull movie

Laughs: None
Jumps: None
Vomit: None
Nudity: Plenty
Overall rating: 4/10

The big question - It is correct to presume that this is what would have satisfied Orson Welles?

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