The Other Side of the Wind (2018)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
J.J. "Jake" Hannaford	John Huston	½
The Actress	Oja Kodar	½
Brooks Otterlake	Peter Bogdanovich	½
Juliette Rich	Susan Strasberg	-
Billy Boyle	Norman Foster	-
John Dale	Bob Random	-
Zarah Valeska	Lilli Palmer	-
Pat Mullins	Edmond O'Brien	-
Maggie Noonan	Mercedes McCambridge	-
Matt Zimmer	Cameron Mitchell	-
Matt Costello	Paul Stewart	-
Jack Simon	Gregory Sierra	-
The Baron	Tonio Selwart

Review

One of several unfinished projects Orson Welles worked on towards the end of his career has finally been completed, 33 years after the legendary director's death, thanks in large to Polish filmmaker Filip Jan Rymsza, original producer Frank Marshall and Welles' companion and one of the stars in the picture, Peter Bogdanovich. Filmed over a period of several years from 1970, the film is as infuriatingly unfocused and sketchy as it is obviously ambitious, both narratively and formally. For fans of Welles and film history, The Other Side of the Wind retains a curious significance, but mainly because of context and very little for its artistic value. Structured as a meta-film built around a film-within-a-film (the latter with a very slight and now mostly outdated parodic value), there are obvious autobiographical elements and other more or less distinct nods to various people in and around Welles' circle and the movie business in general from the time in question, all seasoned with varying amounts of humour and grudge, but mostly the latter. The dialogue and editing is indicative of being ad-libbed and jumbled together, respectively. And the end impression is more directionless than so-called "auteurish". On the positive side, the picture presents a few fascinating observations and musings on the old and new Hollywood. But it's an uninvited peek which you don't feel entitled to, not the enticing and voyeuristic peep from behind the curtain that Welles probably aimed for.