They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead (2018)

04 Sunday Nov 2018

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Director, Documentary, John Huston, Morgan Neville, Movie making, Oja Kodar, Orson Welles, Peter Bogdanovich, Review, The Other Side of the Wind

D: Morgan Neville / 98m

With: Orson Welles, John Huston, Gary Graver, Peter Bogdanovich, Oja Kodar, Rich Little, Danny Huston, Cybill Shepherd, Beatrice Welles

In 1970, Orson Welles began shooting a movie that he had been thinking about as far back as 1961, about an aging movie director making his latest feature against a backdrop of the changing social, political, and sexual mores of the period. The Other Side of the Wind was intended to be an experimental movie for the most part, with scenes from the movie the director is making woven into the larger story – a movie within a movie. But as with many of Welles’ later projects, money proved to be a problem, from the lack of consistent funding to his own tax problems (which required him to take breaks from production while he took various other jobs to raise money). There were also casting problems: Rich Little was replaced by Peter Bogdanovich after filming nearly all his scenes, and John Huston was only brought on as the fictional director in early 1974. Forced to contend with an intermittent shooting schedule, Welles’ didn’t complete principal photography until 1976. But his problems didn’t end there. The editing process proved difficult as well, and by 1979, Welles had only forty minutes of finished footage out of a planned two hour movie. Would it ever get released…?

The first thing to say about They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead (a quote made by Welles to Bogdanovich), is that it’s all about the production of The Other Side of the Wind, and the remaining years before Welles died with the project uncompleted. It’s not about what happened to the movie after Welles’s death in 1985, and how it came to be released in 2018. If you’re interested in that aspect of the movie’s history, then this isn’t the documentary for you. What it is, however, is a fascinating look at Welles himself and his approach to movie making during a period when he was still fighting to get projects made on his own terms, and had learnt how to circumnavigate many of the issues and problems that were put in his way (there’s a great example of Welles’ skill as a director from Chimes at Midnight (1965), where a punch is thrown – and we learn the reaction shot was filmed two years later; and the two shots are seamless). What the documentary makes clear is that Welles knew what he was doing in his head, but it also makes the point through contemporary interview footage that Welles wasn’t always able to articulate what was in his head. Watching this, you might be hard pressed to work out just what The Other Side of the Wind is all about.

One of the key strengths of Morgan Neville’s admirable documentary is its cast of characters, the people who worked with Welles on the project, some of whom have vastly different recollections of what happened, how, and why. Little’s departure from the movie is a case in point, with the man himself somewhat reticent on the matter, while Oja Kodar’s influence (she co-wrote the movie with Welles and appeared in it) is regarded as either essential, restrictive of Welles’ talent, or isn’t understood at all. These differences in memory prove strangely illuminating. As Welles himself would always state, “everything is a lie” (and he does so at the beginning of the documentary), so whether one person is right or wrong soon becomes irrelevant. What Neville teases out is the mystery of a movie that, until recently, no one has seen in its finished form. As a companion piece to The Other Side of the Wind, this is required viewing, an apéritif if you will, before the main course, and a terrific reminder of Welles’ skill as a movie maker, something Neville does through the equally skilful use of clips from Welles’s career and revealing clips of the man himself.

Rating: 8/10 – thanks to lively contributions from those who were there, and a wealth of archive footage shot at the time, They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead is an enthralling look at a movie maker who was still willing to take risks, and the perils of independent movie making; best watched before seeing The Other Side of the WInd, this isn’t just for cinéastes or fans of Welles, but anyone with an interest in how movies can get made despite any number of adversities.

10 Movies That Are 40 Years Old This Year – 2015

31 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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"Little Edie", 1975, Affairs, Akira Kurosawa, Dersu Uzala, Dog Day Afternoon, Edith Bouvier Beale, Grey Gardens, Hal Ashby, Jaws, John Huston, Kafiristan, Michael Caine, Milos Forman, Missing schoolchildren, Movies, Nashville, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Peter Weir, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Politics, Robert Altman, Robert Towne, Rudyard Kipling, Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom, Sean Connery, Shampoo, Sidney Lumet, Steven Spielberg, The Man Who Would Be King, The Maysles Brothers, Warren Beatty

If 1974 was a banner year, then surprisingly 1975 kept up the level of quality from around the globe. A closer look at the releases for 1975 show an amazing amount of movies that simply shone, and for all kinds of reasons. As with the list for 1974, there could have been a lot more movies included here, and the ten featured below were difficult to choose from out of all the fantastic movies available, but I think these are as representative of what a great year 1975 was as you’re likely to get.

1) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey’s landmark novel was given the best screen treatment possible, one of the best ensemble casts ever, and placed in the hands of a director, Milos Forman, who was able to tease out every nuance and subtlety of emotion that the movie required. At once depressing, sad, comedic and poignant, but ultimately uplifting, this is the finest hour for everyone concerned and one of the few movies to tackle issues of mental health head on and without flinching.

2) Jaws – The grandaddy of all Summer tentpole movies, it’s still easy to see why Steven Spielberg’s make-or-break movie was so successful, and caused audiences around the world to stay out of the water. With that menacing score by John Williams, one of the most effective jump scares in screen history, a great trio of performances from Shaw, Dreyfuss and Scheider, some of the most intense cat-and-shark sequences ever, it all adds up to a movie that still terrifies as much today as it did back then.

3) Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom – Pasolini’s fierce condemnation of the Italian Fascist ruling classes during World War II, and the increasing lack of empathy in modern society, is one long, intentionally nihilistic piece of anguished propaganda. Difficult to watch, with long scenes that test the audience’s endurance, Pasolini’s last movie before he was murdered is shot through with despair and lacking completely in hope, or faith in the goodness of man, and is as powerful a vision of hell on earth as you’re ever likely to see.

4) Dog Day Afternoon – Based on a true story, Sidney Lumet’s triumphant telling of friendship and compassion and the lengths one person will go to to ensure their friend’s happiness boasts a stunning performance from Al Pacino, and is as tense as any other thriller out there. Mixing high drama with situational comedy borne out of the characters themselves, Dog Day Afternoon is unexpectedly affecting and is one of those movies that reveals different facets to its story with each successive viewing.

5) Nashville – The ensemble movie’s highpoint, Robert Altman’s look at the contemporary US political scene is merely a backdrop for some of the most riveting dissections of people’s behaviour and (in)tolerances yet seen in the movies. Full of standout moments (and none more so than Keith Carradine’s rendition of I’m Easy), and with Altman in firm control at the helm, this is another movie that rewards with every viewing.

6) Grey Gardens – One of the finest documentaries ever made, Grey Gardens is as compelling as any thriller and as absorbing as any intimate portrait of an unusual lifestyle can be. Produced and co-directed by Albert and David Maysles, the lives of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, “Little Edie”, are highlighted in haunting, intimate detail, and prove that any notions of strangeness in others is merely a matter of misguided perception.

7) Picnic at Hanging Rock – Peter Weir’s haunting, immaculately filmed mystery is one of the most memorably eerie movies ever made, its sense of time and place and mood all combining to create a cinematic experience that remains unmatched. A true classic of Australian cinema and the movie that catapulted Weir – deservedly – onto the international scene, it’s as unsettling now as it was back when it was first released.

8) Dersu Uzala – Kurosawa’s examination of the differences that exist between the old ways of nature and the apparent progress that civilisation brings is enhanced by some stunning cinematography and two magnificent central performances by Yuriy Solomin and Maksim Munzuk. By turns deceptively gripping and subtly elegiac, the movie has an emotional honesty to it that makes the development of the relationship between the explorer and the hunter that much more convincing and affecting.

9) The Man Who Would Be King – One of director John Huston’s favourite projects, this adaptation of a story by Rudyard Kipling is the kind of rip-roaring adventure tale that doesn’t really get made any more, and features drama, comedy, suspense, action and two lovely performances from Sean Connery and Michael Caine. At its core it’s a heartfelt look at an enduring friendship overtaken by one man’s delusion of grandeur, but it’s also a penetrating examination of the abuse of power and the consequences thereof.

10) Shampoo – For some this is Warren Beatty’s finest hour, but the plaudits must go to his co-screenwriter, Robert Towne, for constructing such a beautifully realised satire on the fallout from the sexual revolution that took place in the Sixties and the way in which it gave way to a period of political paranoia. The cast hit all the right notes with ease, Hal Ashby directs with his usual simplicity and attention to framing, and the caustic humour is used more subtly than expected, making the contexts it relates to more important – and effective – than having a slew of one-liners.