The State Of Orson’s WIND

      Word passed around last week that Orson Welles’ legendary uncompleted,long lost film THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND may Finally get a long awaited release…

     http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jan/23/orson-welles-last-film-release

      The history of this film has always fascinated me,for Orson worked long and hard on his anti-Hollywood story from 1972 through 1975 with funding from U.S.,Spanish,and Iranian financiers,with the former two heavily cheating Orson out of the film’s much needed  completion funds and the latter holding onto the negatives for two-and-a-half decades(via the Iranian people’s overthrow of the Shah and the beginning of Ayatollah Khomeini’s reign) until it was found in a French vault and taken by Peter Bogdanovich,who shot additional scenes to complete the film(via Orson’s notes)and the release being held back by several factors(including the widow of the Iranian financer and Orson’s companion Oda Kojar both claiming ownership of the film),as well as reports of the film being badly tattered and in a poor state of ever being released(via several film clips on YouTube that showed it to be in poor shape).

     If THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND does ever get released,it’ll possibly be as severely overlooked as Orson Welles’ other long lost uncompleted film DON QUIXOTE,which received a quiet DVD release that went by largely noticed and received largely negative reviews on its poor looking film quality(since its director of photography Jess Franco completed the film with very little financial funds),but whatever the case might be it’ll be very interesting in knowing what kind of a future that THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND will eventually face,whether it’ll receive its much awaited release or kept further stored in its film vault home forever.

R.I.P.: John Barry

Steven M.