One More Movie From Welles?

Interesting timing, our talking about Peter Bogdanovich in the latest episode of All Movie Talk. This morning I found the following article, about Peter Bogdanovich making some headway at seeing Orson Welles' last movie finished up and released into theaters. http://www.nysun.com/article/51609

I guess the deal is that Welles was practically finished with a movie called "The Other Side of the Wind," and then it was caught up in all sorts of legal and international intrigues, with the result that the negatives were sealed away in a vault in France. Bogdanovich says that Welles once said, hey, if I can't finish this movie, you do it, ok? But it's been so difficult to unwind all the legal entanglements associated with the film.

This is pretty interesting: the film is about a director shooting his last movie. Irony enough, right there. The director within the film is played by John Huston, an actor-director. Welles himself is, of course, an actor-director. The film also stars Dennis Hopper, an actor-director. And if Bogdanovich does get to edit the film and wrap it up, that'll make the fourth actor-director intimately involved with making the movie.

This Wikipedia article has more information about the film. Both articles make mention of how difficult it is to mimic Welles' editing style, which could make or break the film. Fortunately, I guess Welles had already edited some 40 minutes and made notes on how the rest should be edited. It's worth mentioning, though, that Peter Bogdanovich has been so close to Orson Welles for so long that I can't think of a better guy for the job.