They'll Love Me When I'm Dead

Film Without Control
or
"A Desperate Venture Shared by Desperate Men"

With their part in the legal untanglement, restoration, editing and post-production of the last Orson Welles film The Other Side of the Wind, Netflix decided that they'd better increase their investment by simultaneously making a documentary on the making of the film—a story that is as fascinating and convoluted as the film itself (how could it not be with Welles as the central figure?). It might also be useful as a as testimony and evidence for a tale that might not be believed. Titled They'll Love Me When I'm Dead, it documents Welles' idea for the film from its inspiration through the chaotic filming some ten years later, through the complications about rights that prevented Welles from completing it in his lifetime, and ultimately covers the efforts by die-hard associates and completists to make it happen 33 years after the director's death. Documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville (who made 20 Feet from Stardom, Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal, and the recent Won't You Be My Neighbor?) has done a nearly encyclopedic job of gathering together archive footage, out-takes, interviews with survivors of the project, and bits and pieces to tell a great deal of the story—without some of the more head-scratching intricacies—and keeps it wildly entertaining...and properly melancholy, as well. Just like Welles might have done it.

Cinematographer Gary Gravers' audition—filming Orson

All of that stuff makes it fascinating, and behind it all is Welles, both master of his craft and victim of it. The story is well-documented in Josh Karp's book "Orson Welles' Last Film" in such detail that one can't help but admire Welles the film-maker making a movie with the barest bones of support, but shake your head ruefully at Welles the producer, robbing Peter to pay Paul, constantly over-spending the funds he's able to attract as performer, voice-over actor, and lecturer.

The film starts with an informal interview of Welles, where he speculates about the possibility of making "a film without controls"—"All my films have been controlled. I'd like to make a film as IF it were a documentary and all the actors improvise"—the idea being to get that one thing that Welles prized above other in his films—"the divine accidents," where the movie gods conspired to drop opportunity in your lap to photograph them and be praised for your brilliance, when it was merely happenstance taken advantage of. 

At the end of the interview, he mugs at the camera, shrugging his shoulders, as if to say "I dunno, I'm making this stuff up as I go..."

"The movie director must always remain a slightly ambiguous figure, after all, because so much of what he signs his name to came from elsewhere, so many of his best things are merely accidents over which he presides. Or the good fortune he receives. Or the grace.""This is Orson Welles" p. 259 Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich; ©1998 Da Capo Press

There is also that too many people asked him "what did you do after Citizen Kane?" and he had the hope that, in coming back to Hollywood, after a self-imposed exile during the McCarthy years, he was seeing kids with far less experience making movies and enjoying success—"I've lived too long not to make a successful picture."

He'd been kicking around an idea, partially inspired by an encounter with Hemingway, partially bitterness at his own circumstances, partially autobiographical, partially not, about making a movie about an old time Hollywood director (he chose John Huston to play the part) who is making an artsy movie of the type Antonioni was making at the time and trying to get funding from the studios, who are dubious at his age, dubious that there's no script, and just aren't interested. The movie juxtaposes "found footage" of the director's birthday party by (and for) his sycophants, juxtaposed with sequences from the film. That's a nutshell take on it (there'll be a review next week), but the making of it was chaotic, willfully so, in order to capture the energy and dangerousness of a Maysles Brothers film.

Huston and Little at the beginning of filming

During the course of the movie (which started filming July 4, 1970 and ended...sometime in 1975), actors came and went, ideas were filmed then tossed, then new material added, locations switched—Peter Bogdanovich started off playing one role, then years later was asked to come back and play the role that Rich Little was initially signed to play (one that was vaguely based on Bogdanovich himself). Filming finally moved from Welles' rented locations to Bogdanovich's house, which eventually caused a rift between the two film-makers, exasperated by Bogdanovich's successful directing career, creating a Shakespearean Falstaff-Prince Hal analogue. It wasn't the only one.  

Bogdanovich's nebbishy cineaste at the beginning of filming

Welles was tireless when he was creative, and he demanded a tireless loyalty. He rarely got it, but one of the technicians on the film devoted his life to Welles' every whim, just to be a part of an Orson Welles film. Cinematographer Gary Graver heard Welles was in Hollywood and simply called him up at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Welles demanded that he come over immediately with equipment and, there and then, auditioned the cameraman for the Director of Photography job. 

And Graver never left, devoting his life to filming Welles' many a-borning projects and, after Welles' death in 1985, to trying to resolve the conflicts that prevented completion of The Other Side of the Wind, until his own death in 2006.

Welles' partner, Oja Kodar, and Gary Graver.

Welles, during his last years, tried to negotiate settlements between financiers and holding companies and banks, all to no avail. After his death, there were those who were trying to protect Welles' last film (including his partner during the last years, Oja Kodar, and Beatrice Welles, his daughter by wife Paola Mori—to whom he was still married) and those making false claims that they owned the rights. One of the investors was the brother-in-law of the Shah of Iran, and after the Iranian Revolution, those funds dried up. Two of the original crew-people, Bogdanovich and Producer Frank Marshall were among those who kept the dream alive for decades...companies like Showtime and Netflix started doing their own productions to fill the need for content, and crowd-sourcing raised some funds. 

It's a maze  of cul-de-sacs, but Neville manages to make a great through-line of the history of the film—now that there IS a film, one that actually has an ending. And the way he weaves in all the archive footage is close to masterful. It's quite the juggling act, even if the star of the piece is killed off mid-way in the story.

Alan Cummings narrates

Now, it will be even more fascinating to see the end product. We'll have a review next week.