On Labor Day weekend, the American independent film industry turns its attention to the Colorado mountain town of Telluride.
Rymsza and Marshall had both been on the Sisyphean quest to complete one of the most notoriously unfinished works in the history of American cinema: Orson Welles’s legendary and seemingly cursed production The Other Side of the Wind. Welles started shooting the film in August 1970 and finally completed the start-and-stop production in early 1976.
Rights to the film had previously been owned by Les Films d’Astrophore, a Paris-based Iranian production and financial concern operated by Mehdi Boushehri, the brother-in-law of the Shah of Iran. In 1982, a French court ruled that as the primary financier, Boushehri and Astrophore owned the film and not Welles.
On Saturday, September 1, nearly five years to the day since their first encounter, the Telluride Film Festival screened the American premiere of The Other Side of the Wind. The triumphant moment arrived 33 years after the death of Orson Welles and nearly half a century after the start of principal photography. Marshall, Bogdanovich, and several other veterans of the production were on hand to introduce and talk about the film.
The deep resources of Netflix brought closure to the wild and improbable tale. Rymsza, Marshall, and Bogdanovich achieved the seemingly impossible in rescuing and completing a Holy Grail and foundational text for Welles aficionados and film buffs. Many of those who have traced the convoluted and surreal history never imagined this day coming.
“Welles said of all the unfinished films he had, that was the one he wanted to finish and release first,” Rosenbaum says.
