The Legacy of Orson Welles: a Consideration of the Ten Best Films of 2018

By Duane Porter

With the advent of modernism almost a century and a half ago, art works such as Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, James Joyce’s Ulysses, and now The Other Side of the Wind have taken their place alongside the investigations of science and philosophy as a means toward understanding the nature of the universe. Art, rather than aspiring to mimesis, now becomes a consideration of perception and consciousness. It is when art ceases to be about something external to itself that it then begins to be about everything.

Although the themes of The Other Side of the Wind (friendship, collaboration, betrayal, guilt) are typically Wellesian it is the extremity of multiple styles in the film that is a surprise. A postmodern montage of cinematic perception (video, super-8 and 16 mm footage both black and white and color) resulting in a disparate découpage structurally juxtaposed with the formal modernism of the film within the film (on 35mm color) jars our sensibilities just enough to momentarily disrupt our equilibrium allowing us to see things with an immediacy we don’t normally have. As our balance is quickly restored we may find that we have gained, through a glimpse of self recognition, a clearer view of what is real.

The long overdue release of this film should help to renew our awareness of the importance of Orson Welles to cinema. As an uncompromising artist working in an unforgiving capitalist medium, he was in trouble from the moment Citizen Kane failed at the box-office. Although, as he occasionally said, he would’ve liked a mass audience, he wasn’t willing or even able to make films for the masses. His never-ceasing passion kept him working despite relentless adversity. As an independent filmmaker ignored by Hollywood he sought financing elsewhere, often working as an actor in the movies of others or making television commercials to get a paycheck, increasingly working outside the mainstream of commercial cinema, making the most of limited resources with innovative experimentation, he never stopped making his own movies. It is his importance as an artist that ultimately even exceeds his films. The legacy of Orson Welles stands as a monument to the autonomy of art.

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1. The Other Side of the Wind directed by Orson Welles

It is Jake Hannaford’s 70th birthday and his old friend and perhaps one-time lover Zarah Valeska (Lilli Palmer) is throwing him a party. Literally everybody has been invited to Jake’s ranchhouse to preview the new film, The Other Side of the Wind, he has been working on since returning from an extended stay in Europe. He’s hoping someone will provide end money to finish the film. Arriving at the party, Jake (John Huston), with drink in hand, makes his way through a crowd of curious admirers. A jazzy piano score (Michel Legrand) plays in the background and cameras of all sizes follow his every move. Someone shouts, “Mr. Hannaford, Happy Birthday!” He looks around, smiling, raises his drink and nods his head. The color changes to black and white as a young man rushes up, and back to color again as he introduces himself, “I’m Marvin P. Fassbender.” Jake shakes the man’s hand and smiling indulgently says, “Of course you are.” Jake continues to work his way through the dizzying array of cameras and lights. A look of unease comes over his face. The cameras seem to swirl around from every direction getting closer and closer, a microphone is thrust at his face, he turns and gives them a Cheshire cat grin. Brooks Otterlake (Peter Bogdanovich), Jake’s friend and protégé, following closely behind Jake, responds to a question addressed to him, “This is Mr. Hannaford’s night. Let’s save the questions for him.” Color goes to black and white and back to color. The questioner persists, “You two are very close, aren’t you?” A woman with a cigarette in her hand pushes toward them, “I’d like to ask you about that.” Recognizing the film critic Julie Rich (Susan Strasberg), Otterlake snidely asks, “Why?” “Come on, Otterlake. Why do you think you have to be as rude as he is?” “As rude as you are, in print anyway.” “I liked your last picture.” “Yeah, sure.” Jake is attracted by their exchange and looks at them wide-eyed and then grins. Otterlake reminds everyone how successful his last picture was in spite of her tepid review. She turns to Jake and tells him, “Did you know that your friend there stands to walk away with forty million dollars?” Color goes to black and white again as Otterlake complains to Jake, “And she’ll keep on writing that I stole everything from you.” Jake pontificates “It’s alright to borrow from each other. What we must never do is borrow from ourselves.” Ms. Rich moves in close and says, “Of course you are close, you two. You have to be. You have no choice.” Jake looks at her in bewilderment and finally says, “Please, dear lady,” and after a pause, “don’t tell us what you mean by that.” The crowd laughs and, with a smirk on his face, Otterlake turns to walk away.

In the introduction to his filmed essay Filming Othello (1978), Orson Welles, standing next to his film editing table, begins, “This is a moviola, a machine for editing film. Movies aren’t just made on the set. A lot of the actual making happens right here; so a moviola, like this is very nearly as important as the camera. This is the last stop on the long road between the dream in a filmmaker’s head and the public to whom that dream is addressed.” The many filmic elements of The Other Side of the Wind were shot over a period of several years. Welles worked on the film on and off until his death in 1985. He was never able to raise the money needed to complete it.

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2. High Life directed by Claire Denis

Einstein taught us that matter and energy bend space and time, and that light and matter follow the resulting curvature. When matter is somehow crushed to a point, space-time flows toward this center taking everything with it, even light, resulting in what is known as a black hole. In theory, energy can be extracted from a rotating black hole. Matter entering the region around a black hole is split into two pieces, one piece falls into the hole while the other piece rebounds into space taking with it more energy than it had when entering. In our relentlessly capitalistic world, a place where prisons are run for profit and energy is converted into money, this is just too good to resist. A large metal tank powered by matter/antimatter annihilation hurtles through space at near the speed of light manned by a crew of death-row inmates assigned the task of harvesting energy from a black hole.

A man walks in a dimly lit corridor murmuring comforting phrases to a baby girl he is holding in his arms. Returning the baby to her crib, he changes her diaper and prepares her bottle, all the while explaining to her the concept of things taboo, repeating the word again and again, “taboo, tah-boo!” He takes her to a chamber where there is a garden, lush, green, mist in the air, water droplets dripping off of leaves. He sets her down among the effusive vegetation. Gently pulling at the leaves all around her, she reaches down for a bit of dirt and puts it in her mouth. Dr. Dibs (Juliette Binoche) wearing a white smock, her hair gathered into a great single braid that reaches to her waist, is in her laboratory. Consumed by that which is both sacred and taboo, the imperative conditions of life, sexuality and mortality, and obsessed with procreation using the other crew members as subjects in her fertility experiments, she hopes to see a baby born in outer space. A bright yellow band of light stretches across the darkness. The light bends forming convex curves that change to concave and back again in response to the gravitational pull of a gigantic black hole. The light gently reflects off the faces of Monte (Robert Pattinson) and his daughter Willow (Jessie Ross) as they stand looking out the window. Nearing the boundary of the known and the unknown, they begin putting on their spacesuits. Willow, lost in thought, quietly asks her father, “Do I look like my mother?” He looks at at her and gently says, “You’re special.”

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3. The Image Book directed by Jean-Luc Godard

He sits at his editing table manipulating strips of film with his fingers. Fastening the strips together with a safety pin, he reflects on how the five fingers make up the hand and how man’s true condition is to think with his hands. A roll of film is unspooled in an explosion of intensely saturated colors, reds, blues, yellow, as the urgent beating of drums pervades the soundtrack. Johnny jumps from his chair and confronts Vienna’s glaring blue eyes and defiant red lips. The screen goes dark. “Tell me something nice.” “Sure, what do you want to hear?” “Lie to me. Tell me that all these years you’ve waited.” The image returns. “All these years I’ve waited.” “Tell me you’d have died if I hadn’t come back.” “I would have died if you hadn’t come back.” “Tell me you still love me like I love you.” “I still —” The screen goes black.

Thinking about images, he thinks about Don Learo, holding a rifle, standing facing the sea. A seagull cries and Learo speaks, “Cordelia, Cordelia stay awhile.” Behind him Cordelia is silent, her answer is nothing, no thing. Dressed in white, she lies facing the sky. She’s gone forever. Again, the screen cuts to black. “I need one whole day to tell the story of one second. I need a lifetime for the story of one hour. I need eternity for the story of one day.” Along a path under great shade trees music floats on the air, a young man dressed in short pants and a blue shirt is playing a violin. The barely perceptible movement of the air causes leaves to gently stir. A man with a briefcase on his way to somewhere walks by and a red-haired girl on a bicycle going nowhere passes between them.

The history of cinema can be read as a history of the 20th Century and now of the 21st. A fiery mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb rises into an ominously pixelated green and blue sky. Fighter jets overhead, the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air, again the intense saturated red, blue, and yellow. Prisoners marching in-line past buildings bombed and billowing smoke, hands on their heads. Crowded trains headed to concentration camps and executions in ISIS recruitment videos. These manipulated images are familiar yet different allowing us to see them anew. We should never grow accustomed to such as these. Given all that’s gone before, why do we continue to torment one another? ” Believe me, we are never sad enough for the world to be better.”

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4. The Wild Pear Tree directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Sinan (Dogu Demirkol) walks along a narrow dirt road littered with fallen leaves. Sunlight filters through the trees and soft notes from a piano float on the autumn air. “Sinan!” He turns his head. A woman standing near a well waves at him. “It’s me. You don’t recognize me?” “Hatice?” “Have I changed that much?” “No, it’s the headscarf that confused me.” “Oh sure,” Hatice (Hazar Ergüçlü) grins at him holding the end of her scarf to her mouth, “You haven’t changed at all. I recognized you right away.” Friends in high school, they haven’t seen each other for several years. They talk about what they’ve been doing, where they’ve been, what they plan to do next. Hatice grows quiet, looks around making sure they are alone and asks, “Got a cigarette? Light one for me, will you?” She looks all around once more. He hands her the lit cigarette, but before taking it, she leads him behind the knurly trunk of an old maple tree. Sunlight flows through the maple leaves and lights up the smoke curling around her head. “Did you use to smoke? I don’t remember.” “No, I just started.” A crow calls in the distance, leaves rattle in the breeze, she leans her head back against the tree, heaves a sigh and reaches up and takes off her scarf letting her hair fall free around her face. “There are so many beautiful things out there.” “Like what?” “Like busy lit-up streets, windy hills, nice food.” “What else?” “Ships sailing far away, summer evenings, being in love, getting drunk, getting soaked in the rain. Say it suddenly rained now and we get soaked, then we got struck by lightning. Wouldn’t that be great?” She looks away, her eyes suddenly fill with sadness and she bites her lip a little. A sudden gust of wind moves the air, loudly rustling the leaves, and blows through her hair. Her hair in strands dances and loops in sinuous waves about her face. She turns away and Sinan looks down at his feet. The leaves flutter frantically. A sob! Another, louder. Hatice is crying.

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5. Transit directed by Christian Petzold

Rick sits alone studying a chessboard. A short little man with big eyes, Urgati, leans over the table, “Too bad about those two German couriers, wasn’t it?” Not looking up, Rick says, “They got a lucky break. Yesterday they were just two German clerks, today they’re the honored dead.” Urgati pulls out a chair and sits down, “You are a very cynical person, Rick, will you have a drink with me?” Still studying his chessboard, Rick firmly says, “No!” Urgati lights a cigarette and asks, “You despise me don’t you?” Rick continuing to focus on the chessboard, says, “Well, If I gave you any thought, I probably would.” Urgati leans forward, “But why? You object to the kind of business I do? Think of all those poor refugees who must rot in this place if I didn’t help them. That’s not so bad. Through ways of my own, I provide them with exit visas.” Rick finally raises his head and looks straight at him, “For a price, Urgati, for a price.” Urgati takes a package from inside his jacket, “Look, Rick. Know what this is? Something that even you have never seen. Letters of transit signed by General de Gaulle. Cannot be rescinded. Not even questioned.” Leaving for the roulette wheel, Urgati says, “Rick, I hope you’re more impressed with me now.” Rick stands, “Just a moment. I heard those two German couriers were carrying letters of transit.” Urgati looks down and shakes his head, “I’ve heard that rumer too. Poor devils.” Rick looks at him with steely eyes and says, “You’re right, Urgati, I am a little more impressed with you.”

Fleeing the nazi occupation that is spreading across Europe, Georg (Franz Rogowski), a German refugee, arrives in a city where hotels and cafes have become melancholy objects. As the past jostles the present, the time is 1942 but the place is present-day Marseille, the city is now a transhistorical continuum of time and place. He walks the streets, passes along the waterfront, stands waiting before the American embassy. A nihilistic dread hangs over this city and infuses the transient souls who have gathered here. As he’s leaving the embassy, a woman (Paula Beer) rushes up behind him and touches his shoulder, he turns to see her beautiful smiling face before it quickly fades in disappointed disillusion, and she is gone. On another day he’s in the street and she comes up to him again, he starts to smile but she turns her head and walks away. He sits in a cafe, through a window her bright red blouse catches his attention as she passes by. These repeated encounters have created within him a mysterious expectancy. He now spends his days sitting in the cafe waiting, behind him the door opens, he hears soft footsteps, he waits for her return.

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6. Ash is Purest White directed by Jia Zhangke

On the dance floor of a local disco, the Village People’s “YMCA” blasting, a couple move with the music, jumping up and down waving their arms in the air, something falls to the floor. He bends down and picks up the gun affecting a nonchalant swagger, she looks at him with exasperation, possession of a firearm is a serious crime. He looks around, in the noisy crowded club no one appears to have noticed. She resumes their dancing with her hands on his shoulders, bouncing up and down, smiling she pulls him closer, puts her arms around his neck and holds him tight.

It is the year 2001 in the northern Chinese coal mining city of Datong. Bin (Liao Fan) runs a mahjong parlor where he gathers with his associates. They consider themselves to be among the jianghu underworld, people on society’s margins, with their own code of honor based on loyalty and righteousness. Qiao (Zhao Tao) enjoys her position as Bin’s girl, playfully punching at the other men, hitting them on the shoulder or the back as she arrives taking her place beside Bin. Later, out on the street, Bin tells her, “For people like us, it’s kill or be killed.” Qiao looks at him and says, “People like us? I’m not part of the jianghu.”

One day, getting out of the city, they make their way up a hillside to a place where nothing can be heard except the wind blowing through the grass and the calls of the birds. Standing at the top, Qiao looks at a distant volcano and says, “Volcanic ash is very pure, isn’t it?” She turns, touches his arm, and moving behind him adds, “Anything that burns at high temperatures is made pure.” Turning his gaze from the volcano, Bin says, “You could die here and no one would know it.” He takes out his gun and hands it to her. Turning it over in her hands, she holds it up. He stands beside her and helps her take aim, she squeezes the trigger, turning her face away and closing her eyes as the gun fires. Satisfied, Bin tells her, “Now you’re in the jianghu.”

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7. Support the Girls directed by Andrew Bujalski

Lisa (Regina Hall) is having a bad day. As manager of a local Houston sports bar, Double Whammies, she’s like a den mother to the girls that work there, keeping them in line with good-hearted discipline and defending their dignity to all comers. With trouble at home, trying to help one of her girls addicted to a worthless boyfriend, and having to fire another for breaking the rules by getting an oversize tattoo, today she has had one too many run-ins with Cubby (James Le Gros), her hot-tempered boss. Attempting to cheer herself up, she gets a package of red heart stickers and sticks one on the door going into a back room, there she finds Danyelle (Shayna McHayle) on the phone. Cubby wants Danyelle to fill out termination papers for Lisa and prepare to take her place. This has happened before but this time Lisa has decided to take him at his word. Danyelle tells her, “You’re not leaving, you’re married to this place.” Lisa rolls her eyes, shakes her head, says, “No,” and starts laughing. “Sorry, you losin’ your mind?” “Listen, I started this day off crying, so, if you ask me, laughing is progress.” “Uh-huh, then you know what comes next, right?” Lisa asks, “What?” “Screamin’ and freakin’ out.” “That sounds good, too!” Lisa says, bending over with laughter. As she leaves the room she puts another heart sticker on the wall over the sink. After Lisa has gone, Maci (Haley Lu Richardson), climbs up on the bar and addresses the crowd, “A lot of you know her. Her name is Lisa. Because she is the best manager a place like this ever had. And it makes such a difference when your boss really cares about you. You know? And let me just say it makes such a difference when she really cares about the customers too, am I right? To Lisa!”

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8. Climax directed by Gaspar Noé

A diverse troupe of dancers gather for a rehearsal in a remote auditorium on a cold winter night. DJ Daddy (Kiddy Smile) spins Cerrone’s Supernature while the dancers perform the intricate choreography, their athletic bodies almost defying gravity, swirling into space with ecstatic abandon. The camera gliding, circles around and among the dancers, rhythmically moving with them before rising high overhead for a Busby Berkeley kaleidoscopic climax. Happy with the rehearsal, ready to party, they gather around a punch bowl filled with sangria and chopped citrus. They are drinking and dancing into the night when David (Romain Guillermic) begins to notice something is wrong. Selva (Sofia Boutella) rushes up to Emmanuelle (Claude Gajan Maull), the troupe manager, and asks accusingly, “What did you do?”

David pulls at Selva, “Come on Selva, we’re leaving.” She pushes him back and walks out of the auditorium. In the vestibule, he grabs her again, “We’re leaving. It’s out of control.” Frantically escaping his grasp, her face almost touching his, she screams ferociously and breaks away. Turning, she walks down a hallway that glows with a dim red light. The pulsating sound of Aphex Twin’s Windowlicker seeps through the walls mixed with wailing screams and cries for help. Selva passes through a doorway and backs herself into a corner, the walls cant and the floor rises before her, she gasps for air. Gathering herself, she continues down the hallway, under a now greenish light. The lulling pulse of Aphex Twin accompanies her sobs as the hallway grows darker. She then enters a room illuminated with soft rose-colored light, waves her arms in the air, spins round and round, and throws herself to the floor screaming hysterically. Rolling, writhing in agony, she pulls her legs up to her chest, kicking at the walls, wailing with primal abandon. She climbs up the wall, whirls through the window curtains, flailing about uncontrollably. Suddenly she stops, arms outstretched, transfixed before a photo-mural showing a forest of trees. As her sobs turn to laughter, she bends over backwards and collapses onto a couch heaving a long sigh, momentarily at rest before all hell breaks loose.

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9. Non-Fiction directed by Olivier Assayas

Alain (Guillaume Canet) is the editor-in-chief at a prominant publishing house in Paris and Selena (Juliette Binoche) is an actor currently working in a popular television series. They’ve invited Leonard (Vincent Macaigne), a writer of fictionalized autobiographical novels, and Valerie (Nora Hamzawi), a political consultant, to visit them at their seaside vacation home on the island of Mallorca. Sitting on the terrace overlooking the sea, a gentle breeze is blowing and sunshine dapples the wall, they are eating grilled fish. Alain, his thoughts seldom straying far from his work, says, “There’s a real demand for escapist literature.” “Also for sleep music,” Selena says with a grin looking toward Leonard. Cutting at his fish, Alain continues, “Sure, look how well adult coloring books do.” Selena finds this amusing and shakes her head, the breeze blowing through her hair. Alain counters, “Don’t laugh. We publish them and they sell.” Looking up from his plate, Leonard looks confused, “I didn’t get that. Coloring books for adults?” Alain, waving his knife in the air, explains, “After work, you relax, release stress.” Leonard laughs along with Selena. Valerie, rising from her lounge chair, holds out her glass and Alain pours her a drink. ‘That’s enough,” she waves her hand over her glass. Leonard reaches his glass forward and says, “You release stress by coloring?” Alain pours Leonard a drink and then Selena too and goes on, “Coloring vegetable patterns, mandalas, clears the head.” Valerie wonders, “Is it very common?” Alain pours himself a drink, “It’s a social phenomenon. You have to be aware.” Leonard contemplates, “It’s depressing. It makes me feel powerless.” Selena looks at him sympathetically. Alain adds, “People also read to clear their heads. It’s a fact.” “My books do the opposite.” says Leonard. “They make the reader feel worse. Some people write feel-good books. I write feel-bad books.” Selena smiles and Leonard shrugs. Alain nods his head and smiles knowingly, “There’s an audience for that too.”

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10. Roma directed by Alfonso Cuarón

Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) ascends the stairway carrying a bucket and a broom. Upstairs, she gathers laundry from every room, making the beds with fresh linen and picking up dirty clothes. She hurries down the stairs with her arms full, puts the laundry down in the courtyard, and hurries out the front gate. Pulling on a sweater, she runs down the street. Getting there just in time, she walks little Pepe home from school. In the kitchen, Adela (Nancy García), the cook, is teasing her about a phone call from her boyfriend. Cleo cries, “They’re home!” and rushes to hold back the dog and open the gate for grandma and the other three children. Sofia (Marina de Tavira), the children’s mother, arrives a little while later and the family sits around the table for the mid-day meal. Cleo, serving, carries dishes back and forth from the kitchen. Sofia tells Cleo that her husband’s suits need to be taken to the cleaners today because he’s leaving on Friday. Cleo says, “Yes, Ma’am.”

On the rooftop, Cleo does the laundry, scrubbing everything by hand, and sings along to the radio. The two younger boys come up the stairs chasing each other with toy guns. “You shouldn’t be up here. Your mom won’t like it,” Cleo scolds them. “Don’t go near the edge.” Pepe gets the drop on Paco but he doesn’t want to play dead and decides to go back down. Pepe lies down in the sun. Cleo comes over and asks him, “And what’s up with you? Aren’t you gonna tell me?” Pepe says, “Can’t talk. I’m dead.” Cleo says, “Alright, then, ” and lies down across from him with her head touching his. “What are you doing?” Pepe asks as he rolls over to look at her, “Tell me.” “I can’t,” Cleo says, “I’m dead.” They lay there awhile and Cleo finally says, “Hey, I like being dead.” Above them the freshly washed laundry hangs dripping in the sun.

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Runners-up – limited to ten and listed in alphabetical order:
Annihilation directed by Alex Garland
Burning directed by Lee Chang-dong
Cold War directed by Paweł Pawlikowski
An Elephant Sitting Still directed by Hu Bo
The Favourite directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
Grass directed by Hong Sang-soo
Happy as Lazzaro directed by Alice Rohrwacher
Her Smell directed by Alex Ross Perry
The House That Jack Built directed by Lars von Trier
Shoplifters directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda

And lastly the films I haven’t been able to see yet:
Asako I & II directed by Ryūsuke Hamaguchi
A Faithful Man directed by Louis Garrel
La flor directed by Mariano Llinás
Hotel by the River directed by Hong Sang-soo
Long Day’s Journey Into Night directed by Bi Gan
Maya directed by Mia Hansen-Løve
The Portuguese Woman directed by Rita Azevedo Gomes
Season of the Devil directed by Lav Diaz