A genius icon from the past, a modern-day streaming giant, Orson Welles and Netflix have been linked together for a movie, "The Other Side of the Wind," that was previously unimaginable.
Almost standing on the opposite side of tradition, Netflix is engaged in a debate with traditional theater chains about the future of the film industry. In the United States, Netflix has been rejected by academics as a traditional destroyer to traditional Hollywood. And Orson Welles, a talented director who made the top films in almost every major film history list, began to fade out of Hollywood, banished and forgotten after the studio overturned the original editing of "Gone with the Wind". In a way, Netflix and Orson Welles are practicing the same mission, holding on to their beliefs and fighting against tradition. However, Orson Welles was alone and had to choose exile.
When he returned to the United States, twenty years in exile was enough to change a person, he was no longer so impulsive, he began to reflect on movies, he began to look for opportunities to make movies, but in his bones, the anger at Hollywood's betrayal never disappeared. In "The Other Side of the Wind", this awareness is reflected in many places. Hannaford entrusts an assistant to receive potential investors, as if to describe his dilemma in investing in movies in Hollywood; Susan Strasberg's over-digging of vanishing actors also satirizes journalists who point fingers at films or individuals.
Orson Welles said before filming that my films were under my control before, but this time I changed my mind and made this film out of my control and made it appear in the form of a documentary. Therefore, the resolute editing and the narration of the plot like watching flowers at a glance are like the restoration of Orson Welles' original intention by later generations. The film is almost carried out from the perspective of a bystander, and the bystanders are students with cameras, reporters, documentaries The film crew, their image stitching, combined with Hannaford's "The Other Side of the Wind," which played on and off in the film, merged into Orson Welles' "The Other Side of the Wind."
Oja Kodar, the heroine in Hannaford's film, was also Orson Welles' girlfriend, star and co-writer at the time. She described Orson herself as the wind, able to caress you, lift you, and make you dance. The wind, and what's on the other side of the wind, maybe it's the embarrassment of raising money for the filming, maybe it's the helplessness of being chased and beaten by the media reporters, maybe it's the sigh of Hannafu in the face of film production.
Whether Hannaford is the epitome of Orson Welles' own consciousness is irrelevant, although Orson Welles himself has repeatedly emphasized that Hannaford is not himself, but in the film, Hannaford Every move, and the deep story behind every move, has been deeply branded with Orson Welles. Hannaford's character, Orson Welles' soul, the audience's thinking collides between fiction and reality. The collision produces sparks of thinking, and the sparks touch people's further exploration of the film.
The logic of moving images requires a concrete thing to accommodate such discussions, and the figuration that carries such discussions seems to be the camera, which is likened to a "dildo" proposed at the very beginning. Hannaford discovers the unfortunate actors before and makes them stars in his own movies. However, the actors have all chosen to disappear after making movies, which has become a mystery for Hannaford and the media public. the focus of their attention. After inference and fermentation in the media, things were labeled as same-sex, and Hannaford’s potential same-sex tendencies seemed to echo the analogy of the camera.
At the end of the film, this metaphor is directly concretized. Aoya Kodak at the near end pierced the dildo, and the actor doll cultivated by Hannaford at the far end broke free and disappeared from the audience's sight. "You shoot the great places and the pretty people. All those girls and boys. Shoot'em dead.)
If the film appears to go wherever it wants to go under the uncontrollable trajectory, then the discussion about the camera seems to be a deliberate undercurrent surging under the surface of the stream of consciousness, and finally flows to the surface of the film. The first half of the film is extremely fragmented. The relationship between Hannaford and his assistants, the reporters' undercover investigation of Hannaford, and the constantly stagnant film screening, the originally fragmented narrative clues are watched by cameras shaking from different perspectives. The spectators are constantly dizzy and dizzy, and the audience's patience and thinking are tested, resulting in no unified thinking or idea prevailing. But in the second half, the clues about the camera's discussion began to become clear. The clip of Hannaford and Aoya shooting the actor dummy, which intuitively showed the "damage" of the camera to the actor, which is "Shoot'em dead" Vivid prompts and echoes.
When Orson Welles claimed that the new film would be a documentary, perhaps everyone thought it was just a genre innovation, but more than 30 years later, "The Other Side of the Wind" appeared in front of us, and it revealed that the camera Worries about the nature of the operation, combined with sympathy for the actors on camera, have once again brought the documentary into the form of a correction of doubts about the authenticity of traditional cinema. Wind is perception, this perception is innate and unthinking, it is a continuation of a natural situation, free and carefree, like the "Rosebud" on a sleigh.
So, when we peel off the shell of Hannaford and his actors, and through the analogy of the camera, an original truth that exists in Orson Welles' films is dug up, what he wants to express is still "citizen" Kane "like the most primitive freedom and return to nature, this time, what gives the central fruit of refining is no longer the post-industrial revolution world where capital is rapidly developing and materialistic, but the stream of consciousness that returns to the film's exploration of the essence of film. After being chased and exiled by Hollywood, this stream of consciousness is full of irony and criticism of the filming itself.
When asked if Hannaford was himself, Orson Welles vehemently denied that his aides had said he didn't like others analyzing his films, but that didn't mean Orson Welles Essence is escaping this question. Having lived through the years between darlings and outcasts, and a career of chasing and exile, he no longer needs to earn respect in his films, and perhaps only time can judge those works.
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