Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
>> Jospeh McBride: I was a film student at the University of Wisconsin Madison
in 1966 and it was such an important event for me
that I remember the date, it was September 22nd and I was
in my first film class, Richard Burn was the professor
and he showed Citizen Kane, it was an introduction
to film class and before that my goal was to become a novelist.
I was a journalist from an early age and I was planning
to be a journalist, a novelist and I saw Citizen Kane
and it just knocked me out
and suddenly thought ok I'm gonna make films
and I'm gonna direct a film by the time I'm 25 like Wells did
and I'm gonna write about films, it all sort of hit me at once
but I got to LA and I went to a book store and the guy
who ran the book store knew Peter Bogdanovich
who was somebody I admired because he was doing the kind
of things that I wanted to do: He was interviewing directors
and he had just made his first film Targets,
which I liked a lot.
So I got his phone number and called him up and he said I'm
on the other line with Orson, could you hold on
and I thought wow that's something.
So then he came back and said Orson would
like to meet you and I said really?
He said he's in LA and he'd like you to call him tomorrow at 5:30
and he gave me the number and in the meantime I arranged to go
to Peter's house, I don't know if it was that night
or the next night and I went to his house and pumped him
for information cause he knew all the inside stuff about Wells
and Ford and he was very helpful so I called Wells
from Schwab's Drugstore and the first thing he said was we're
about to start shooting a film would you like to be in it
and I was kind of stunned because I'd never acted
at all unless you count being an altar boy
when I was that's a form of acting,
a very brysonian [phonetic] kind of acting,
but I was stunned you know and all I could think
of saying was something really stupid,
"I said is this going be a feature length film?"
and he laughed and said well we certainly hope so and actually
that turned out to be a smart question inadvertently
because it's still not a feature length film, we're still working
on trying to get this film completed you know.
So I was playing myself basically a spoof of myself,
a film critic named Mr. Pister and it was kind
of like a Dickensian group of characters who were kind
of satirical figures and Mr. Pister was supposed
to be a fanatical film buff
who was following John Houston's character around,
asking him typical film buff questions that were kind
of arcane and absurd sometimes and I was supposed
to be writing a book on this guy and I was pestering him
with questions like Bogdanovich would do to Wells
and we couldn't improvise on camera.
I tried that a couple of times in a very clumsy, non-actor way
and he would get mad at me for adding something.
I was trying to add something unexpected
but he didn't really want that.
But he would rehearse and rehearse and rehearse and so
but he treated me in a way, he bullied me a lot.
He would give me a hard time and he was harsh when I would screw
up a line or he would be demanding and paternal
and bullying but he felt that I needed that because he wanted
to keep me in a state of agitation and insecurity
and nervousness because that's what the character was.
Three years into the shooting,
one of the crew members said they were watching rushes
and I came on the screen at the drive-in scene, which we filmed
on a sound stage, with a lot of fog
and I was holding a tape recorder, which I carried
around through the film and Wells looked at the shot
and he said, "High Priest of the Cinema" cause I was looking
like this at the screen and he said, "Joel looks good up there
but then he always looks good on screen."
So a crew member told me this and I suddenly relaxed
and this was after three years of being nervous,
I suddenly had a good time for the next three years
because I thought he approved of what I was doing
but he never told me that face to face, he never said
that I was great or anything, he wanted to keep me wondering.
So there were always things like that going
on that were a lot of fun.
Wells made the set very entertaining.
He believed in making the actors happy, except me I guess
but it was fun for me too because it was entertaining,
he would tell stories, he would laugh a lot,
you know I would get to sit and talk to all
of these great people and ask them stories about their past
and it was this constant flow of young and old people there
and so the whole thing was like a party
and the food was fabulous.
He had French chef's making food for us,
although then the budget got low after a while
and we started having pizza
but it was always you know you were treated really well,
you were worked really hard, the hours were very long so the myth
about Wells being this fat, lazy guy who just sat around
and did wine commercials was completely wrong
because he was tremendously hard working,
fast, shooting director.
He would work 18 hours a day and do you know the first day
of shooting 27 set ups, you know tremendous speed,
young crew who he kept on their toes and I think he put me
on this film partly to have a historian on the set
because he was concerned that so many people had lied
and distorted about his work, he wanted somebody
to really chronicle this production and that was me
so I've been writing about it you know in my first book
on Wells and then I wrote an article about it for a magazine
and then my latest book on him, What Ever Happened To Orson
Wells? A Portrait of an Independent Career is
about a third on The Other Side of the Wind and it's kind
of memoir slash critical study.
>> Interviewer: In the book it mentioned a deal with Showtime
that possibly other side you know might get put together
and you know all the contracts might get signed
but where's it stand now?
>> Joseph McBride: This is a question that people have been asking
since 1970 when I was, it's now 40 years
since we started shooting this film, it's kind of hard
to believe that this major film
of Wells' later work is not seen by the public.
Parts of it have been shown on YouTube
and the Munich Film Museum has a 30 minute condensation
to the film that they show around and so it's not
like it's completely unknown but it's all there to be finished.
There's a debate about whether you should finish it
in Wells' absence or just put out the parts that he edited,
which was 41 minutes and do a making of documentary
and show other footage.
I think we should finish it according to the best
of our understanding of his plan but I'm sort
of pessimistic unfortunately.
When I was working on the film Mercedes McCambridge
who was a wonderful actress told me and she was in touch
with people and she had worked with Wells in the radio
and she said you know when you work
with Orson you keep your costume in a box in the attic
in case you get called back for more shooting
so I took her seriously and I'll show you I have the costume
in a box right here, this is the actual suit that I wore
in the film and my coat that I wore, the overcoat
and the whole thing is all ready to go but I don't think I'd fit
into this suit but I keep it in a box in the attic just
in case I get called back.
A few years ago in the 90s I was asleep on my couch it was
about 9:30 in the morning and the phone rang,
it was Gary Graver and he said Joe,
we need you for more shooting on The Other Side of the Wind
and I automatically said "ok" and he said "I'm kidding."
Jesus Christ you known this was 1997 or something
but I was ready to go because when you're working
on this film you have to be ready.
Maybe I'll do some looping at some point
but if they need me back physically they're gonna have
to do it with James Cameron will have to do some CGI work
or maybe my son could step in or something
but at least I have the costume for Cameron
to create you know some kind of avatar or something.
[ music ]