Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/cannes-film-festival-2018-netflix-orson-welles-nandita-das-manto-and-metoo-4433459.html
Does the distribution model determine what cinema is? The ongoing war between Netflix and the Cannes film festival – which recently announced its line-up for the coming edition (more on that later) – has brought this question to the forefront. Cannes artistic director Thierry Frémaux said, “Any film in competition should be open to distribution in theatres.” As a film-lover, as someone who’s grown up watching movies on the big screen, one certainly sees where he is coming from. But from another point of view, cinema is defined by the creation – the craft, the making. And a platform like Netflix takes cinema to large numbers, many of whom have opted, consciously, to watch films at home – not simply because they can, but also because not every art-house film plays at a nearby theatre.
Regardless of which side of the divide you fall on, one fallout is that the long-awaited Orson Welles film, The Other Side of the Wind, will not be premiered at the world’s biggest, most prestigious film festival. Welles shot the film in instalments, between 1970 and 1976 – but he could not complete it before he died, in 1985. Over the years, the film’s stature as The Great Unfinished Movie has only grown – along with other what-might-have-beens like Welles’s own Don Quixote production, Alfred Hitchcock’s Kaleidoscope (about a necrophiliac serial killer in New York; about sixty minutes of silent footage is all that exists), Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon and Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis (he called it “a little like an Ayn Rand novel.”).
Netflix acquired the rights to The Other Side of the Wind and funded its completion (if that isn’t cinephilia, what is?), with Peter Bogdanovich serving as executive producer. Bogdanovich was not only a star director in his 1970s heydays (his well-regarded hits include The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon), he was also a Welles acolyte – and his book of conversations with the great filmmaker, This is Orson Welles, rivals the Hitchcock-Truffaut book in its insights into the filmmaking process. This is what Welles said about the gestation of The Other Side of the Wind: “I was sleepless, and then I suddenly thought, ‘I’ve got a story – I’ve worked on it for years – about an old director… My character, Jake Hannaford, is one of the machos, hairy-chests.”
Continued at the link above.
Copyright ©2018 Firstpost.
MANK
April 16, 2018
its ridiculous that Other side of the wind is not shown at Cannes. I have seen all of Welles films on video. never seen a film on the big screen. And ill be watching Other side on video as well, i dont think i will get an opportunity to watch it on big screen even if its released theatrically. so what’s the big deal. In a decade or so, the theatrical distribution model will be almost finished. Netflix and their ilk are the way to the future
We are going to have an even bigger discussion on this subject when Scorsese’s Irishman comes out later this year. whether it will be considered a motion picture or a TV movie, is it going to be nominated for oscars or not?. Imagine the scenario, where a movie with the dream team of Scorsese. De Niro and Pacino with a price tag of 140m$ be considered merely a tv movie.
Even more disappointing is that Terry Gilliam’s long cherished Don Quixote is stuck in limbo again, now after the film is finished and ready for release. Terry is the true successor to Welles as far as bad luck with the big studios and unfinished films go
LikeLike
MANK
April 16, 2018
as far as Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon and Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis goes, man i have burned up the net , reading and watching everything about these unrealized projects. My god what missed opportunities these 2 are. its so disappointing that we dont have those films in our library. i dont know how great they would have been- Coppola had said that he put things in the script that was impossible to pull off even for himself -. They might have ended up like other Passion projects like Scorsese’s Gangs of new york which was a mixed bag of greatness and mediocrity or an utter disaster like Oliver Stone’s Alexander
LikeLike
Madan
April 16, 2018
@MANK: Speaking of De Niro, I caught Wizard of Lies completely by accident on TV last weekend. I had no idea about this film because, of course, it never had q big screen release. And it had De Nuro and Pfeiffer in their best roles in a long time.
LikeLike