The Other Side of The Wind - Legal Difficulties, and Efforts To Complete The Film

Legal Difficulties, and Efforts To Complete The Film

By 1979, forty minutes of the film had been edited by Welles. But in that year, the film experienced serious legal and financial complications. Welles's use of funds from Mehdi Bouscheri, the brother-in-law of the Shah of Iran, became troublesome after the Shah was overthrown. A complex, decades-long legal battle over the ownership of the film ensued, with the original negative remaining in a vault in Paris. At first, the revolutionary government of Ayatollah Khomeini had the film impounded along with all assets of the previous regime. When they deemed the negative worthless, there was extensive litigation as to the ownership of the film. By 1998, many of the legal matters had been resolved and the Showtime cable network had guaranteed "end money" to complete the film.

However, continuing legal complications in the Welles estate and a lawsuit by Welles's daughter, Beatrice Welles, caused the project to be suspended. When Welles died in 1985 he had left many of his assets to his estranged widow Paola Mori, and after her own death in 1986 these were inherited by their daughter Beatrice Welles. However, he had also left various other assets, from his house in Los Angeles to the full ownership and artistic control of all his unfinished film projects, to his longtime companion, mistress and collaborator Oja Kodar, who co-wrote and co-starred in The Other Side of the Wind. Since 1992, Beatrice Welles has claimed in various courts that under California law, she has ownership of all of Orson Welles' completed and incomplete pictures (including those which he did not own the rights of himself in his own lifetime), and The Other Side of the Wind has been heavily affected by this litigation. The Guardian described how she "stifled an attempt by US cable company Showtime and Oja Kodar (Welles's partner in the latter part of his life) to complete The Other Side of the Wind", whilst the Daily Telegraph stated that Beatrice Welles had "blocked" the film. Matters have been exacerbated by much personal animosity between Oja Kodar and Beatrice Welles - Beatrice blames Kodar for causing the break-up of her parents' marriage, while Kodar blames Beatrice for attempting to block the screening or re-release of a number of her father's works, including Citizen Kane, Othello, Touch of Evil, Chimes at Midnight and Filming Othello. (The latter claim has been supported by film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, who has accused Beatrice of being solely motivated by profit in claiming royalties from these films, then settling out of court as studios have been keen to avoid costly legal battles.) A clause of Welles' will, specifying that anybody who challenges any part of Kodar's inheritance will be automatically disinherited, remains unenforced - Kodar sought to have it enforced in the 1990s, but could not afford the legal fees as the case dragged on.

While the original negative of the film remains in a Paris vault, two workprint versions of much of the raw footage were privately held - one by Welles' cinematographer the late Gary Graver, who shot the film, and one by Welles himself, who covertly smuggled a copy out of Paris after the legal difficulties started. Welles left his own workprint copy to Kodar, as part of the clause of his will giving her all his unfinished film materials.

Over the years, there have been repeated attempts to clear the remaining legal obstacles to the film's completion, and to obtain the necessary finance. Those most closely involved in these efforts have been the late Gary Graver (the film's cinematographer), Oja Kodar (as Welles's partner, co-writer and co-star of the film, and director of one of its sequences, as well as the copyright holder of Welles' unfinished work), director Peter Bogdanovich (a co-star and investor, although he only wants the return of his $500,000 rather than any share of profits), film critic Joseph McBride (who has a supporting role in the film), and Hollywood producer Frank Marshall, one of whose first jobs in the film business was as Production Manager on the film. Marshall in particular was instrumental in getting several major studios in the late 1990s to watch a rough cut, although most were put off by the film's legal issues.

Before a deal was put together in 1998, Oja Kodar screened Gary Graver's rough cut of the film for a number of famous directors in the 1980s and 1990s, seeking their help in completing the film, but they all turned it down for various reasons. These included John Huston (who was by then terminally ill with emphysemia and was unable to breathe without oxygen tubes), Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Clint Eastwood and George Lucas. Lucas reportedly claimed to be baffled by the footage, saying he didn't know what to do with it, and that it was too avant garde for a commercial audience. Kodar subsequently accused both Eastwood and Stone of plagiarism from the film, citing Eastwood's performance in Unforgiven (1993) as a copy of John Huston's, including one line of dialogue ("I'm Marvin P. Fassbender." "Of course you are."), and Stone's adoption of the film's distinctive rapidly cut editing and camera style for his JFK (1991), Nixon (1994) and Natural Born Killers (1994). Given the film's unreleased status, it is impossible to verify how accurate her accusation of plagiarism is.

Peter Bogdanovich, a director in his own right as well as a Welles expert and film historian, announced in 2004 that he planned to restore the film and release it soon. He cited a conversation before Welles' death in which "Orson said to me, 'If anything happens to me, you will make sure you finish it, won't you?' It was, of course, a compliment and also a terrible moment. He pressed me to give some assurance." Details of the release, however, were murky at best. A common reservation was that while raw footage exists for the entire film, editing the remaining footage in Welles's style may be difficult. However, Welles himself finished editing between 40 and 50 minutes of the film and reportedly left behind extensive editing notes for the rest of the film.

A turning point came in 1998, when Mehdi Bouscheri changed his mind, and was convinced by the film's surviving makers that his best hope of recouping his money was to see the film released. He therefore compromised on his earlier claims to owning two-thirds of the film, and reduced the share he claimed. This resolved several of the film's legal problems. Bouscheri's death in 2006 has not affected matters, as his heirs similarly accept that the best hope of any return on Bouscheri's investment is for the film to finally be released. The 1998 deal struck with Bouscheri led to funding being put up by the Showtime network - until the Beatrice Welles lawsuit later that year stalled matters once more.

A new deal was struck in 2007, in which the three parties previously involved (Oja Kodar as the heir of Welles' unfinished work, Mehdi Bouscheri's heirs, and the Showtime Network) agreed to pay off Beatrice Welles with an undisclosed sum and/or share of profits from the film. At a March 29th 2007 appearance during the sixteenth Florida Film Festival, Peter Bogdanovich responded to a question about the status of the film. He announced that the four parties involved had come to an agreement earlier that week and that the film would be edited and released in the very near future. Bogdanovich also stated in an April 2, 2007, press report that a deal to complete the film was "99.9% finished," with a theatrical release planned for late 2008. However, in March, 2008, Bogdanovich said that there was over a year's worth of work left to be done.

In April 2008, Bogdanovich filmed the opening of the Los Angeles vault where Oja Kodar had kept the workprint material cut by Welles, along with other positive film materials. (However, the full original negative remained in France.) Throughout the rest of 2008, some work was done on the Los Angeles material. In June 2008, the Showtime Network set up an editing suite in Los Angeles, to begin preliminary logging in work on all of the material. Bogdanovich personally directed the work, Tim King was the Showtime Executive in charge of post-production, Sasha Welles (a nephew of Oja Kodar) worked on the production as an Assistant Editor, and internships were advertised for people to work on cataloguing the film materials. However, unspecified legal complications throughout this time prevented the opening of the Paris vault containing the full ten hours of original negatives, some of which had not even been seen by Welles in his lifetime.

However, work ground to a halt in December 2008, after a legal challenge from Paul Hunt (who had worked on the film in the 1970s as an Assistant Editor, Assistant Camera Operator, Gaffer and Line Producer) and film producer, Sanford Horowitz represented by attorney, Patty Mayer of Mitchell, Silberberg, and Knuff and claimed their ownership from an agreement signed by Medhi Boushehri for his ownership rights. Hunt had been a valued friend and worker for Orson during and after the shoot. Paul had even raised the funds for Orson's magic show produced in LA. He had many conversations with Orson and even planned a production of Macbeth with Paul and Horowitz set as producer.

Oja Kodar, who had been Orson's long time girl friend and partner knew of Paul Hunt's devotion to Orson and his ability to make things happen. So in 2006 Hunt received a call from Kodar. She was very concerned about a proposed deal Beatrice Welles had made with Showtime to turn the uncompleted version of the TOSOTW into a "kind of" documentary with the intention of never allowing it to be released as a completed theatrical film. Kodar was very close to the situation and because of her trust in Paul Hunt she guided him as to who controlled the rights and what kind of deal they would accept.

Hunt and Horowitz formed a company “Horowitz Hunt LLC” of Malibu CA, and within three months had a signed deal with Medhi Boushehri. On 8/6/07 Horowitz Hunt LLC filed with the US Copyright office (view filing at www.copyright.gov) Medhi Boushehri’s signed agreement to transfer ownership rights to the Motion Picture rights of The Other Side of The Wind, registration# PAu003361084. Horowitz and Hunt's goal was to release 2 versions of TOSOTW; a completed Theatrical version and another (Director’s cut) original edited version just the way Orson Welles left it. Horowitz Hunt LLC then began negotiations with Oja Kodar to acquire her rights. They were unsuccessful in coming to terms with Kodar to acquire her rights when Beatrice Welles put an injunction on access to the negative stored at the LTC Film Vault in Paris, French by proclaiming an inheritance claim. The attorney for Boushehri never sent in their documentation nullifying Beatrice's claim and thus the project stalled once again. Suddenly Paul Hunt passed away in 2011.

In 2011 Sandy Horowitz and financier John Nicholas launched a company Project Welles The Other Side LLC and website www.projectwelles.com to attract additional capital and complete negotiations with Kodar and Beatrice Welles. Their plan beginning in 2013 is to present an uncluttered account of events, make peace with all the players, present their chain of title compiled by the law firm of Mitchell, Silberberg & Knuff and gain access to the film negatives stored in the LTC Film vault in Paris.

The above legal challenge from Paul Hunt through Horowitz Hunt LLC resulted in the closure of the Showtime editing suite in December 2008, and a fresh deadlock as Showtime put the project on hold. A piece in Variety in February, 2009, stated that Showtime was still willing to pay for its completion, but they wanted to be sure all the materials exist. The negative still resided in a lab in Paris, unseen since the 1970s, but the permission from all the estates needed to be obtained before access to the negative could be granted. Bogdanovich commented, “It’s going to happen in the next month or so. We’re aiming for Cannes (in 2010). Everybody wants it to happen. It’s film history. It will be something for it to finally be seen after all these years.”

In January, 2010, during a public Q&A after a screening of one of his films in Columbus, Ohio, Bogdanovich stated that the film had been examined and was in good condition, but "Orson left such a mess with who owned what," and wondered whether editing the film would even be possible. (These comments were made a year before the death of Paul Hunt removed the last remaining legal obstacle to the film's copyright status.) Bogdanovich indicated that the original negative is in excellent condition, with the picture quality being far superior to the poor-quality workprints of the publicly available scenes described above.

A report in The Guardian in January, 2011, suggested, once again, that a legal settlement was close and that a release would be possible in the near future. This report, however, was accused by Welles' partner Oja Kodar of being a hoax.

As of 2011, the situation is that all copyright difficulties have theoretically been resolved between the respective parties. However, the Showtime network which had previously pledged to provide funding for the project has refused to specify what the budget would be. Oja Kodar has stated that she does not want a repeat of the debacle over Welles' posthumously completed Don Quixote, which was universally panned after being cheaply put together from badly decayed, incomplete footage which was sloppily edited, badly dubbed, and often incoherent. As such, she will not grant permission to proceed until she has received assurances that the project will be done professionally, and to a high standard, with an adequate budget.

Furthermore, in March 2012, Deadline reported the retirement of Matthew Duda, the Showtime executive who had championed funding for The Other Side of the Wind since 1998. It is unclear whether his successors at Showtime retain Duda's enthusiasm for the project, although there has been no suggestion that the existing agreement has been withdrawn.

Crucially, sometime between 2008 and 2011, Peter Bogdanovich was finally granted access to the Paris vault, and viewed the original negative material, which he confirmed was in excellent condition, and of far better quality than the scratchy workprint material Welles had worked from. In April 2012, he told Canada's Toro magazine: "We’ve looked at the footage and it’s great. I cut two scenes together that hadn’t been finished. There are a few scenes that Orson already cut together and then for the scenes that I cut, he had picked takes but just hadn’t assembled them. So we just used his takes and I could tell what he had in mind. It’s very different than anything else he made and quite strange. I don’t think any of us will know what it is until it’s done. I don’t know when it will come out, but I think one day it will."