It seems that with the restoration of Orson Welles’ final film, “The Other Side of the Wind,” there has been a new interest in the man behind the camera.
While several films were made detailing his relationship with that final film, a smaller, more intimate movie was being made off to the side. Or should I say a film that tries to be more intimate, as Mark Cousins consistently narrates the film as a love letter to its subject, using soft vocal tones to offset some of the more exhaustive elements of Orson’s life?
Cousins’ film, The Eyes of Orson Welles, is a strangely fascinating beast to unpack. Though it begins as an excavation of Welles paintings and sketches, it quickly rushes back and forth to compare these sketches to the visual language of his films, then attempts to use both of them to paint a portrait of their creator. The film is an exercise in auteur theory, attempting to take this full body of work, and using his particular visual language, to discover who the man was behind it.
Cousins’ portrayal of Orson seems a far cry from his more recent persona. Instead of focusing on his grandiosity, Cousins almost paints him as a poet, with an eye for immense detail and love in his relationships. This may just be due to Cousins’ own storytelling language, where he chooses to softly speak to Orson, almost as if they were lying next to each other. There’s no attempt in this film to hero worship or witness the man from afar. Rather, Cousins chooses to interrogate Welles, often framing his notes as questions.
With all of this romanticism in the framing device, it’s easy to sometimes lose track of any particular narrative thread. Oftentimes, we switch from movie to art to historical document, with no real thesis unifying the art. Instead of working through any of these individual threads to a natural conclusion, the film zigs, and zags, in a way very similar to some of Welles’ own later works such as F for Fake.
As the movie continues and builds, the nonlinear nature serves as a detriment. There is no “history” to his artistic process. We do not delve with Cousins into researching Welles’ art. Rather, we simply have piece after piece thrown at us. We see how his paintings influenced his movies, and how his life influenced both, but we don’t trace development of any sort. At the end of the film, all that this reviewer felt he learned was “Gee, Orson Welles sure enjoyed sketching.”
However, despite my own qualms with the film, I can see the artistry behind it. Cousins has a very remarkable documentary voice, and the film’s use of archival footage does much to counterbalance his soft voice. A rather remarkable scene occurs midway through the movie when Orson is asked at a Q&A session why he made the changes he did to Kafka’s The Trial. The response, and the entire segment preceding it shows a level of energy and power that often feels missing in Cousins’ documentary. Cousins and Welles are yin and yang in this film, two presences who, though opposing, create a wonderfully complete picture.
The film is now playing in New York.
