SF STATE MAGAZINE -- Although Orson Welles’ first movie for a Hollywood studio, Citizen Kane, is often called the best ever, as his career evolved the director came to prefer the often-rocky road of independent filmmaking. In fact, one of his last movies — a satire about Hollywood — was never completed and released … until now. The film, The Other Side of the Wind, has been rescued from limbo by Netflix. Not only will cinephiles get to see one of Welles’ final big screen efforts, they’ll get to see the first by School of Cinema Professor Joseph McBride.
“The first words Welles said were, ‘We’re about to start shooting a film — would you like to be in it?’’ McBride says. “I was flabbergasted because I’d never acted before, but shortly I was before his cameras playing a comically earnest film critic and historian, Mister Pister, as I would be for the next six years.”