A Final Cut for Orson: 40 Years in the Making (2018) User Reviews

The genial makings of the movie that couldn't die

[Rodrigo_Amaro · 10/10 · 31 December 2022]

Although I'm yet to see Orson Welles' "The Other Side of the Wind" since it had such a legendary reputation for over 40 years since it never got completed in Welles lifetime and just like his very first "Citizen Kane", of which we quiver in anticipation due to its importance and legacy (but I'm a big enthusiast of this masterpiece) I have to bow to this short documentary due to many positive things it shows about the makings of a movie. From the process of gathering material considered lost, spread on vaults all over the world, putting them in order and try to find the specific way Welles wanted to edit his picture and then create new things out of the blue imagining the filmmaker's vision, a Frankenstein of sorts, it has to be something to be marveled at. I simply loved this documentary, a fascinating making of that beats many similar past projects out there.

We ought thank the tenacity of Welles friend Peter Bogdanovich all over the decades in keeping his promise to deliver the picture whatever it takes. Many legal obstacles and many mysteries surrounding of what really existed of the movie made it an impossible task to finally get something done but it was solved, bit by bit and very slowly and mission was accomplished.

I was deeply moved and fascinated by the whole process of bringing the picture back to light, going from the restauration of the prints, the amazing technology involved in rescuing the sound and the images; the new effects that had to be created to match with the old picture; and the incredible music creation by legendary Michel Legrand, since how could people understand Welles ideas for the picture's music - they didn't had a post-production in those terms, so many things had to imagined, the feeling of the movie and also to reflect a different period. Legrand's ideas and rehearsals are a beautiful thing to experience. There's so much that could be said but I better stop here.

If you enjoy the filmmaking process and how everything's done before the ultimate material comes, this documentary is perfection in order to understand the mechanism of cinema. It contains great technical moments, reunions and rehearsals, and fabulous interviews with folks who were involved with the film back in the day and the many newcomers who helped shape the film that we had. 10/10.

I am not sold

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 9 December 2018]

The title "A Final Cut for Orson: 40 Years in the Making" is pretty telling here as this Netflix documentary from 2018 depicts the process of how Orson Welles' final film was recently restored by several people who had the intention to make the outcome as convincing as possible. And while watching this process was not too uninteresting, I am really not sold here. If Welles could watch the film, would he accept it as one of his own? I am having severe doubts, even if the presence of the likes of Oscar nominee Peter Bogdanovich surely helps the matter and there are some established filmmakers in here you could say. At under 40 minutes it is not a long watch by any means and the director is Ryan Suffern, who worked on many other films about films. This one here could be the work that makes the biggest splash and an oscar nomination may not be entirely out of the picture. So yeah, if you care about the technical movie making process and about Orson Welles, then maybe give this one a go. I must say I am not a huge fan of either, so maybe my perception here is a bit biased and subjective, even if I think that on some occasions it was very interesting to listen to the interviewees. Maybe the highlight for me was instead seeing John Huston, already at a relatively old age and I just adore his screen presence. So maybe it would be a good choice for me to check out the finished film. I guess it could be a good watch as a double feature together with this documentary as seeing a Welles movie released in 2018 is nothing really expected to be honest. All in all, I still give it a thumbs-down as it did not really feel particularly interesting and people with zero connections to making film themselves should better skip the watch here as this is not for rookies. Thumbs down.