Note: In addition to placing in the top 10 in the Best Picture category, the Muriel Awards have also chosen to give The Other Side of the Wind and its producers, Filip Jan Rymsza and Frank Marshall, an honorary Muriel Award for their work in bringing Orson Welles' legendary project to completion.
"Orson Welles' The Other Side of the Wind has been seen by cinephiles as a lost or unfinished masterpiece that it has achieved urban legend status. Every so often there would be an abortive effort to bring the project to fruition, only for the effort to fizzle out just as quickly. I remember attending a talk by Welles' cinematography Gary Graver back in 2006 - before I was married, before I was a dad, and when the Muriels were in their infancy. Graver mentioned his recent meetings with Showtime to finish the film, and showed us a few scenes of edited footage from the project. We all sat, transfixed, simultaneously excited for the prospect of the movie finally seeing the light of day, and also resigned to the idea that, if these plans were anything like the others, this might be all of The Other Side of the Wind we'd ever end up seeing.
"As it turns out, we were right to skeptical - Showtime dropped the deal, and Graver died a few years later. But thanks to the deep pockets of Netflix and the tireless efforts of producers Filip Jan Rymsza and Frank Marshall (the latter of whom had assisted on the film's original shoot), The Other Side of the Wind was finally, astonishingly, completed for cinephiles all over the world to see this past year. And, quite frankly, it's awesome. One can argue until they're blue in the mouth as to whether the film could have possibly lived up to the mystique it accrued over the past half-century. But the fact that it's really, truly out there in the world now, in spite of everything that's happened, is something of a miracle.
"I could talk all day about what makes The Other Side of the Wind such a major and vital piece of work, and one that proves that, even thirty-plus years after his death, Orson Welles still has plenty to teach all filmmakers who care to pay attention. But there's nothing I could say that the film itself couldn't say twice as well as I ever could. I'll just say that, with all the garbage that the world had to offer in the year 2018, it also gave us a brand-spanking-new Orson Welles movie. And that, like the fella said, ain't nothin'." ~ Paul Clark
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