Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1061972
78 CINEMONTAGE / Q4 2018 movies during the shoot in France," Silvi tells CineMontage. "He rented a villa and we stayed there. We had the cutting rooms." He and Welles worked on a variety of unfinished projects, including an adaptation of Don Quixote (1972) and the thriller The Deep (1970), but also significant portions of Wind. "We were watching a lot of the dailies for The Other Side of the Wind," the editor remembers. "One day we watched for two or three hours… There was quite a lot of material, but it wasn't finished whatsoever." The overall shape of Wind was in place then, but large chunks were absent. "Story- wise, it was all there, but there were still some holes," Silvi comments. "I know he was saying, 'I have to do this; I have to do that.'" Throughout the process, the editor paid close attention to the master at work. "To be honest with you, he was doing all the editing," Silvi concedes. "I was totally intimidated. Most of the time, I was listening." The editor also learned from the director to not take the work too seriously. "We used to work for one hour," he remembers. "He would say, 'Okay, Roberto, do this cut from here to there.' In those days, we used to work with the guillotine. He said, 'Oh my God, that's a great cut. Let's go and celebrate it and have something to drink. That's the best cut of the day.' "He put me at ease immediately," Silvi continues." I used to call him 'Mr. Welles.' He said, 'No, call me Orson.' He would speak in Italian — his beautiful voice in Italian. I have a great memory of him." Welles seems to have been more focused on completing Wind by 1973, when editor Yves Deschamps entered the director's orbit in Paris. The director's main editor at the time, Marie- Sophie Dubus — who had cut his essay film F for Fake (1973) — had injured her arm, so Deschamps was asked to work on introductory segments for the Welles-hosted ITV series Orson Welles' Great Mysteries (1973- 1974). "It was the kind of thing Hitchcock used to do for his TV program," he explains to CineMontage. "I must say that it worked. He was very happy with it." With Dubus still sidelined, Welles invited Deschamps to start cutting Wind, confiding in the editor that he was in need of a producer. "I said, 'It's impossible that somebody like you is without a producer, Roberto Silvi today. Marie-Sophie Dubus in the 1970s. Courtesy of Quentin Devlay Yves Deschamps.