Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1061972
83 Q4 2018 / CINEMONTAGE fully cut, but others remained as dailies or featured alternate takes. "Orson was big on going back and looking at other takes," he comments. "Most of it had been gone through, but there were definitely sections that weren't touched yet." When working with Braun, Welles prioritized projects that he was actively trying to complete or sell — for example, a talk show pilot with Angie Dickinson and the Muppets, or his essay film on the art of illusion, Orson Welles' The Magic Show (1985). Yet the director and editor still found time to re-examine scenes from Wind. "I remember the bus scene, where the crew people are being taken with the mannequins of John Dale [Bob Random]," Braun recounts. "I remember working on that and Orson wanting me to put takes back-to-back of certain lines so that he could see what another reading would be like. But he wanted me to cut it loosely so that he could tighten it later." Despite the age and experience gap between the two, the editor also felt free to make suggestions — gently, of course. For example, Braun felt that some of the film-within-the-film scenes were cut too fast. "Some of the scenes needed to be fast, like the party scene where it was just like a cacophony of visuals," he says. "But to differentiate the two films, I thought maybe the film-within-the-film needed to be stylistically slowed down a little bit." And, if Welles had managed to shepherd Wind into release before his death in 1985, Braun was ready to help put the film into shape. "If we had finished it, it would have been a huge undertaking," the editor suggests. THE ORIGINAL EDITORS' REACTIONS While working on Wind in 2018, Murawski sought feedback from several of the project's original editors. For their part, they praise the undertaking to bring the long-delayed project to audiences. "Bob's contribution to finishing this — Orson's last film and the final of his legacy — was outstanding," Braun says. "I always know something must be good when I can't think of how I would've been able to do better. As I said to Bob after seeing it the first time, 'Amazing work. You've really done Orson proud!'" Deschamps declined to finish Wind after Welles' death. "I said, 'I won't'; first, because I promised to him not to touch one single frame without him," the Frenchman recalls. "Second — the main reason — is that only Orson would have been able to say what he wanted to do with that." Yet he too appreciates the efforts of Murawski and his colleagues: "I really admired the patience, the talent and the perseverance of Bob to go until the end of the process," he says. Silvi also applauds the editor's handiwork — and contribution to film history. "I think Bob Murawski did excellent work, considering all the problems the movie had from the beginning," he opines. "I'm very happy that there finally will be, I hope, recognition for two of the most important figures of the cinema industry: Orson Welles and John Huston." Adds Ecclesine, "I'm sure Welles would be happy that it's finally getting out there. He's smiling from wherever he happens to be sitting at this point." f The guesthouse, right, of the Stanley Avenue residence in Los Angeles in which Orson Welles and Jonathon Braun worked on editing The Other Side of the Wind. Many thanks to Dan Harries, owner of the property, for allowing us to photograph there!