It’s always bittersweet to get a lifetime achievement award, of course, when your lifetime is still underway. In fact, Welles was one of the youngest recipients of the award, only 59 years old.
He took the opportunity to show footage from his work-in-progress, The Other Side of the Wind, hoping to raise money to complete the film. He lived for another ten years, but he never did finish it. I own a book about the making (or the almost-but-not-quite making) of the film, but I’ve never read it.
I don’t need to know why I can’t see the film; I want to see the damned film!
There have been many twists and turns over the last thirty-plus years, but, amazingly enough, here we are (unless something else goes wrong…).
It’s not going to be as Welles would have finished it, of course, but this is as good as we’re going to get. and, after these decades of waiting, that’s pretty exciting.
