The Other Side of the Wind

Set some time in the early 1970s, the film opens by describing the final day of Jake Hannaford, an aging Hollywood director, who was killed in a car crash on his 70th birthday, with narration from an elderly Brooks Otterlake, who had been a protégé of Hannaford's. Just before his death, Hannaford was trying to revive his waning career by making an experimental film, laden with gratuitous sex scenes and violence, with mixed results. At the time of Hannaford's birthday party, this film (titled The Other Side of the Wind) has been left unfinished after its star stormed off the set, for reasons not immediately apparent to the audience. A screening of some incomprehensible parts of Hannaford's unfinished film takes place, to attract "end money" from studio boss Max David. Hannaford himself is absent, and a loyal member of his entourage, the former child star Billy Boyle, makes an inept attempt to describe what the film is about. Intercut during this, various groups are seenn setting out for Hannaford's party at an Arizona ranch. Hannaford arrives with a young Otterlake, a commercially successful director with a talent for mimicking celebrities, who credits much of his success to his close study of Hannaford. Many journalists attending the party brandish cameras and ask invasive questions, eventually querying Hannaford's sexuality and whether he has long been a closeted homosexual, in spite of his macho public persona. Hannaford has a history of seducing the wife or girlfriend of each of his leading men, but maintains a strong attraction to the leading men themselves. Several party guests comment on the conspicuous absence of John Dale, the star of Hannaford's latest film, whom Hannaford first discovered when Dale was attempting suicide by jumping into the Pacific Ocean off the Mexican coast. As the party proceeds, Hannaford finds out that Dale's suicide attempt had been faked, and that he had actually set off to Mexico to find Hannaford. Guests are shown more scenes from the film at the ranch's private screening room. One scene makes clear why Dale left the film—he stormed off the set in the middle of a sex scene in which he was being goaded by Hannaford off-screen. As the party continues, Hannaford gets progressively drunker. He is washing his face in the bathroom when he breaks down in front of Otterlake, asking for the young director's help to revive his career. A series of power outages in the middle of the party interrupts the screening. The party continues by lantern light and eventually reconvenes to an empty drive-in cinema, where the last portion of the film is screened. Having realized at the party that Otterlake is not going to financially support Hannaford's new film, the two have a mournful last exchange, realizing that their friendship is at an end. Intrusive journalist Juliette Rich has asked Hannaford the most explicit questions of all about his sexuality. At this moment, Hannaford slaps Rich in drunken outrage, while a drunken Boyle mounts an impassioned defense of the director. As dawn breaks at the ranch, Dale is walking around the mostly empty house, having only just arrived the morning after. He finally arrives at the drive-in just as a drunken Hannaford is leaving and asks him to get in the sports car with him, but Dale does not. Hannaford drives away, leading to his fatal car accident. Hannaford's symbolic film finishes screening to a near-empty drive-in. The only person still watching is the actress who starred in it. She watches the final scene, and drives off as Hannaford's closing narration says: "Who knows? Maybe you can stare too hard at something, huh? Drain out the virtue, suck out the living juice. You shoot the great places and the pretty people, all those girls and boys – shoot 'em dead." Hannaford's experimental film-within-a-film, shot as a spoof of European arthouse cinema typified by Antonioni, and performed without any dialogue, is visually striking, but has very little narrative coherence. The following scenes are shown, in this order: A graphic lesbian steamroom scene, rapidly intercut, featuring Oja Kodar, which Hannaford is in the process of filming. Several expressionistically shot chase scenes between Kodar and Bob Random (playing John Dale) amid the skyscrapers of Century City, Los Angeles, with various optical effects, in which it is not immediately apparent whose character is chasing whom. At the end of these scenes, he buys a doll for her, and she rebuffs him, driving off into the night with her boyfriend. The Actress and Dale meet again in a nightclub. She steps out into the toilets, where hippies are engaged in various sex acts, and changes her clothes, before coming back in again. He gives her the doll. She produces a pair of scissors, rapidly cutting the doll's hair, then cutting out its eyes. They step out of the nightclub into her boyfriend's 1968 Ford Mustang fastback. The car takes off in the rainy night, and as the boyfriend drives, the pair have sex in the passenger seat next to him. After a few minutes the boyfriend stops the car, grabs the girl, and attempts to seduce her himself, but she rebukes him. The Actress and Dale are tossed out of the car, and Dale, with his pants halfway down, lands in a large puddle. The next morning arrives and Kodar's totally naked character has found shelter in the second story of a house. From there, she climbs carefully out of an open window, drops to the ground, and wanders to an empty railroad car, where she finds Dale asleep on the floor. Enhanced by optical effects, more chase scenes ensue around the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios back-lot (including Kodar's character going into Andy Hardy's iconic house). A sex scene on raw bedsprings left on the studio back-lot, while Hannaford gives Dale directions off-screen. After some awkward badgering, a naked Dale decides he's had enough and leaves the set. Hannaford watches him go and calls out through the megaphone ..."goodbye Johnny Dale." The production is now without a leading man. A scene—which Hannaford's manager 'The Baron' complains is presented out of sequence—in which a now-clothed John Dale walks alone around a dusty, windy studio back-lot. The final scene: a nude Oja Kodar attacks a giant phallic symbol with a pair of scissors. It deflates and collapses in front of her.