Hopper/Welles

In an interview about The Other Side of the Wind (2018), Orson Welles said: Supposing, during the course of the picture, that it turns out that it’s more interesting hearing the actors and myself talking than making the picture. That will be the picture! We will talk. Although he quickly abandoned this idea (Chabrol, Mazursky, Jaglom, and Hopper, who were asked to take part in the project, appear on-screen for only a moment), it was developed beautifully in a documentary produced by Filip Jan Rymsza. Bob Murawski edited it from an interview that the director of Citizen Kane (1941) conducted in 1970 with Dennis Hopper, who was on the rise thanks to Easy Rider (1969), a debut that made the charismatic actor one of the New Hollywood’s most important filmmakers. Welles, who, despite his megalomania, never appears on-screen, talks with Hopper, the focal point, about editing, magic, religion, and the films of Buñuel and Antonioni, among other things. The most interesting moments are, however, when the insightful Welles criticizes the maker of such a nonconformist film for not speaking out on the issues of rebellion and politics. It is this thread that makes the conversation from half a century ago so relevant today.