Cyril Connolly famously noted that “whom the gods wish to destroy, they first call promising,” an observation Orson Welles fought his whole post-“Citizen Kane” life. But Welles’ legend as one of cinema’s true geniuses — and most fervid champions of its worth as art — is also such that when he leaves enough footage behind from an unfulfilled project, others are only too eager to see it through, to celebrate him anew. Even 40 years later.
“The Other Side of the Wind,” which Welles filmed between 1970 and 1976, and built around a riotous, revealing 70th birthday party for an exiled filmmaker (John Huston) engineering a comeback, was always the unfinished work most likely to see fruition.