“I never had to clear my throat during the McCarthy era,” says a commanding voice. Dennis Hopper replies, “But you are a fascist!” The voice resumes, “No, I am not Hannaford now. I am talking as …(inaudible)”. The booming baritone is that of Orson Welles, in conversation with actor-filmmaker Dennis Hopper during the filming of The Other Side of the Wind, in November 1970. The film that was in the making for 48 years before its release in 2018.
The new footage titled Hopper/Welles – which premiered at Venice and now at the 58th New York Film Festival – has been put together by those behind Welles’s final film, producer Filip Jan Rymsza and editor Bob Murawski. Almost at every turn, Welles assumes the role of J.J. Jake Hannaford, the fascist, racist Hollywood great, the protagonist of The Other Side of the Wind played by John Huston, and this confuses Hopper, as it does the viewer.
Throughout the conversation, Welles says some objectionable things that make sense only later when we realize he was talking as Hannaford, but he is incisive in grilling Hopper about his political leanings. Welles is fascinated by Hopper, fresh from the success of Easy Rider – a counterculture hit marrying the hippie-commune era with the oncoming volatile 70s – and its independent existence as an escape out of the Hollywood studio system, a game familiar to Welles and the brand of freedom he would admire.
The conversation has the same eerie atmosphere of Jake Hannaford’s birthday party in the film, monochrome with the camera wobbly and moving between Hopper, his aides and the food on the table. Hopper checks himself before continuing, landing on the right camera to throw a glance and then shifting to Welles again. There are two cameras on Hopper, a woman with a clapperboard often accosts the scene in the middle of his answers and announces “camera 8A” and hops back. The film’s title on the board is ‘Hopper Nite’. The interview is impromptu and unrehearsed, but the conversation planned. Hopper lights up several Marlboros to get through and the focus remains on him even when Welles is talking.
Welles is a figure that’s content to stay in the shadows – not a phrase one would usually associate with the legendary figure – but his presence is baronial as ever, Hopper’s eyes tracking him as he moves around the room and only the chiaroscuro giving him away when the camera switches on either side. “He is a lion,” someone says in The Other Side of the Wind about Hannaford. “Lions are cats. He is a cat that walks like a bear,” says another observer. Welles was living the character in 1970.
Also Read: Exploring the Final Years of Orson Welles, the Errant Genius Cast Out by Hollywood
In Hopper/Welles, the master and apprentice exchange notes on everything from editing, politics, god and cinema as magic. They talk about boredom as a social plight. “La Notte got to me,” Hopper declares and adds that L’Avventura put him to sleep. Hopper comes off a little rattled but manages to hold his own. They talk easy in the beginning about what films are about and the allure in European neo-realist cinema of the previous decade. Hopper describes editing in glorious, savage imagery. He says it is like having a child and then cutting its arms off. “Editor is a false word,” Welles agrees. He calls them cutters and therefore Murawski is credited as ‘cutter’ in Hopper/Welles. Films are made and then remade in the editing room, a rare topic both reach a consensus on.
Hopper/Welles has the air of two filmmakers, two critics, two cinephiles sparring over their values, what makes a good film – a concerted effort or magic – and one egging the other to say something nasty. It speaks to the instincts of narcissism in extremely creative people, Welles likening the director to god.
The Hannaford impression especially helps Welles in this case, he talks of the hippies and advocates for people making bombs. It’s shocking but then we realize that this whole conversation was supposed to be part of the film Welles was attempting to make at the time. Hopper isn’t one for aesthetics. He believes to tell a story, sometimes a filmmaker must be less artistic. “This is supposed to be an emotional movie, what am I doing looking at the shots!” a rare instance when Hopper stands up to the legend in front of him. Welles equates sacrificing aesthetics to sacrificing efficacy.
The most interesting parts of the conversation are when Welles is trying to get Hopper to make political statements. As an intensely political figure, who was blacklisted during the McCarthy era, it is no wonder that Welles wants to get to that side of Hopper, someone he thinks could take his place in Hollywood in the near future. But Hopper doesn’t relent, opening up only when he talks of the reaction in the theatres at the end of Easy Rider, when the two bikers get shot. He says the white southerners cheered during that scene, and in Southern California, they shouted, “Kill the pigs.” That disappointed him. “We are a country full of outlaws. Cheating the American tax structure is just as bad as supplying drugs.” Something that prompts Welles to call Hopper a leftist, much to the latter’s amusement.
Yet, Hopper isn’t forthcoming. He denies any intellectual superiority and refrains from counting himself as part of the bourgeoisie, he is just a contented man. Welles calls it a copout. “You can’t talk to leftists these days, can you? They don’t admit to it.” It’s clear that Hopper isn’t as naive as he comes across and he doesn’t want to admit to anything on camera. “You think you can change the world by making movies?”
Hopper/Welles is less of a conversation and more of a lecture from Welles who is aware that his time has come to pass, and he needs to groom the young ones to be as openly political as he used to be. There is a mix of hope and disappointment in his voice, impressed with what Hopper can do and unsatisfied with his refusal to speak his mind. Hopper displays an unhealthy brand of cynicism towards political Hollywood stars like Jane Fonda, questioning the sincerity in her activism. But Fonda’s candour is exactly what Welles expects from Hopper, even if he brings out the derision in his voice usually reserved for Pauline Kael. “If you just keep making movies then who is going to make the changes? Except Jane Fonda, which is a solemn thought.” Despite Welles’s insistence, Hopper repeats that his part is only making movies and change is coming. It did come with a little help from Hollywood artistes like Jane Fonda who didn’t clear their throats in front of any establishment.
Aditya Shrikrishna is a freelance film critic based in Chennai.
