The trailer of Netflix’s documentary They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead brings out the immense emotional labour that went into Orson Welles’s last film, The Other Side of the Wind. Directed by the Academy award-winning Morgan Neville, the documentary goes behind the scenes of Welles’s swansong, which remained incomplete when he died in 1985, and weaves in interviews by and about the legendary filmmaker.
They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead chronicles Welles’s efforts to direct the film that he had hoped would surpass his 1941 classic Citizen Kane. The trailer includes a clip in which Welles is asked if Citizen Kane is the greatest film ever made. “No, certainly not,” he replies. “My next one is, though.”
Another voice in the trailer describes it as “The greatest movie never released...the bookend to Citizen Kane.”
Shot like a mockumentary, The Other Side of the Wind centres on has-been filmmaker Jake Hannaford (John Huston), who is attempting to gather funding for his final unfinished film. Production on the ambitious project began in 1970 and continued haltingly till 1976, plagued by financial woes. After intermittent efforts to revive the film over the years, Netflix acquired the rights in 2017. A new post-production crew was hired to assemble the footage. The Other Side of the Wind was premiered at the 2018 Venice Film Festival on August 31.
They Will Love Me When I’m Dead will be released along with The Other Side of the Wind on Netflix on November 2.