To Orson where ever you are: I love you.
I’m still with you, with all of my heart.
—Jeanne Moreau in Durga Strana Wellesa
(The Other Side of Orson Welles)
A documentary film on Orson Welles career in Yugoslavia
By Daniel Rafaelic and Leon Rizmaul
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Film historians Daniel Rafaelic and Leon Rizmaul have put together a very nice documentary on Orson Welles years in Yugoslavia, Durga Strana Wellesa, which begins in 1924 when world traveler Welles was only nine years old and taken to Dubrovnik by his father, Richard Welles.
Of course, Yugoslavia was to play an extremely important part in Welles career, since it later became the place where he would not only film The Trial, but also meet his muse and longtime companion, Oja Kodar.
Yugoslavia was also where Welles (as an actor) was to film David and Goliath, The Tartars, and Austerlitz, between 1959 and 1962.
And between the years 1967 and 1970, Welles would again find himself based in Yugoslavia, (and welcomed by President Tito), while he was filming his own projects in that country, including The Deep and the The Merchant of Venice.
Welles also appeared as an actor in The Battle of Neretva, which was magnificently scored by his longtime friend, Bernard Herrmann.
Among the the highlights of Daniel Rafaelic and Leon Rizmaul’s documentary are generous excerpts from a interview Welles did with a Yugoslavia TV program entitled 321 Action around 1980, and a recent interview with Jeanne Moreau, whose comments quoted above close the film. And Ms. Moreau, athough she could not attend the AFI’s Life achievement award dinner to Orson Welles in 1975, sent along this beautiful poem which was printed in the AFI’s tribute program:
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JEANNE MOREAU on A FREE MAN
Orson Welles
where are you?
Hunted hunter in your non ending search,
where are you?
Everywhere.
How many planes? How many flights?
How many airports? How many cities and countries?
How many hotel suites?
How many stamps on your passports?
How many phone calls?
How many cancelled rendezvous?
You’re supposed to be here, but you’re already there.
“In the old days when wishing still helped”, you
would have owned the world. Now there is no happy
land, no peace, no beauty to be owned, but no one
can be divested of his fantasy.
In 1938 thousands of Americans were panic stricken,
taking the most incredible fantasy, The War Of The Worlds,
for a genuine reportage.
That terror brought fame overnight.
The bad spell had grown.
As soon as he became famous, Orson Welles had to face hostility,
distrust, suspicion, and solitude.
Thomas Wolfe wrote:
“Time passing as men pass who never will come back again…
and leaving us, great God, with only this…
knowing that this earth, this time, this life are stranger than a dream.”
Orson Welles always knew that, and naturally,
became a breeder of dreams, a sorcerer of sounds,
a poet, a filmmaker.
When he owns the screen he owns us.
Flowing sequences, close-ups, words, camera movements;
the eye of Orson Welles’ camera, looking, staring, gazing, glancing,
creates the magic spell that breaks the bad one.
We watch. We know we won’t be misled.
We’re engrossed, carried away, and then suddenly
the tale is not a tale,
the fantasy is no make-believe, we are face to face
with the harsh beauty, the sweet cruelty of naked truth.
Castles in Spain are not made of everlasting stones, human faces are scribbled by years obstinately flying away, human love ends with life and even before, faithfulness is as rare as a white fly, self-pity and selfishness populate the earth with the blind; desperation and cruelty abound.
But still we stand the disillusion because Orson Welles exists, searching for truth which is as near as lucid destruction, so to stay faithful to one’s self.
A poet helps us to live.
A free man
is everywhere.