The Battle of Neretva (1968)

Harvey Chartrand · Post by **Harvey Chartrand** » Mon Jun 10, 2002 8:30 am

Does anyone know where I can find the original uncut version of Veljko Bulajic's The Battle of Neretva (1969), in which Welles played a pro-fascist Chetnik senator? This big-budget epic followed the exploits of Yugoslav partisans fighting the Nazis during the Second World War. (It co-starred Yul Brynner, who died on the same day as Welles.) The original 175-minute version was nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Film. Unfortunately, when The Battle of Neretva was released in North America, it was cut to 102 minutes, making it rather chaotic. Several of Welles' scenes were cut.
In a sense, The Battle of Neretva reteamed Welles with his Citizen Kane composer Bernard Herrmann, who wrote a rousing score for the film. Around this time, Herrmann made scathing comments about Welles in a BBC television interview.

Cole · Post by **Cole** » Tue Jun 11, 2002 7:08 pm

Unfortunately I can’t answer your question Harvey, but you mention an interview with Bernard Herrmann where he made scathing remarks about Orson Welles. What exactly were his complaints? Inquiring minds want to know.

jaime marzol · Post by **jaime marzol** » Wed Jun 12, 2002 10:14 pm

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i have a documentary about herrmann. his close friend said he made scathing remarks about everybody. he didn't mean anything by it, that was just benny. if you knew him you didn't take it seriously.

great story welles tells about herrmann and irving reeise, both being emotional types, throwing fits and cue sheets up in the air right before going on the air, and having the show one cue off all the way through.

Cole · Post by **Cole** » Thu Jun 13, 2002 9:43 pm

So maybe Herrmann was just blowing off a bit of steam, but he didn't hold any grudge against Orson due to the Ambersons fiasco, did he? I've always wondered about that.

jaime marzol · Post by **jaime marzol** » Fri Jun 14, 2002 3:24 am

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from what i saw in the herrmann docu i don't think he was blowin off steam. it seems like herrmann was a just a crappy guy who was always angry.

he was one of the most revered composers, and he was bitter because he wanted to be a conductor! that's like the guy sitting in the back office doing the books at mcdonalds being bitter because he really longs to ring the register and hand out burgers to the cheap lunchers.

hermann finally got to play a conductor in THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH.

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it's amazing how much more important a dumb name like HERMAN looks after you throw in few extra letters.

JAIIMME
(do i look more important, like i know what i'm talking about?)

Post by **Wellesnet** » Tue Oct 22, 2024 9:14 am

OW & Yul Brunner with Tito. Seventeen years later, Welles and Brunner both died the same day, October 10, 1985. Welles once called Tito "the world's greatest man" when he appeared with Oja on a Yugoslavian talk show.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... 123&type=3

Steve Paradis · Post by **Steve Paradis** » Tue Oct 22, 2024 7:45 pm

When the Raising Kane fracas was on a few years later he and George Coulouris were interviewed by Sight and Sound. Perhaps in that he was reserving his scorn for Kael.

I've done over forty films since Citizen Kane and none of them was in the same league. That doesn't make it the endall masterpiece, but if I'd had the luck to end my career working with Orson instead of starting with him, I'd still say that he was by far the most exciting person to make a film with because of his sheer creativeness. I've worked with other distinguished directors, but they're very secretive about their vision. With Welles, you always knew what he was looking for. He was precocious, with a great streak of originality. He has no intellectual backbone as an artist; he's a great improviser in the sense that Beecham was a great improvisational conductor. The Mercury Players were a superb orchestra. When Orson had his own people around him, things happened.

Both of us have criticisms of Welles; we haven't even gone into his pros and cons, but it would be very difficult to sit by and see this kind of injustice done to him. Neither this nor Charles Higham's book on Orson has his participation. I'm sure he's having a giant, Falstaffian laugh at them because all these books and essays are like Kane itself. Everybody's trying to find out what Rosebud is ... But Orson is quite right. Why should he waste his time with these so-called intellectuals saying that he had a formula for something or that someone else did part of the work? I admire him for that. Kane was arrived at through an inner compulsion on the part of Orson Welles. Having known him as I did, I would say that it was part of the fibre of the man.

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