Orson Welles' Othello

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Movie
German title Orson Welles' Othello
Original title Othello
Country of production Morocco
Italy
original language English
Publishing year 1952
length 91 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Orson Welles
script Orson Welles
production Orson Welles
music Angelo Francesco Lavagnino
camera Anchise Brizzi
occupation

Orson Welles' Othello (Original title: Othello ) is a drama film by the American director Orson Welles from 1952 based on the play Othello by William Shakespeare .

Welles produced the film, adapted the script and also played the title role. The film, which was funded by United Artists , took three years to shoot . Othello , which was filmed in Morocco , Venice , Tuscany and Rome , won the main prize at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1952 . The film was also marketed under the titles Othello and The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice .

action

In the opening sequence, the laid out Othello and Desdemona are carried to their grave in an impressive procession. Hanging over the scene, trapped in a cage, is Iago, who is drawn onto the battlements of the fort. The plot then essentially follows that of the classic play Othello.

production

Welles cut the three hours of footage down to 91 minutes.

The long filming period of three years can be explained by considerable financing problems. After the Italian producer had to file for bankruptcy, Welles put his own money into the film, but that was not enough. Welles had to fall back on his fee from The Third Man , but that wasn't enough either. An important role (Desdemona) had to be re-cast and all scenes had to be re-shot. Micheál Mac Liammóir , who played the major role of Iago, later described the film's backstory in his book Put Money in Thy Purse.

Welles was very impressed by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino's score . Lavagnino was later engaged by Welles to compose the film music for Falstaff and The Merchant of Venice (unfinished).

publication

Welles' original version of Othello premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1952 and was released in cinemas on the European continent.

Welles brought out another version of Othello for the US market. Paul Squitieri, who wrote his PhD thesis on this film, said that the European version was the more genuine and that the American version made too many artistic compromises. Welles released a film about the shoot in 1978 called Filming Othello .

criticism

The location of the film was, among other places, the citadel of Essaouira

Othello took part in the competition at the Cannes Film Festival under the Moroccan flag because Welles could not find a distributor in the USA. At Rotten Tomatoes , the movie has a 90% positive rate.

“Orson Welles' film adaptation of Shakespeare's passion drama: Othello, proud military leader in the service of the Republic of Venice, falls victim to the intrigue of Jago and, out of jealousy, kills his beloved Desdemona. The film was first released in German cinemas in 1955; The musically edited version, reconstructed in England in 1991, enables a fascinating re-encounter with a classic: Welles condenses the story into an expressionistic play of light and shadow about the archaic struggle of good and evil, with the atmospheric density and the baroque abundance of directorial ideas captivating . "

- 2001 film dictionary

Award

Restoration in 1992

In 1992, a restoration of the film was organized by Beatrice Welles-Smith, daughter of Orson Welles. Since the mid-1990s, only this version has been available on CD and DVD. The restoration has been criticized by critics. Jonathan Rosenbaum complained that Orson Welles' original intention had been distorted and that the tone had also been poorly edited.

Filming Othello

In 1978 Welles produced the documentary Filming Othello with a German production company. The 84-minute film describes the background to the long and complicated filming of Othello . The film, which was produced for German television, was shown at the 1978 Berlin Film Festival.

In addition to Welles 'monologues, the film also includes interviews with the actors Micheál Mac Liammóir and Hilton Edwards in Paris in 1974. Filming Othello was intended to be a prelude to a series of documentaries about Welles' feature films, but remained the only one from this series.

Filming Othello was first shown in the United States in 1979, but received neglect and review until 1987, when Vincent Canby commented on the film in The New York Times and received high praise.

Welles' daughter Beatrice Welles, who holds the rights to Othello and Filming Othello , prevented the documentary from being shown and only allows one version of Othello to be shown.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2000, p. 321.
  2. ^ Othello (1955) Screen: Orson Welles Revises 'Othello'; Scraps Shakespeare's Plot for Visual Effect. In: The New York Times. Retrieved January 7, 2012 .
  3. ^ Brigitte Tast, Hans-Jürgen Tast: Orson Welles - Othello - Mogador. Stays in Essaouira. (= Googly eyes Vis.Komm. No. 42). Schellerten 2013, ISBN 978-3-88842-042-9 .
  4. ^ Filming Othello
  5. ↑ Paul Squitieri: The twofold corpus of Orson Welles's Othello. Dissertation . University of California, 1993, quoted in Michael Anderegg: Orson Welles, Shakespeare and Popular Culture. Columbia University Press, New York 1999, p. 119.
  6. ^ Festival de Cannes: Othello . In: festival-cannes.com. Retrieved January 18, 2009 .
  7. ^ Festival de Cannes: Othello. In: festival-cannes.com. Retrieved August 17, 2009 .
  8. ^ The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice (Othello). In: rottentomatoes.com. May 10, 1952, accessed May 16, 2015 .
  9. ^ Criticism on two thousand one film dictionary
  10. ^ "Filming Othello" by Lawrence French, Wellesnet.com
  11. ↑ Orson Welles: An Incomplete Education. Senses of Cinema
  12. ^ Welles in 'Filming Othello'. In: The New York Times. February 4, 1987.
  13. ↑ Jonathan Rosenbaum: Discovering Orson Welles. Univ. of California Press, Berkeley 2007, ISBN 978-0-520-24738-3 .

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