REVIEW: "OTHELLO" (1952) DIRECTED BY ...
Cinema Retro
BY JEREMY CARR
The works of William Shakespeare were ideally
suited to the sensibilities of Orson Welles. More than once, on stage and in
the cinema, The Bard’s scenarios supplied a prime source for Welles the auteur,
and the dramatist’s distinct personalities manifest themselves in grandiose roles
skillfully personified by Welles the actor, in his straightforward Shakespearian
adaptations and in characters created to embody correspondingly epic types (Charles
Foster Kane, as the most notable example). This artistic appreciation and cross-form
application was most outstandingly realized in Chimes at Midnight, from 1965, but the same impassioned devotion—aesthetic
and thematic—is likewise evident in the dynamic, striking Othello (1951), otherwise known as The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice, an unsung Welles film now
available on an exceptional Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
Welles’ venerated
love affair with Shakespeare began at a young age, when he published an
annotated series of Shakespearean texts at the age of 12 and, later, at just 16,
when he performed in assorted productions
at Dublin’s Gate Theatre, an outing that would prove significant to Othello’s genesis. Fleeing the infamous
blacklist business in America, Welles arrived in Rome to star in Gregory
Ratoff’s Black Magic (1949), and it
was around that time that he embarked on the disorderly path toward what would
be his second consecutive cinematic rendering of a Shakespeare primer,
following 1948’s Macbeth. What ensued
was a convoluted lesson in haphazard, yet thoroughly determined independent
filmmaking, with years of on-again, off-again shooting, different
cinematographers and editors, several locations (Rome, Venice, Morocco, etc.),
miscellaneous financial interruptions, and multiple casting changes—there were two
Desdemonas before Welles settled on Suzanne Cloutier, whose voice he
nevertheless had dubbed by Gudrun Ure. Othello
was initially (finally) released in 1952, when it shared the Grand Prize with Two Cents Worth of Hope (1952) at the
Cannes Film Festival. But that was not the end of its difficulties. The details
of the whole process are recounted (and frequently repeated) on the Criterion
disc, dispersed amongst a range of interviews and documentaries and in Geoffrey
O’Brien’s accompanying essay. But what matters most, is that while a decent
film managing to survive the turmoil would be remarkable enough, that a very good film was the ultimate result
is even more impressive.
Beginning just after the death of
Othello (Welles assumes audiences know how and why this happened and so spends
little time worrying about exposition), Othello
flashes back and delves into the intricate web of deception that led to the Venetian
general’s demise. Prominent in this charade is Othello’s traitorous ensign, Iago
(Micheál MacLiammóir), whose dubious, ambiguous motives are born not from some pure,
abstract malevolence, but from an ordinary professional, personal resentfulness
(or, so Welles would also interpret it, potential impotency). Driving a wedge
between Othello and his radiant wife, Desdemona (Cloutier),
the weaselly Iago takes advantage of Roderigo’s (Robert Coote) jealousy—he,
too, has amorous eyes for Desdemona—and the two of them devise a ruse to drive
Othello mad with suspicion and to concurrently sew discord between he and his favored
lieutenant, Cassio (Michael Laurence). Cloutier is at her best in moments of
unknowing bewilderment, her chaste beauty convincingly stunned by Othello’s
rage and his distrust, while MacLiammóir, who co-founded the Gate and was
fundamental to Welles’ early theatrical career, is the embodiment of deceit; hovering
always on the periphery, scheming and biding his time, he is all vacillating slants
and slithering movements. Welles, of course, is center stage, his performance
descending from one of class, command, and charm (“I think this tale would win
my daughter, too,†says one onlooker as Othello captivates the crowd—and the
viewer), to one of deadening confusion and despair. And yet, even as the seeds
of doubt produce an ensnaring crop of gradual torment, Welles loses none of his
booming, prevailing presence, nor the magnitude of his theatrical inflection.
Welles had openly criticized Laurence
Olivier’s approach to Shakespearean cinema, regarding his interpretations as
little more than filmed theater. So, it stands to reason that Welles, already a
visual mastermind, would render his Othello
in extraordinary illustrative fashion. There may be less polish—a result of
budgetary restrictions and the movie’s slapdash assembly—but there is a tangible
increase in filmic vigor, as Welles treats the material not as something
required for “serious†actors and directors to undertake, but as something to
be passionately fulfilled. Translating this enthusiasm with requisite care and affection,
Welles advances Othello as an artful
mélange of stark, expressionistic designs and vivid, textured imagery, like
engravings animated by the complex balance of light and shadow for which he was
so renowned. Part of his innate, virtuoso style has to do with nearly shot-by-shot
ingenuity, crafting (and Othello feels
very much like an artisanal creation) a rich production design detailed in
depth and accented by astonishing camera angles, reflective surfaces, and
crossed shadows generated by tapestries, iron bars, and thatched roofs. Gloomy
interiors portent the delirious, devastating downfall to come, while outside,
the backdrop of bleak skies and raging waters induce a similarly imposing
sensation.
Perhaps most remarkable with Othello, as O’Brien notes, is the editing, where “every cut takes on a heroic quality.†Taking into account the problematic production of Welles’ film, the “creative geography†where characters go in one door, shot in one country, and come out another, shot somewhere else entirely, where hours of text are condensed to a brisk 90 minutes, and where pick-up shots and reshoots were par for the course, “It hardly seems possible that these disparate pieces of film could have been brought together to form a coherent vision of the world.†Yes, there are, as O’Brien writes, “visible differences in film stock or lighting angles,†but, as he concludes, these hardly matter; “in fact, these very irregularities only emphasize the imaginative current that sets all the pieces into fluid interaction.†For all of its technical faults, concealed by Welles’ commitment and foresight, Othello maintains a well-executed rhythm and pace (“A film is never right until its right musically,†says Welles) and an at times breathless measure. “Welles always identified editing as the essence of his art,†writes O’Brien, “and Othello was one of the relatively rare occasions when he had more or less a free hand with it.†This allowed Welles to disguise discontinuity with fevered energy and sheer resourcefulness. The resulting feature is what the self-deprecating director refers to as his “jigsaw picture.â€
As mentioned, all of this is exhaustively covered on the Criterion release, which is full of fascinating, occasionally hilarious insight (Costumes don’t show up? Set the scene in a Turkish bath house where all you need are towels on loan from a local hotel). In addition to 4K transfers of two versions of the film—the 1952 European cut and the 1955 U.S. and UK cut—there is a 1995 audio commentary with Peter Bogdanovich and Welles scholar Myron Meisel, an interview with Welles biographer Simon Callow, an interview with scholar Joseph McBride, who provides a systematic analysis of the film, and there is an interview with Ayanna Thompson, who discusses the uneasy racial aspects of the play and Welles’ picture (certainly the blackface is appalling by today’s standards, though in context it’s easy enough to manage). François Thomas describes the differences in the two versions of the film, and Souvenirs d’ Othello, a documentary about Cloutier, includes her own recollections of Othello’s development and her praise of Welles for his perseverance and inspiration. The Oscar-nominated ghost story Return to Glennascaul, a 1953 short made by actors MacLiammóir and Hilton Edwards and featuring Welles, is quaint and comical, but most interesting is Filming Othello, Welles’ last completed film, a 1979 essay-documentary made for West German television. Here, whether directly addressing the camera/audience or in dinner conversation with MacLiammóir and Edwards, Welles reflects upon Othello in the stately, enthralling way that only he can. Quoting André Bazin’s review of the film, Welles also hits on two key facets of Othello, two underlying traits that influence its quality and speak to its ambitious nature, against the odds of its limitations. Simply put, it comes down to “grandeur and simplicity.†That’s Othello in a nutshell.
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