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Good story, Not enough for a whole film

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

the mark of Oscar Welles. this is the basic virtue of film. the second - Oscar Welles himself as inspired Othello. and Emilia by Fay Compton. Micheal MacLiammoir seems give a mix of Richard III and Iago. and Desdemona...she remains a shadow with ambiguous traits. another virtue - the cinematography. and a new, convincing, lecture of Shakespeare. maybe, not the most inspired adaptation. but seductive, precise, impressive for details and for the way to use the text with force and grace.

Orson Welles made Otello one excellent movie, because he knows everything about teatro and movies. All actors has good performances. Orson Welles, Micheál MacLiammói had great work. The movie has beautiful image in black and white. This movie is to watch with pleasure.

This adaptation of the Shakespearean tragedy manages to be compelling despite its infamous and troubled production. Othello's majestic coat lined with mink fur is none other than the same one stolen from the set of The Black Rose. Whole sequences seems missing and compositions and edits are at times jarring and sparse; ADR is visible in many instances. The moor's impressive army had to be cleverly concealed or else the truth would have been evident; nothing but a rag tag bunch of extras. The crucial death scene of Roderigo is shot within a bathhouse because of the lack of costuming. And Suzanne Cloutier's Desdemona seems perhaps a little thin compared to Welle's screen presence - then again, she was only the third actress cast in the role. But it is compelling all the same. The soundtrack's troubled restoration process does not take away from its presence. In one particular moment, right after Othello's mind has been corrupted by Iago's lies, he seeks to confront his guilty wife. As Desdemona floats into the frame, a demure flute tune sets the mood, but as Othello demands her hand to check if it is moist, the strings suddenly chime in ominously. It offers information alongside Welles' glare. A heavy piano note suddenly drops onto the track when Desdemona seemingly innocuously brings up the issue of restating Cassio, not knowing how damning this statement is in her husband's raging mind. And then they spar, with her not budging up the issue, and him demanding the handkerchief. Oh it's wonderfully ironic how at odds their intentions are. But Shakespeare has to be given credit for this confrontation. Here Othello is asking a question he already knows the answer to, condemning her even before she gives that fatal answer. Anything short of magically conjuring the handkerchief to show Othello (even that in itself might have been refused and called an act of witchcraft that Othello himself is initially accused of) is just confirming his suspicions. Early on in the film there is a narrator who introduces us to settings and happenings as if any viewer would not already be familiar with the famous Shakespeare play, but Welles wisely does away with him and his obtuse dialogue (then again, Welles' also does not include any of Iago's soliloquies which map out his plan like a step-by-step guide). The lines are cut heavily; despite being one of Shakespeare's longer works the film only clocks in at 91 minutes, nothing compared to some of the line-by-line mammoth adaptations that leave no word behind. There are some weird editing choices that accentuate this; Othello and Desdemona embrace and he whispers that they have but an hour to consummate their marriage, before we cut and suddenly it has been weeks at sea and they are eagerly reunited at Cyprus. But the narrative's most important moments remain and that is sufficient. It is not purely theatrical and relying on its performances; the film is full of disconcerting cinematography that is appropriate for the addled mind of Othello. There is no flat theatre stage here. When he slips into his trance, we get a reverse bird's eye of sorts, where we are looking directly up at the sky, and the camera spins and spins and spins as the upside-down crowd look up in puzzlement. The same disorientating effect is used when he is trapped in the room of his murder forever - the walls are blurred and closing in. The original play might prefer Iago to take the soliloquy spotlight, but Welles' visualises contemplation in his own way, by forcing the confusion and agony of his face back at him through the mirror. In a clever shot Iago is talking to Othello out of frame; oh but he is there anyway, in the mirror and seized up in concentration. Desdemona stares innocently right into the lens and into Othello's soul, and he later does the same to Iago; this technique effectively characterises his growing distress and unnerve. The lighting also aides this process; from the natural sun bathed beaches, Othello is then slowly enveloped by the darkness, until only his pupils, as green as can be even in the black and white film-stock, can be seen in the sunlight. In that final speech where he implores the men to record this story in an unbiased manner (although he himself shows signs of bias), his entire body save his face is wrapped by complete darkness. He has been enveloped and corrupted by his absolute jealously.

I don't know if Orson Welles' Othello will be the best adaptation of Othello - from what little I could bare to watch it's certainly superior than the turgid and offensive Laurence Olivier version, though perhaps not quite as well acted as the Branuagh - but it would be hard pressed to see another that was as great a *film* as this is. This is not simply a case of 'well, he did the best that he could work with'. While there is an element of this, as it is true that Welles made a real "indie" movie by financing the project himself over three years and had to make do with getting the footage he could and the actors he could (one of which wasn't there for the dubbing, Rodrigo), it is on its own terms a revolutionary form of Shakespeare because it eschews the static nature of a stage. For Welles, film should be alive and move one to see the world through his eyes, and it's through this that Othello, the always haunting story of a Moor's doubt of infidelity with his wife Desdemona by the prodding of Iago, is important.This isn't to say that it's always the easiest to hear (some of the dubbing is lacking in timing), and some of the acting from time to time isn't perfect. Yet its strengths are that of giving us a new way to look at Othello, and at film in general. Sometimes one looks at Shakespeare and it's hard to see it going at a pace that doesn't restrict certain movements of the camera. But Welles' Othello is first, before Shakespeare, an Orson Welles movie. And perhaps more than even The Trial one sees the director crafting this baroque world set in castles of Morocco and Italy with a claustrophobic, maybe even film-noir, sensibility. The eye on these characters is both stark and stilted, as if the high-and-tense emotions of the characters stretch out into the medium itself, like a nightmare inevitably unfolding. And the quick cuts make it move like a post-modern movie; I can't help but think that great films (Breathless, especially in cutting-down an original draft) and not-so great ones (Romeo + Juliet) took heavy influence from this.Knowing the story helps a little, but it's not entirely necessary. Welles delivers his Othello as a figure beguiled by his love, and disillusioned he's often seen in tight close-ups or turned away, ready to explode or perhaps burst into tears at any moment. It's intense work from Welles as an actor, and some of the others like the ones playing Iago and Emilia do deliver all that they can. But while some scenes have been cut, or sometimes whole sub-plots, they don't affect the cores of the characters, and the themes are not hurt by the cuts Welles made to the text. If anything this compacted version is like getting the greatest Cliff-Notes ever, and seen through a filmmaker's eyes that makes us rethink (or just re-asses) how we see this tragedy of Othello through this medium. Does tragedy and consequence, and the horror of a mind scathed by jealousy (or, for that matter, the evil intent of a malicious mind-twister like Iago) gain depth filmed like this? I would think so, by leaps and bounds. If anything, and hopefully this can be a compliment, the film might be a non-silent silent film of Shakespeare, on that level the most profound, as we see a story and conflict unfold all through visuals. Just as one example, watch the scene where Othello is told by Iago firm proof of Desdemona's trysting with Casius (the "With her, on top of her" bit), and then as Othello faints and how the camera spins out of control, seeing the buildings wobble, the world turned upside down, birds flying perpexingly in the air, and people also flipped around contemplating this man Othello, eyes wide open but fixed-frozen like a scarred statue. It's things like this that give Welles' Othello its uniqueness: if you turn on the sound of the voices (sometimes dubbed odd and not totally in sync) one can appreciate the ragged, awesome poetry of one artist channeling another.