Othello (1952 film)
| Othello | |
|---|---|
_poster.jpg)
Belgian theatrical release poster (1952)
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| Directed by | Orson Welles |
| Produced by | Orson Welles |
| Screenplay by | Orson Welles |
| Based on |
Othello by William Shakespeare |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Angelo Francesco Lavagnino |
| Cinematography | Anchise Brizzi |
| Distributed by | Marceau Films/United Artists |
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Release date
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November 29, 1951 |
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Running time
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91 minutes |
| Country | Morocco Italy |
| Language | English |
| Box office | 1,047,035 admissions (France) |
Othello (also known as The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice) is a 1951 drama film directed and produced by Orson Welles, who also adapted the Shakespearean play and played the title role. Recipient of the Palme d'Or at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival, the film was distributed by United Artists when it was released in the United States in 1955. Othello was filmed on location over a three-year period in Morocco, Venice, Tuscany and Rome and at the Scalera Studios in Rome.
In addition to Orson Welles, the cast consisted of Micheál MacLiammóir as Iago, Robert Coote as Roderigo, Suzanne Cloutier as Desdemona, Michael Laurence as Cassio, Fay Compton as Emilia and Doris Dowling as Bianca. Three versions of the film have seen theatrical release — two supervised by Welles, and a 1992 restoration supervised by his daughter, Beatrice Welles.
Welles trimmed the source material, which is generally around three hours when performed, down to a little over 90 minutes for the film.
One of Welles's more complicated shoots, Othello was filmed erratically over three years. Shooting began in 1949, but was forced to shut down when the film's original Italian producer announced on one of the first days of shooting that he was bankrupt. Instead of abandoning filming altogether, Welles as director began pouring his own money into the project. When he ran out of money as well, he needed to stop filming for months at a time to raise money, mostly by taking part in other productions. Because of lack of funds, production was stopped at least three times. The film found some imaginative solutions to a range of logistical problems; the scene in which Roderigo is murdered in a Turkish bath was shot in that form because the original costumes were impounded and using replacements would have meant a delay. One of the fight scenes starts in Morocco, but the ending was shot in Rome several months later. Welles used the money from his acting roles, such as in The Third Man (1949), to help finance the film, but this often involved pausing filming for several months while he went off to raise money; and these pauses were further complicated by the shifting availability of different actors, which meant that some key parts (like Desdemona) had to be recast, and whole scenes then reshot. This lengthy shoot is detailed in Micheál MacLiammóir's book Put Money in Thy Purse.
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