Othello

As mournful bells toll in the background, the long funeral procession of Capuchin friars marches slowly along the battlements. The huge corpse on the leading bier seems to exude dark passion even in death. The gloom lifts as the second bier passes, revealing a woman whose beauty shows through her burial shroud. At a distance, vengeful soldiers thrust a man into an iron cage and hoist him to the top of a tower for the birds to abuse.

Thus begins the Orson Welles version of Othello, with the joint funeral of the Moor and Desdemona, and the imaginative execution of Iago. The entire film is prefigured by this non-Shakespearean opening sequence: the sense of evil leading to tragic death, the theme of innocent beauty wronged, the symbolic imprisonment of man in a cage of passion.

Even Shakespeare purists who pale at the idea of a 110 minutes cutting of the three-and-a-half hour play, will approve of Welles's condensation. His use of panning camera motion animates the long dialogue sections he retained from the play's late acts, particularly the soliloquies which on stage tend to be unbearably static. This vividness and motion more than compensate for the confused nature of the early scenes, in which Welles's attempt to speed through preliminaries makes a prior reading of the play advisable.

Welles's greatest film successes have come when his particular use of shadows, symbols, and camera angles was well suited to his material. No one who has seen Citizen Kane can forget the power of this technique when dealing with the Hearst-like tycoon.

Othello offers a dark story and a brooding giant as its hero, and a perfect fit to the Welles genius. The music and the starkness of black-and-white photography are well used to add to the general effect. Organ and percussion set a perpetual sombre undertone, in the way the guitar background of Mr. Arkadin presented a leitmotif.

Shadows create the sense of gloom for the entire film, damping even a victory celebration. Darkness pervades the alleys where gleeful soldiers cavort with Cyprian women. The transition of Othello's mind from conscientious administrator to maddened husband is reflected in the darkening of the weather as the Moor's thoughts plummet.

Symbolic prison bars recur throughout the film, but never in a blatantly intrusive way like the self-conscious symbols of La Dolce Vita. Othello overhears Iago's baiting of Cassio through a barred casement, he looks in upon Desdemona through her leaded window, and finds out the greatness of his guilt behind a barred gate in the castle. His only escape from the cage of his passion is suicide, and one he has stabbed himself with a dagger, he leaves his prison, free to die in the bedroom beside his wife.

Wells the director always has one trump card to play in his films: Welles the actor. His Moor is in the tradition of his great roles, the Charles Kanes and the Harry Limes. His best scene is his appearance before the Doge of Venice, in which he defends his courtship of Desdemona.

Micheal MacLiammoir's Iago is properly evil, although his tendency to spout his lines rapidly is at times distressing. Suzanne Cloutier is decorative as Desdemona. Her part has been cut down so far as to make it impossible for her to present a whole person, but she attempts, with near-success, to achieve a realistic portrayal.

Welles's Othello has something for everybody and should not be missed. The humanitarian can test his English 124 training by trying to detect the cuts. The dramatist cannot fail to be impressed by Welles's from the exhibit of camera technique. And the average Brattle goer is sure to enjoy an evocative chase in--guess where--the Cyprus sewers.