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The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice (1952)
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Overview
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Director:
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Release Date:
June 1955 (USA)
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Tagline:
Powerful drama of uncontrolled human emotion! more
Plot:
Durante il periodo delle Repubbliche Marinare, in Italia, Otello, detto "il moro di Venezia", viene...
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Awards:
1 win
&
1 nomination
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Dimensional Filmmaking
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Cast
(Complete credited cast)| Orson Welles | ... | Othello | |
| Micheál MacLiammóir | ... | Iago | |
| Robert Coote | ... | Roderigo | |
| Suzanne Cloutier | ... | Desdemona | |
| Hilton Edwards | ... | Brabantio | |
| Nicholas Bruce | ... | Lodovico | |
| Michael Laurence | ... | Michael Cassio | |
| Fay Compton | ... | Emilia | |
| Doris Dowling | ... | Bianca |
Additional Details
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Parents Guide:
Runtime:
90 min | USA:93 min (TCM print)
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Color:
Aspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 more
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Fun Stuff
Trivia:
Orson Welles provides the voice for much of Roderigo's dialogue.
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Quotes:
[first lines]
Narrator: There was once in Venice a moor, Othello, who for his merits is the affairs of war was held in great esteem. It happened that he fell in love with a young and noble lady called Desdemona, who drawn by his virtue became equally enamoured of Othello...
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Narrator: There was once in Venice a moor, Othello, who for his merits is the affairs of war was held in great esteem. It happened that he fell in love with a young and noble lady called Desdemona, who drawn by his virtue became equally enamoured of Othello...
more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in Return to Glennascaul (1951)
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Commenting on Shakespeare films is rather like admiring Easter Eggs.
First the inside: this was never a great play, relative to Shakespeare's other works. His great plays are about ideas, with characters as vectors to prod and activate them. This play is merely about characters, which makes it attractive to actors. That's certainly why Welles selected it.
Welles is the Sinatra of dramatic reading, with phrasing mastered in his radio days. All else is acceptable (at least to my tastes) so far as the play goes.
Now the shell, and here is what makes this film one of the most important. When Welles moved into film, he did so as an architect. He understood that great film constructs a space that includes the audience. So he worked with the most direct tools, buildings themselves. These sets are remarkable. I cannot imagine how he found them, how he could have seen the possibilities.
Selection aside, how he uses the spaces! View this film at least once in silence. I rate Welles as one of the 20th century's great architects and predict that this film will be mined when we get around to really creating cyberbuilding.