Like Othello (and Macbeth, whom Welles portrayed on screen a few years earlier), Welles was a noble, driven, always colorful, often exasperating, and ultimately tortured figure in the film industry, and he exudes all those qualities in this production. Yes, the poetic dialogue adds immeasurably to the experience, but the visuals acutely convey most of the tension, torment, and emotion. You can watch Othello with no sound (in fact, that's the way Welles edited it) and still be utterly transfixed. ![]() ![]() First and foremost, it's a staggeringly beautiful film. For me, Welles' Othello has very little to do with Shakespeare and everything to do with the art of cinema. I don't profess to be a Shakespeare scholar, nor am I even much of a Shakespeare fan, so this review won't attempt to outline any deficiencies in the adaptation or question Welles' approach to the material or its characters and themes. On the contrary, they validate his courageous and individual approach to a classic work. Welles may omit huge chunks of the text, but the deletions don't diminish his unabashed reverence for The Bard. Yet despite the film's relative brevity, its core themes and inherent power remain intact. Some Shakespeare aficionados might accuse Welles of disrespecting and bastardizing the material because he brazenly cuts a five-act, three-hour play down to a lean, mean 90-or-so minutes. Like a hungry animal, Welles attacks this age-old tale of corrosive jealousy, cancerous hatred, and destructive manipulations with indefatigable gusto, infusing it with a muscular energy that's both fresh and exhilarating. Othello is bold and beautiful and rough and sloppy all at the same time, yet it grabs us by the throat and won't release its stranglehold until the final frame. In fact, its myriad imperfections make us appreciate the movie's audacious artistry all the more. The term "monumental achievement" is often cavalierly bandied about, but in the case of Othello, it fits like a glove. Packed with more breathtaking images and inventive compositions per capita than almost any other motion picture in history, Othello is a visual feast from start to finish, and a tribute to one man's dogged perseverance, innovative vision, and boundless creativity. The influence of that immortal film continues to reach far and wide, but arguably no Welles production breaks more rules or dazzles the senses more completely than his mesmerizing adaptation of William Shakespeare's Othello. Orson Welles instinctively knew that, and with a bravado that often belied his youth, he gleefully disrupted the status quo, first in radio, then in Hollywood, where he regularly ruffled feathers and produced what many still believe to be the greatest movie of all time, Citizen Kane. Bucking the establishment and forging fearlessly into uncharted waters is often the only way any art form can expand and develop. HFS clients enjoy state-of-the-art warehousing, real-time access to critical business data, accounts receivable management and collection, and unparalleled customer service.Almost every great artist breaks the rules. HFS provides print and digital distribution for a distinguished list of university presses and nonprofit institutions. MUSE delivers outstanding results to the scholarly community by maximizing revenues for publishers, providing value to libraries, and enabling access for scholars worldwide. Project MUSE is a leading provider of digital humanities and social sciences content, providing access to journal and book content from nearly 300 publishers. With warehouses on three continents, worldwide sales representation, and a robust digital publishing program, the Books Division connects Hopkins authors to scholars, experts, and educational and research institutions around the world. ![]() With critically acclaimed titles in history, science, higher education, consumer health, humanities, classics, and public health, the Books Division publishes 150 new books each year and maintains a backlist in excess of 3,000 titles. The division also manages membership services for more than 50 scholarly and professional associations and societies. The Journals Division publishes 85 journals in the arts and humanities, technology and medicine, higher education, history, political science, and library science. The Press is home to the largest journal publication program of any U.S.-based university press. One of the largest publishers in the United States, the Johns Hopkins University Press combines traditional books and journals publishing units with cutting-edge service divisions that sustain diversity and independence among nonprofit, scholarly publishers, societies, and associations.
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