I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

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.

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.

What an incredible movie! There have been many brilliant directors -- Coppola, Huston, Pekinpah, Spielberg, to mention but a few -- but there is only one Orson Welles. In Othello, the Great Master towers above all others in an impressive tour-de-force. This sparkling production combines the greatest genius of literature and the greatest genius of film. The result... Shakespearean film noir. Amazing cinematography and editing that will take your breath away. One brilliantly composed shot after another. Tremendous acting and direction. Atmospheric drama so visceral and intense it creates the "Wow!" effect. Welles' artistry is pure genius and reminiscent of Michelangelo. A truly great masterpiece.

If you would seek some kind of perspective on the Motion Picture industry you could do worse than study the career of old Awesome; a string of masterpieces - Kane, Chimes At Midnight, Touch Of Evil - and nearasdammit masterpieces - Ambersons, Mr. Arkadin, Journey Into Fear -which he either wrote, directed and appeared in, sometimes all three, liberally laced with the trash in which he deigned to act - The Black Fox, Ferry To Hong Kong etc - in order to finance projects like this one, which belongs right up there with the masterpieces. I note that much verbiage has been spilled under this title on IMDb debating and disputing the pros and cons of the 'restored' version and whether or not it was indeed ever 'lost'. This is surely academic at best; what matters is that we now HAVE a close approximation of what Awesome intended and frankly if it were any closer I couldn't stand it. The pre-credit sequence alone is worthy of one of the great Silent masters, Gance, Dreyer and like that and the first shot proper is magisterial. Time and time again Welles uses the landscape to compose startling images only to contrast this with key speeches like 'farewell the tranquil mind ...' which he shoots more or less straight and who else but Awesome could make such a virtue out of necessity as in the scene slated for conventional filming until the costumes failed to turn up; his solution, stage it in a bath-house with the actors wearing towels which were themselves borrowed from their hotel. It was Welles himself who made the finest Shakespearean film of all time in Chimes At Midnight and with Othello he runs it a close second. Unmissable.