Fourteen months after the Criterion Collection thrilled Orson Welles fans with the same-day release of Chimes at Midnight and The Immortal Story, the prestige home video label issues a deluxe Othello.
This two-disc set, scheduled for release on Tuesday, October 10, will be warmly welcomed by those still bothered by the 1992 restoration with its new stereo soundtrack and attempts to better sync the sound. Criterion, which obtained the rights for Othello from Welles’ youngest daughter Beatrice, completely ignores the 1992 restoration she oversaw in favor of more faithful new 4K restorations of Welles’ 1952 and 1955 edits. As a bonus, the set includes Welles’ last completed effort, the documentary Filming Othello.
Criterion’s Othello has received favorable reviews here and from other media outlets. Here is a sampling of opinions:
Los Angeles Times — “Orson Welles spent three years shooting his version of William Shakespeare’s Othello, which ultimately turned out to be one of his most artistically daring films — by necessity as much as by design. Welles kept tinkering with the movie after its initial 1951 European release, and in the decades that followed, multiple versions have been in circulation — including a controversial restoration that his daughter Beatrice oversaw. Criterion’s new double-disc edition offers two very different cuts and copious supplementary materials, which taken together tell the fascinating story of a remarkable project.’
Criterion Cast — “Othello is possibly Welles most aesthetically daring film. Billed by many as a close cousin of film noir, Othello is a baroque tone poem about hatred and bigotry that sees Welles at the very height of his powers as both a filmmaker and a performer. Shot over the span of three years, Welles’ film is an audacious ode to the idea that true greatness comes when the restraints of time and budget are at their tightest. Pinching pennies whenever and wherever they would come from, Welles (notorious in his profound independence) saw many of his films come under the most tight of existential conditions, this being maybe one of the most clear examples. He would see his locales jump from Venice to Morocco, numerous cinematographers would come under his employ, and even his leading lady would change over the span of this production a handful of times. And yet, not a single moment of this film feels entirely out of step with any of the others. As clear an example of Welles’ auteurist bonafides as any throughout his career, Othello is a taut, expressionist nightmare of a film, that is a groundbreaking experiment in filmmaking craft.”
DVD Beaver — “One of the Blu-ray releases of the year despite the, video, differences in the two versions. It is totally beneficial to have 1080P (4K restored) access to both 1952 and 1955 versions – both in uncompressed audio – and the massive amount of extras (a commentary and, second disc with 3 hours of video supplements). This is an essential… fans will be so pleased with owning this and finally watching Welles film in the best home theater presentation. Our highest recommendation!”
Blu-ray.com — “Considering the difficult and truly quite unusual production history of Orson Welles’ Othello as well as how the different versions of the film have aged, it is pretty clear that the folks at Criterion did everything they could to offer the very best possible presentations of the 1952 and 1955 versions. Both have been restored in 4K and I like how they look a lot, though obviously because of source limitations the end results are different. The two-disc set also has an excellent selection of new and archival supplemental features, one of which is the old audio commentary with Peter Bogdanovich and Myron Meisel that many years ago appeared on Criterion’s Laserdisc release of Othello. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.”
Wellesnet — “[Criterion’s Othello] is now the standard by which future home video releases will be judged. Criterion has expertly restored the 1952 and 1955 versions of the movie and delivered a mother lode of exceptional extras, including Welles’ last completed project, Filming Othello… DVD Beaver and Blu-ray.com have already done their typically thorough job detailing the technical side of this release, and their verdict is quite correct: The 1952 version is clearly a notch better in visual quality with a richer image than the 1955 release. However, the biggest difference between the two versions comes not from the difference in visual quality or Welles’ edits, but his decision to have Suzanne Cloutier’s performance as Desdemona dubbed by Gudrun Ure for the 1955 release. Ure’s take on Desdemona is far more forceful in tone than the demure performance given by Cloutier.”
Slant — “Huge and extraordinary package … Criterion offers a rough and gorgeous transfer of the audaciously personal Othello, with supplements that contextualize Orson Welles’s eccentric daring.”
The New York Times — “Something odder than a masterpiece, Orson Welles’s Othello is at once a credible abridgment of Shakespeare and a jigsaw puzzle that nearly defies comprehension. This brilliant, confounding movie, which has several times vanished and reappeared since it had its world premiere (and shared the top award) at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival, will be available on Blu-ray next month from Criterion. The Criterion release includes 4K digital restorations of two versions: the 1952 cut and a tweaked and extensively remixed one made by Welles for the movie’s American release in 1955. More crucially, it includes Welles’s last feature, Filming ‘Othello, an explication of the film as well as a treatise on film editing that allowed Welles to play Othello once more, this time without blackface.”
High Def Digest — “Gloriously cinematic despite being made on a tiny budget, Orson Welles’s Othello is a testament to the filmmaker’s stubborn willingness to pursue his vision to the ends of the earth. Unmatched in his passionate identification with Shakespeare’s imagination, Welles brings his inventive visual approach to this enduring tragedy of jealousy, bigotry, and rage, and also gives a towering performance as the Moor of Venice, alongside Suzanne Cloutier as his innocent wife, Desdemona, and Micheál MacLiammóir as the scheming Iago. Shot over the course of three years in Morocco, Venice, Tuscany, and Rome and plagued by many logistical problems, this fiercely independent film joins Macbeth and Chimes at Midnight in making the case for Welles as the cinema’s most audacious interpreter of the Bard.”
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