By RAY KELLY
Much to the delight of Orson Welles fans, the Criterion Collection has pulled a rabbit out of its hat and added the seldom-seen documentary Filming Othello ̶ the filmmaker’s final completed movie ̶ to its upcoming release of Othello.
The Othello release, once planned for May, was delayed as the prestige home video company acquired the documentary rights and necessary materials.
A new 2K scan of Filming Othello will be included in the two-disc Blu-ray and DVD sets on October 10, Criterion President Peter Becker told Wellesnet.
Filming Othello has never been released on home video. Portions were included 20-plus years ago on Criterion’s laserdisc release of Othello. (The laserdisc was pulled after objections were raised by the Welles estate, which was promoting a restored version of the film at the time.)
Welles created the documentary at the urging of brothers Juergen and Klaus Hellwig with the notion that it would accompany a screening of Othello on West German television.
The film essay features Welles’ reflections, a chat with Hilton Edwards and Micheál MacLiammóir and a conversation with a Cambridge, Mass. audience after a screening of the film on January 8, 1977 at the 400-seat Cinema 1 inside the Orson Welles Cinema Complex. (Welles has starred in An Evening With Orson Welles the night before at Boston Symphony Hall.)
Filming Othello debuted at the 1978 Berlin Film Festival and had its U.S. premiere in New York the following year.
Some of Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind crew ̶ Gary Graver, Michael Stringer and Larry Jackson ̶ labored on Filming Othello.
The Criterion sets will feature newly restored 4K digital transfers of both the 1952 European and 1955 U.S. versions of Othello.
Begun in 1949, Othello was shot by Welles over three years in numerous locations. Othello won the Palme d´Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1952, yet it languished through the 1970s and ’80s, largely due to a lack of distribution.
When Othello was refurbished in 1992, it was praised by critics, despite questions by noted film scholar Jonathan Rosenbaum and others about liberties taken by the restoration team, notably the decision to re-record the music score in stereo. (The Criterion release does not include the 1992 restoration.)
In addition to Filming Othello, the Criterion release will include:
- Uncompressed monaural soundtracks on the Blu-ray
- Audio commentary featuring director Peter Bogdanovich and Welles scholar Myron Meisel
- Return to Glennascaul, a 1953 short film made by Micheal MacLiammóir and Hilton Edwards during a hiatus from shooting Othello
- New interview with Welles biographer Simon Callow
- New interview with Welles scholar François Thomas on the differences between the two versions
- New interview with Ayanna Thompson, author of Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America
- Interview from 2014 with Welles scholar Joseph McBride
- Souvenirs d’ Othello, a 1995 documentary about actress Suzanne Cloutier by François Girard
- Essay by film critic Geoffrey O’Brien
The Criterion Blu-ray carries a $49.95 list price with the DVD selling for $39.95.
Othello has never been released on Blu-ray in the U.S. before. There was a DVD release from Image Entertainment in 1999 and an Academy Home Entertainment videocassette in 1993.
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