By RAY KELLY
Orson Welles’ Othello, last seen in U.S. theaters in 1992, will be re-released to cinemas this spring.
Carlotta Films has acquired the theatrical rights to Othello in the United States and France. A new digitally restored release of the 1992 “restored” version commissioned by the late director’s youngest daughter, Beatrice Welles, will arrive in cinemas in April, according to Vincent Paul-Boncour, Carlotta’s co-founder and director.
Carlotta has also obtained the non-theatrical rights to Othello in France and plans a Blu-ray and DVD release with bonus material there, as well as video-on-demand. The company has also acquired the rights to a French home video release of Welles’ Macbeth, he said.
“We’re already working right now on the DVD/BD, and are looking (at) possible archives, films, such as Filming Othello, photographs, press dossier, (and) scenario annotated if it does exist,” Paul-Boncour said. “And, of course, there is the question of the different versions.”
The French home video release is slated for November.
Othello is currently unavailable on DVD or Blu-ray in the U.S. Macbeth was released domestically on DVD and Blu-ray by Olive Films in 2012.
Carlotta DVD’s library includes such motion pictures as David Lean’s Passage to India, Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate and John Carpenter’s Dark Star.
Filmed over a three-year period, Othello was released in Europe in 1952. It won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, but was not distributed in the U.S. until 1955.
A restored version supervised by Beatrice Welles and produced by Michael Dawson was undertaken at a cost of $1 million and released in 1992. The entire musical score was transcribed and re-recorded by members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the sound was re-synched. Some of the alterations undertaken 1992 were attacked by some Welles scholars, most notably Jonathan Rosenbaum.
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Special thanks to Calvin MacKinnon for alerting us to Carlotta Film’s plans.
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