Orson Welles

Orson Welles’s Othello (1952) begins with a mostly silent depiction of a funeral procession for Othello and Desdemona, while Iago watches suspended from a metal cage above the action. Not only does the film begin at the end, a particularly Wellesian hallmark, but it imagines what might have transpired after the play’s conclusion through the visual language of cinema, challenging the primacy of the literary text in cinematic adaptation. Welles does not need the source text to convey the tension between the characters, nor does he need it to illustrate the film’s central themes. A sense of inescapable fate hangs, much like the caged Iago, over the proceedings that follow. Welles turned to film noir and its signature lighting to convey this sense of looming fate; the film’s composition is a striking visual battle between light and dark, and characters are constantly imprisoned by iron grills and barred gates, foreshadowed in this opening scene.

The opening of Othello is particularly useful in demonstrating Welles’s desire to make Shakespeare adaptations that are “first and foremost” films (Welles 121). In a 1954 interview, Welles made a clear distinction between “filming the play” versus “continuing my own line of experimentation in adapting Shakespeare quite freely to the cinema form” (121). Welles did not subordinate his vision to Shakespeare’s cultural greatness, nor do his three completed Shakespeare films (Macbeth [1948], Othello, and Chimes at Midnight [or Falstaff, 1965]), stand apart from his other films. Instead, they explore many of the same themes—isolation, ambition, betrayal, futile searches for love—and feature many of the same stylistic traits—deep focus photography, chiaroscuro, unusual camera angles, long takes—as Citizen Kane (1941), The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Touch of Evil (1958), and The Trial (1962), to mention a few. Over the course of his career, he frequently turned to adaptations to challenge his ability as a filmmaker. He made plans to film The Merchant of Venice and King Lear, and he also adapted (or took steps towards filming) Kafka’s The Trial, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Melville’s Moby Dick, and Cervantes’s Don Quixote. Welles’s treatment of Shakespeare—and of adaptations more broadly—was ahead of its time because he envisioned his films as more than just filmed versions of the texts.

Conflicts between Welles and outside influences, particularly the Hollywood studio system, impacted his ability fully to realize his visions. Welles was forced to make a number of compromises as he brought Shakespeare to the screen, and his three completed Shakespeare films are infamous for their small budgets, dramatic shooting schedules (Macbeth was filmed in twenty-three days while Othello was filmed over the course of two years), and for being reedited, redubbed, and rereleased multiple times (resulting in numerous different versions of each film). Studio interference eventually drove Welles from Hollywood. While he worked more freely in Europe, Welles frequently self-financed his films, which resulted in prolonged shooting schedules (he often worked on other films to raise money). Yet in spite of these circumstances, which should have restricted his style and ability to put his distinctive mark on the films, Welles managed to use these limitations in service of his projects. When working in the studio system, he adapted Shakespeare through Hollywood genres, and when making independent films, he slowly began to move away from genre to freer cinematic adaptation in defiance of genre.

In a 1940 interview with Modern Screen, Welles expressed doubt about the ability to adapt Shakespeare to film, save for “Macbeth and its gloomy moors,” which he envisioned might produce “a perfect cross between Wuthering Heights [undoubtedly, Welles is referring here to William Wyler’s 1939 film] and [James Whale’s 1935] The Bride of Frankenstein” (qtd. in Higham 125). Though Welles made this comment at the beginning of his contract with RKO Radio Pictures, he already recognized that bringing Shakespeare to the screen would...