Othello (1952 film)

Othello is a 1952 drama film directed and produced by Orson Welles, who also adapted the Shakespearean play and played the title role. Recipient of the Palme dOr at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival, the film was distributed by United Artists when it was released in the United States in 1955. Othello was filmed on location over a threeyear period in Morocco, Venice, Tuscany and Rome and at the Scalera Studios in Rome.

Welles trimmed the source material, which is generally around three hours when performed, down to a little over 90 minutes for the film.One of Welless more complicated shoots, Othello was filmed erratically over three years. Shooting began in 1949, but was forced to shut down when the films original Italian producer announced on one of the first days of shooting that he was bankrupt. Instead of abandoning filming altogether, Welles as director began pouring his own money into the project. When he ran out of money as well, he needed to stop filming for months at a time to raise money, mostly by taking part in other productions. Because of lack of funds, production was stopped at least three times. The film found some imaginative solutions to a range of logistical problems the scene in which Roderigo is murdered in a Turkish bath was shot in that form because the original costumes were impounded and using replacements would have meant a delay. One of the fight scenes starts in Morocco, but the ending was shot in Rome several months later. Welles used the money from his acting roles, such as in The Third Man 1949, to help finance the film, but this often involved pausing filming for several months while he went off to raise money and these pauses were further complicated by the shifting availability of different actors, which meant that some key parts like Desdemona had to be recast, and whole scenes then reshot. This lengthy shoot is detailed in Michel MacLiammirs book Put Money in Thy Purse. ........

Source: Wikipedia