Potter surprises, and Othello
Oct. 26th, 2004 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakEvery now and then, people can be gloriously unpredictable. In RL and fandom alike. Take some of the latest essays over at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
idol_reflection. One was about Remus Lupin, one of the most popular HP characters ever, everyone's favourite Gryffindor Woobie (at least I think he's beating Sirius to a narrow margin - poor Harry is completely left behind). The other was about Hagrid, who hardly shows up in fanfic at all and is a regular bétè noir, no pun intended, in Slytherin-centric analysis. Guess which essay got more responses?
The one about Hagrid.
Woo hoo for the joy of unpredictability! For the the record, both essays are good. It's just that I like to be surprised.
And speaking of HP meta, there is also a new essay making the Snape/Filch. Which imo is more plausible canonically than most of the other pairings poor Snape, usually after a beauty makeover, ends up in.*g*
On a different note, I finally got Orson Welles' Othello on DVD. I know, I know, Citizen Kane is the celebrated breakthrough masterpiece, but Othello was the one that made me fall for Welles as a director, since I happened to watch it first. (When the restored version was rereleased.) I still love it best, though I wouldn't rank it as best of Welles' films. (My personal list in terms of amazing accomplishment would probably go first Touch of Evil, then Kane, then Othello, then Chimes at Midnight, then The Trial, though depending on my mood I could switch these, then Ambersons, then the others.)
It's just that Othello is stunning, heartbreaking visual poetry.
Which, Akiro Kurasawa's adaptions aside, other Shakespeare films rarely to never are. Which isn't too say that there aren't wonderful, great, etc. movie versions of Shakespeare. And a sizable quantity of them have better acting than Othello has. (Case in point: Kenneth Branagh pulling all the stops for his cast of Hamlet - they're all perfect, from main roles like Derek Jacobi as Claudius to cameos like Billy Crystal as the Gravedigger.) But none can beat the Wellesian imagery. I just wish I knew how to make screencaps, in order to illustrate some of my points, because those photos available on the net are production stills shot for advertisments, like this:
Othello and Jago as embodied by Welles and Michèal MacLiammoir. Only this is not how we encounter them in the film at all. In the film, we see Othello first through the upside down close up of his dead face emerging from the dark. (Bogdanovich, asking O.W. about the deeper meaning of the fact that both Kane and Othello start with the death of the main character, got the dry reply "It hints at a lack of imagination on the part of the director, Peter".) We see Jago first when he's being pushed in a cage, and the shadow of the cage, the visual motif of the net, returns again and again throughout the film. These first images, of the funeral, of Jago (who is actually this film's pov character) watching through the cage bards, in their expressionist, excentric angles, their black and whiteness (in more than one sense) , each frame like a picture you could print, set the tone for the movie.
What Welles manages to accomplish in Othello: finding a visual expression for Othello's fragmenting psyche, for Jago's circling, enigmatic malice. There have been better Othellos (though I prefer Welles to both Olivier and Laurence Fishburne in the role as far as cinematic interpretations go - Fishburne underacts and Olivier overacts, sorry for the heresy). There have been better Jagos. (Branagh is the only one who makes you understand why everyone, not just Othello, falls for the honest, honest Jago reputation because of the genial, hail-fellow-well-met way he plays Jago when in company.) Suzanne Cloutier is beautiful as Desdemona, and certainly better than what's-her-name from the Fishburne film, but she's still a phantom. (Of innocence.) Which isn't to say her scenes with Othello aren't memorable. The way Welles choreographed the actual murder, with Othello putting a white veil over Desdemona's face and kissing her while strangling her remains the most intense and creepy rendition I can imagine. Again, alas, I wish I had a screencap, but just have the more posed pre-murder press photo:
Othello has the production story from hell, taking nearly four years, with Welles shooting whenever he had the money and could get the cast together again from their various other engagments, then going to earn some more money by appearing in other people's films, then continuing to film, in Morocco and Italy in dozens of different places. Which doesn't show in the actual film because somehow, with that great talent that was his for cinematography and cutting, Cyprus feels complete and utterly whole. Ditto for his Venice in the early scenes. Except that no place, not Cyprus and not even Venice, has managed to be so beautiful and yet so utterly devoid of sentimentality in real life. Othello, after his breakdown, looking up, seeing the harsh sky which in colour would have been blue and soft but in black and white is harsh, stark, beautiful, yes, but in a merciless way, the battlements, and the gulls which if anything are carriers of death, not romantic seaside feelings. Jago, framed by a Venetian gallery and columns of beauty as if he's in the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, all sharp angles: I am not who I am.
It has been said of Citizen Kane that it is, among many other things, a brilliant radio play; you could switch off the projector and still enjoy the production. Which isn't surprising since Welles (and his cast) came from the radio at that point. Othello, otoh, could work with the sound switched off, because those images tell you everything you need to know. Othello, staring in the mirror, watched by Jago who has just told him that Desdemona desiring him in the first place is proof of her corupted nature: self-loathing personified. (Welles was really good with self-loathing in his movies. See also: Hank "Your future is all used up" Quinlan in Touch of Evil. And going back to the start, Charles Foster Kane, forcing Susan on the stage and mercilessly applauding in the silence.)
Still, I'm glad this isn't a silent film. Welles had one of the best voices in the business. As one of his biographers, the actor Simon Callow put it: "The camera is said to love certain actors. The microphone positively adored Orson Welles." She loved me for the dangers that I passed/ and I loved her for she did pity them. I haven't heard that spoken so well by anyone else. It is the cause.
So pray go and get you hence to buy this DVD. And while you're at it, buy the immensly entertaining book Put Money In Thy Purse, consisting of MacLiammor's journal through the Othello years. Welles, MacLiammoir and Hilton Edwards (who plays Brabantio) have a fascinating backstory. Orson W. was sixteen when he met them, and they were running the Gate Theatre in Dublin, partners in all other areas as well. He auditioned for the second lead in a new play, pretending to be older and a successful actor, they didn't quite believe him but were charmed and besides saw the potential, and he got the part and what training he was ever to receive. Cue first success and decades of a sometimes prickly and stormy friendship. MacLiammoir's portraits of Welles as given in this book and in his earlier memoirs, All For Hecuba (which Orson hated and claimed to have thrown through the room - "to and thro?" wondered MacLiammoir in his journal) are not without barbs but also with much affection and are much more vivid and interesting than either the idealisations acolytes came up with, or the bashing from the iconoclast corner. Anyway, Put Money In Thy Purse (always sound advice for independent directors and actors, that) also gives a great picture of the film-making scene in post war Europe. And it's immensly funny. Go. Read. But watch Othello first.
idol_reflection. One was about Remus Lupin, one of the most popular HP characters ever, everyone's favourite Gryffindor Woobie (at least I think he's beating Sirius to a narrow margin - poor Harry is completely left behind). The other was about Hagrid, who hardly shows up in fanfic at all and is a regular bétè noir, no pun intended, in Slytherin-centric analysis. Guess which essay got more responses? The one about Hagrid.
Woo hoo for the joy of unpredictability! For the the record, both essays are good. It's just that I like to be surprised.
And speaking of HP meta, there is also a new essay making the Snape/Filch. Which imo is more plausible canonically than most of the other pairings poor Snape, usually after a beauty makeover, ends up in.*g*
On a different note, I finally got Orson Welles' Othello on DVD. I know, I know, Citizen Kane is the celebrated breakthrough masterpiece, but Othello was the one that made me fall for Welles as a director, since I happened to watch it first. (When the restored version was rereleased.) I still love it best, though I wouldn't rank it as best of Welles' films. (My personal list in terms of amazing accomplishment would probably go first Touch of Evil, then Kane, then Othello, then Chimes at Midnight, then The Trial, though depending on my mood I could switch these, then Ambersons, then the others.)
It's just that Othello is stunning, heartbreaking visual poetry.
Which, Akiro Kurasawa's adaptions aside, other Shakespeare films rarely to never are. Which isn't too say that there aren't wonderful, great, etc. movie versions of Shakespeare. And a sizable quantity of them have better acting than Othello has. (Case in point: Kenneth Branagh pulling all the stops for his cast of Hamlet - they're all perfect, from main roles like Derek Jacobi as Claudius to cameos like Billy Crystal as the Gravedigger.) But none can beat the Wellesian imagery. I just wish I knew how to make screencaps, in order to illustrate some of my points, because those photos available on the net are production stills shot for advertisments, like this:
Othello and Jago as embodied by Welles and Michèal MacLiammoir. Only this is not how we encounter them in the film at all. In the film, we see Othello first through the upside down close up of his dead face emerging from the dark. (Bogdanovich, asking O.W. about the deeper meaning of the fact that both Kane and Othello start with the death of the main character, got the dry reply "It hints at a lack of imagination on the part of the director, Peter".) We see Jago first when he's being pushed in a cage, and the shadow of the cage, the visual motif of the net, returns again and again throughout the film. These first images, of the funeral, of Jago (who is actually this film's pov character) watching through the cage bards, in their expressionist, excentric angles, their black and whiteness (in more than one sense) , each frame like a picture you could print, set the tone for the movie.
What Welles manages to accomplish in Othello: finding a visual expression for Othello's fragmenting psyche, for Jago's circling, enigmatic malice. There have been better Othellos (though I prefer Welles to both Olivier and Laurence Fishburne in the role as far as cinematic interpretations go - Fishburne underacts and Olivier overacts, sorry for the heresy). There have been better Jagos. (Branagh is the only one who makes you understand why everyone, not just Othello, falls for the honest, honest Jago reputation because of the genial, hail-fellow-well-met way he plays Jago when in company.) Suzanne Cloutier is beautiful as Desdemona, and certainly better than what's-her-name from the Fishburne film, but she's still a phantom. (Of innocence.) Which isn't to say her scenes with Othello aren't memorable. The way Welles choreographed the actual murder, with Othello putting a white veil over Desdemona's face and kissing her while strangling her remains the most intense and creepy rendition I can imagine. Again, alas, I wish I had a screencap, but just have the more posed pre-murder press photo:
Othello has the production story from hell, taking nearly four years, with Welles shooting whenever he had the money and could get the cast together again from their various other engagments, then going to earn some more money by appearing in other people's films, then continuing to film, in Morocco and Italy in dozens of different places. Which doesn't show in the actual film because somehow, with that great talent that was his for cinematography and cutting, Cyprus feels complete and utterly whole. Ditto for his Venice in the early scenes. Except that no place, not Cyprus and not even Venice, has managed to be so beautiful and yet so utterly devoid of sentimentality in real life. Othello, after his breakdown, looking up, seeing the harsh sky which in colour would have been blue and soft but in black and white is harsh, stark, beautiful, yes, but in a merciless way, the battlements, and the gulls which if anything are carriers of death, not romantic seaside feelings. Jago, framed by a Venetian gallery and columns of beauty as if he's in the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, all sharp angles: I am not who I am.
It has been said of Citizen Kane that it is, among many other things, a brilliant radio play; you could switch off the projector and still enjoy the production. Which isn't surprising since Welles (and his cast) came from the radio at that point. Othello, otoh, could work with the sound switched off, because those images tell you everything you need to know. Othello, staring in the mirror, watched by Jago who has just told him that Desdemona desiring him in the first place is proof of her corupted nature: self-loathing personified. (Welles was really good with self-loathing in his movies. See also: Hank "Your future is all used up" Quinlan in Touch of Evil. And going back to the start, Charles Foster Kane, forcing Susan on the stage and mercilessly applauding in the silence.)
Still, I'm glad this isn't a silent film. Welles had one of the best voices in the business. As one of his biographers, the actor Simon Callow put it: "The camera is said to love certain actors. The microphone positively adored Orson Welles." She loved me for the dangers that I passed/ and I loved her for she did pity them. I haven't heard that spoken so well by anyone else. It is the cause.
So pray go and get you hence to buy this DVD. And while you're at it, buy the immensly entertaining book Put Money In Thy Purse, consisting of MacLiammor's journal through the Othello years. Welles, MacLiammoir and Hilton Edwards (who plays Brabantio) have a fascinating backstory. Orson W. was sixteen when he met them, and they were running the Gate Theatre in Dublin, partners in all other areas as well. He auditioned for the second lead in a new play, pretending to be older and a successful actor, they didn't quite believe him but were charmed and besides saw the potential, and he got the part and what training he was ever to receive. Cue first success and decades of a sometimes prickly and stormy friendship. MacLiammoir's portraits of Welles as given in this book and in his earlier memoirs, All For Hecuba (which Orson hated and claimed to have thrown through the room - "to and thro?" wondered MacLiammoir in his journal) are not without barbs but also with much affection and are much more vivid and interesting than either the idealisations acolytes came up with, or the bashing from the iconoclast corner. Anyway, Put Money In Thy Purse (always sound advice for independent directors and actors, that) also gives a great picture of the film-making scene in post war Europe. And it's immensly funny. Go. Read. But watch Othello first.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-10-26 01:44 pm (UTC)Which I like.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-27 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-27 06:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-29 04:29 am (UTC)Anyhow thanks for the article. Makes me regret having missed "Othello" when it was shown at our local cinema even more; the film being on of the Welles classics I have not see as yet.
My personal list in terms of amazing accomplishment would probably go first Touch of Evil, then Kane, then Othello, then Chimes at Midnight, then The Trial
I was amazed to see that you would put "Touch of evil" first, because so would I, and I suspected nobody else would ;-).. I Think, the opening sequence is one of the most intense movie scenes ever filmed, so it could well enough have made the movie meme. It would even fit both categories: Scary as well as intense ;-)) Trouble is that almost nobody these days seems to know “Touch of Evil."
Btw, I went to see the film together with
As for "the Trial" I have not seen this in years, but I remember it to be a great adaptation of Kafka. The only thing coming close to it is, imho, the Soederberg Kafka movie of 1991, which I think was brilliant as well in terms of cinematography and cast; not only because of Alec Guinness ;-).
>It has been said of Citizen Kane that it is, among many other things, a brilliant radio play;
of, but this is not true. Well, only partly true. But it Is also brilliant in terms of cinematography. Just think, for example, of the snow globe, or how the hall with the huge chimney is being presented.
Which reminds me that I thought watching "Prospero’s Books" when it came out in, I don't remember when, it was only bearable as a Radio play, but this is another matter.
Speaking of radio plays: Some years ago I stumbled over a CD with Welles Radio Plays, which futures, next to the inevitable War of the Worlds, a Dracula adaptation done by Wells, which is really worth the wile, especially in comparison with the movie version by Coppola. Do you happen to know it?
If not: Well, I have not send you anything for a long time, haven't I ;-)?
F.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-29 05:59 am (UTC)of, but this is not true. Well, only partly true. But it Is also brilliant in terms of cinematography. Just think, for example, of the snow globe, or how the hall with the huge chimney is being presented.
Oh, absolutely. It's stunning visually. The radio play observation which I think Kenneth Tynan was the first to make just means that the soundtrack and dialogue are so good that you COULD use them as a radio play. Which is true. Except for the ending, for obvious reasons.*g* (And not true for other Welles movies, including Othello, because they relate more crucial information visually.
Dracula: I've got it, but thank you for the offer! I also have the entire Les Miserables, Mutiny on the Bounty, and some other plays. (Due to my research on O.W. a couple of years ago.)