Othello

Orson Welles as “Othello” in his 1952 film adaptation of the great work. Before this summer I had avoided seeing the film for a number of reasons, largely because of my at times uneasiness with the play–I have yet to see a great production that emphasizes Othello’s immense humanity–a sensitivity Iago counts on (after all, Othello trusts him) and exploits to his own and history’s ends. I should not have worried with Welles, especially given his interest in people of color and cultures not his own (cf his beautiful work on the unfinished “It’s All True,” the black maid in “The Lady from Shanghai,” not to mention the Chinese opera in said film, not to mention the women he dated, ranging from Billie Holiday to Lena Horne). One of the things I love watching when I watch Welles in “Othello,” has to do with the power of his flat feet; he can’t run so much as move swiftly from one corridor riddled with paranoia and misunderstanding to another. Unlike Olivier, Welles plays the title character less as a devious blackamoor than as a big dude infinitely in love with what he is not. He is powerful, but sad not to be that which he desires. At certain points and at certain emotional angles Orson Welles’ Othello looked not unlike myself, in and out of love.