Page 165 - Shakespeare in the Movie From the Silent Era to Shakespeare in Love

154 / Shakespeare in the Movies

been. At age thirty-six, Welles became an artistic gypsy, traveling
through Europe's diverse movie communities during that period
when film became internationalized. He had long hoped to do a
movie of Othello and scraped together money from individual
investors, embarking on a four-year quest. Welles began filming in
Rome, with popular Italian actress Lea Padovani as his Desdemona
and Micheal MacLiammoir (a trusted friend from Ireland's Abbey
Theatre) as lago. They ran out of cash, and the production was put
on hold. Meanwhile, Welles dashed off to appear in another film,
earning enough to forge ahead with the dream project. When he
returned six months later, Padovani had moved on to other work, so
it was necessary to start over. Welles attempted to lure Citizen Kane
costar Agnes Moorehead to Europe, but she was otherwise engaged;
in the end, he chose Suzanne Cloutier, a blond beauty virtually with-
out stage or screen experience.
The company moved to Morocco where Welles could shoot
cheaply. After several weeks money ran out again. Welles once more
put Othello on hold to take another acting job, afterward moving
his patient company and crew to Venice for exteriors. Following yet
another break in filming, they continued on to Tuscany, and in 1952
the film was finally finished. Welles had worked in an opposing
approach to his studio-bound Macbeth (see chapter 10), vividly film-
ing the entire Othello (even interiors) on location. This was the right
approach for the "open" Othello, as opposed to the claustrophobia of
a castle-cave, which appeared proper for Welles's "trapped" Macbeth.
Somehow during the elongated process Welles managed to keep
his unique vision firmly in place. Often situations that promised
disaster actually provided inspiration. While readying for the con-
flict between Roderigo and Cassio, Welles was informed that only
Iago's costume had arrived. Rather than surrender to despair, Welles
hurredly rewrote the scene, setting it in a Turkish bathhouse with
everyone wrapped in towels. All the derring-do takes place amid
clouds of steam, and this sequence is the film's finest. Necessity
truly was the mother of invention.
Welles was fully aware that Shakespeare had been a pre-Freudian
psychologist, adding a key concept not found in Cinthio when Bra-
bantio, father of Desdemona, bitterly spits out: "Look to her, Moor;
she has deceived her father, and may thee." Though Othello shrugs
this off with "My life upon her faith," the seed of doubt has been
planted. Moreover, lago, having overheard it, becomes a gardener,
verbally watering that semantic seed via hints that bloom into sus-