Filming Othello (1979)

Interesting facts

Filming Othello is a 1978 English-language West German documentary film directed by and starring Orson Welles about the making of his award-winning 1951 production Othello. The film, which was produced for West German television, was the last completed feature film directed by Welles, as well as the last one to be made during his lifetime.

Production

Filming Othello was made between 1974 and 1978. It was intended to be the first in a series of documentaries directed by Welles on the creation of his classic films. However, the second film in the proposed series, on the making of The Trial, was never completed.

Filming Othello was shot in 16mm, with Gary Graver as the cinematographer. Welles shot the footage of his conversation with MacLiammoir and Edwards in Paris, France, in 1974, and shot the footage of his part of their conversation two years later in Beverly Hills, California. Footage was also shot of Welles visiting Venice, Italy, but it was not included in the final print because it had been believed lost when Welles was moving around Europe.

The film includes a conversation with a Cambridge, Massachusetts audience after a screening of the film on 8 January 1977 at the 400-seat Cinema 1 inside the Orson Welles Cinema Complex. (Welles had starred in An Evening With Orson Welles the night before at Boston Symphony Hall.)

Some of Welles' The Other Side of the Wind crew—Gary Graver, Michael Stringer and Larry Jackson—worked on Filming Othello.

Filming Othello uses clips from Othello, but the footage is not accompanied by the film's dialogue track.

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