Othello

Orson Welles - 1952 ; I can't legislate for the restoration.
Maybe I preferred 'Mabeth' by Welles... I'd have to see both again. This is really extremely Russian; some very fast cutting, lots of still shots from a low angle of dramatically framed figures. Great shadows and decenterings. Typical Wellesian touches of overlapping dialogue, and in his historical mode the real earthiness, enthusiasm for the time.
Welles focusses on the beastly aspects; his Othello is still, flat faced, never blinking. Framed many times bursting through covers, there is the real 'La Belle et La Bete' feel. Deeply sexually repressed, the question of the lacivious is crucial. I also got the feeling of a strange kind of abstraction, taken away to Cyprus, a bizarre hothouse. The lack of ellipsis in the 'convincing' scene, Othello and Iago from stone room to stone from outside, with that long walking tracking shot outside. And the wonderful shadows, geometrical faces, huge rooms and focus of the final momologues. This, with the beating music, give that sense of fate and doom also there in the threat of invasion.