OTHELLO 2014 DVD Release?

[Roger Ryan]

According to a photo of a new Cashiers Du Cinema article posted on Carlotta Films US facebook page...

https://www.facebook.com/CarlottaFilmsU ... n=timeline

...there seems to be an announcement that Welles' OTHELLO will be released on DVD in both France and the U.S. in 2014. Using an on-line translator, I believe the article states that the film will be distributed in April (France?) and in the autumn (U.S.?). No idea which version of the film will potentially be issued or if there will be a Blu-ray release as well. Also, I would be curious as to the legality of a U.S. release. I do know that the European-based Carlotta Films just started distributing in the U.S. this past year.

[Jay]

Nice catch, Roger. If I had to guess, I'd say both a DVD and blu-ray release are on the way, at least in Europe. Like you mentioned, the legality of a release in the US still seems murky. I imagine that if it could have happened already, Criterion would have upgraded their original laserdisc release.

[Jeff Wilson]

It says that France and the US will get an April release. The autumn bit refers to the film discussed after OTHELLO.

[Roger Ryan]

Thanks Jeff for the clarification! By the way, this news was posted on the Criterion Forum site first, so I can't take any more credit than posting it here and adding the mistranslated release month info. With just three months to go before release, I hope we'll hear some more solid information soon.

[Jeff Wilson]

Yeah, I'm interested to see what comes of this. I have very low expectations, so it won't take much to surprise me.

[Wellesnet]

As it turns out, "Othello" is actually being given a theatrical release in April by Carlotta Films:

http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=8862

[Roger Ryan]

While I appreciate Ray's piece answering most of the questions we had, I kind of wish I had a little more time before being disappointed! Nonetheless, I hope an eventual Blu-ray release will happen in the U.S. and would dearly love for that initial European edit to show up at some point.

[RayKelly]

I am hoping it plays in Region A players (U.S./Canada) as well as Region B

[Le Chiffre]

Looking forward to seeing Othello again on the big screen. It's been about 20 years. I think the restoration plays better on the big screen then it does on video.

[atcolomb]

Saw the following from Blu-ray.com today:

"Carlotta Films US have released a trailer for Orson Welles' recently restored Othello (1952), starring Micheál MacLiammóir, Robert Coote, Suzanne Cloutier, and Orson Welles. The restoration will have film will also have an exclusive theatrical engagement April 25th - May 8th at Film Forum in New York.

The restored Othello is also expected to arrive on Blu-ray in France later this year.

Orson Welles directed and starred in this version of Shakespeare's famous tragedy. Filmed on a shoestring budget over two years, Welles strips the famous tale of sexual jealousy and betrayal down to its essentials, casting himself as the tragic Moor. Winner of the 1952 Best Picture Award at Cannes".

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=13150

[Jay]

Saw the following from Blu-ray.com today:

"Carlotta Films US have released a trailer for Orson Welles' recently restored Othello (1952), starring Micheál MacLiammóir, Robert Coote, Suzanne Cloutier, and Orson Welles. The restoration will have film will also have an exclusive theatrical engagement April 25th - May 8th at Film Forum in New York.

The restored Othello is also expected to arrive on Blu-ray in France later this year.

Orson Welles directed and starred in this version of Shakespeare's famous tragedy. Filmed on a shoestring budget over two years, Welles strips the famous tale of sexual jealousy and betrayal down to its essentials, casting himself as the tragic Moor. Winner of the 1952 Best Picture Award at Cannes".

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=13150

That trailer is in widescreen, which is wrong. I'm hoping the blu-ray release won't be cropped and will instead present the film in its correct AR.

[Roger Ryan]

Yes, the widescreen re-framing shown in the trailer is a little worrisome. The image quality does look really good even though it appears too much digital clean-up was done (practically no film grain is visible).

[Le Chiffre]

According to "Rob Boopbop" on Wellesnet Fb, the film itself will be released in it's original academy ratio. It's hard to imagine otherwise, unless Carlotta Films wants critics and Welles scholars to drill them a new wazoo.

Interesting that the credits at the end of the trailer indicate that Westchester Films (who bought Castle Hill around 2009) are in conjunction with "Beatrice Welles-Smith", even though Beatrice dropped the "Smith" some twenty years ago. It also indicates Michael Dawson and Arnie Saks as producers, so this is likely a more sandblasted version of the '92 restoration.

[Roger Ryan]

...It also indicates Michael Dawson and Arnie Saks as producers, so this is likely a more sandblasted version of the '92 restoration.

Oh, I'm sure this is an upgraded version of the '92 restoration; hopefully the correct master is used from now on so we can judge this work accurately (producer Michael Dawson has claimed that an inferior master was used for at least some of the home video releases)!

[Le Chiffre]

I'm a bit skeptical of that, and think it's more a question of being "inferior" only in the sense of simple artifact reduction being more thorough on some videos then others. But I've never seen an OTHELLO video that I thought actually looked bad, or even all that inferior, at least to my eyes.

Here's what Dawson said to me during our interview last year:

Wellesnet: When I saw the film at the Fine Arts Theatre in Chicago (during it's 1992 theatrical release), not only was the monks’ chanting not there, but they had also put a widescreen scope on the film, so that most of the visual compositions were ruined, with parts of people’s heads chopped off constantly. I actually walked out and asked for my money back, and they had fixed it when I went back again the next week, but I cringe when I think of how many people saw it that way in it’s first week.

Michael Dawson: Sure, a lot of people probably walked out thinking “Well, that was odd. Why would Welles frame things like that?”...thinking that chopping off people’s heads was something HE was doing, this “great genius”...all the miscomposed shots just further evidence of his decline. An ignorant projectionist using the wrong lens gating is one of those nightmarish, uncontrollable things that can happen during a theatrical release.

But that reminds me of another interesting issue we had with Castle Hill which points to the difference between film and video. We had wanted a particular stock of film used for the theatrical release prints, which was very resistant to scratches and tears. They didn’t use that stock, unfortunately. Now you can only screen each individual (35mm) print about thirty times before it begins to build up it’s own artifact degradation due to projection, and at one point, years later, I remember seeing a retro screening of the film, and the print they showed was in a horrible condition. So the irony was, here you’re showing a ‘restored version’, but the print was so bad that it completely negated that concept.

Wellesnet: The “restoration” was in need of a restoration.

Michael Dawson: Fortunately all that’s not an issue on video. We had had the WRS-provided test print and other elements transferred into digi-beta masters, to at least preserve their work for digital video formats, and that’s what we began supplying Castle Hill with in later years, when the film would go into (video) distribution on Turner Broadcasting or Image Entertainment, or whatever.

The irony is that there was a VHS version released after that, in the waning days of VHS, by Cinar (and) The difference between that and the Image DVD is that the Cinar has an absolutely pristine image quality, with literally zero artefacts. The downside to it is that it’s VHS analog format, not even standard definition digital..

I'm assuming the new restoration is DLP and not 35mm, so the upgraded cleanup won't deteriorate after thirty showings. Hopefully it will show in other cities, besides just New York.