Otello

I don't understand Italian, singing or spoken, and I couldn't follow the subtitles. It might be great for opera fans, but it was all lost on me.

In terms of audience expectations, opera films are the luckiest in the medium. Whereas comedies have to be funny, action films exciting or mysteries mysterious, opera films could be the dullest, visually incompetent farragos ever, as long as the music is there, booming in all its glory. And, with a few noble exceptions - the Archers, Losey, Bergman - that is in general what we opera lovers have been given: we are that easy to please.

Zeffirelli's OTELLO is far better than the usual, but is, if I may say so under IMDb guidelines, still hampered by a curious mixture of unfounded arrogance, cautious reverence and imaginative timidity. As any fool knows, the best films are founded on melodrama, literally music and drama, just like opera (and many great film-makers have produced opera also). Because action on stage is evidently limited, all the excitement, passion, emotion of characters' feelings and of extreme circumstance are carried by the music, in the same way narrative is less important in the films of, say, Minnelli or Sirk, than the vibrant mise-en-scene which speaks for characters when they cannot.

Opera, therefore, might seem a perfect medium for cinema. In another way, though, it is constricted. A spoken theatre play, for example, can be opened up with relatively little damage, you can create new scenes, add dialogue. But any director of opera carries the millstone of the score - you can cut, but you cannot write new music (or if you did you'd be shot), and so you have to work with what you've got, which increases the theatricality. Again, depending on your genius, you can be limited or liberated by this.

OTELLO benefits from this concentration because it is such an inexorable, claustrophobic piece, where the confinement of setting mirrors the different prisons characters find themselves in. But claustrophobia is uncomfortable, and Zeffirelli is catering to a bourgeois, generally non-cinema going audience, who want a tasteful, middle-brow night out, and so he never explores the opera's intensity as much as he might. And, we are reminded of Welles's OTHELLO, the second greatest Shakespearean adaptation, and know how it can be done.

This is a very traditional interpretation, not just for opera on stage, but for Shakespearean performances as well. We get the usual Cyprus garrison, the Renaissance costumes, the exotic local colour, the play of black and white, the sight of pure Desdemona in white lying on her pure, white bed. But Zeffirelli makes a few 'adjustments' that are not neccessarily in Verdi, but have some justification from Shakespeare. For instance, Desdemona's relations with Cassio are ambiguous, made seemingly sexual from the very beginning, making Otello's rage less irrational, and her 'innocence' more complicated. This might blunt the story's symbolic force, but makes the characterisation more plausible, as does Otello's suspicion from the start, so that Iago's poison is only one factor in the Moor's anguish. These kind of interpretive devices are acceptable, if not exactly enriching. What are less acceptable are the cuts to the score, brief perhaps, but sticking out like tatters on a brocade robe. What's inexplicable is that they're not really needed - unlike, say, 'Die Meistersinger', this opera is the same length as a regular feature - did we really need the orchestral epilogue over the credits, disturbing the cathartic power of the finale? Further, maybe the print I saw was aged, but the sound was very muffled, made more inaudible by intrusive sound effects which are presumably there to heighten the drama, but only serve to irritate (Zeffirelli as Brecht? I don't think so).

Visually, Zeffirelli is no Welles, and his shots are full of the propriety beloved of those who condescend to cinema. There are two sequences - Iago's self-revealing credo and Otello's jealous soliloquy - full of huge metaphysical power, bracing blasphemy and emotional voids that cry out for Welles; in fairness, these are the film's best scenes, but they are suffocated by restraint. Curiously enough, with the excessive zooming, clumsy compostions and unrhythmic editing, the nearest filmmaker to Zeffirelli is Welles' friend Jesse Franco - if the Italian never approaches that maverick's sheer profusion of ideas, there is a gratifying homoeroticism (especially Iago talking about Cassio's dream, immensely revealing or the villain's character) to compensate.

It would be inappropriate to expect astonishing acting from opera performers - the histrionic requirements of a huge hall and an exposing close-up are completely different. I have mixed feelings about the casting of Placido Domingo. Surely, in the mid-80s, it is beyond offensive to cast a boot-polished singer in the lead role, especially with so many great black performers more than qualified. I suppose they wouldn't have enabled the film to get made. On the other hand, Domingo is the greatest tenor of the 20th century, the most daring, versatile and exciting, as well as the one with most subtle and expressive dramatic range. He is remarkable here, his acting surprisingly nuanced and moving. In his first appearance, entering from the storm, and in his first beg scene, halting the drunken brawl, Otello is a figure who emerges from chaos to assert order; his decline into madness, pointed by the profusion of scientific, 'rational', instruments, which become expressions of distortion, is painful to watch, but true. Katia Ricciarelli, excellent, looks like she's wandered in from 'Siegfried'.

I am a fan of Placido Domingo in the sense that I admire him for his vast repertoire and lengthy career. That being said, this is one of the best movie versions of this opera around. Domingo is everything expected in this role. His superb singing and masculine physique are a perfect match. As for Katia's Desdemona, she is a great singer and beautiful woman (for an opera singer, of course). Justino Diaz's Iago is as evil and vile as Shakespeare wrote of him. The music along with actually shooting in Europe make a wonderfully complete picture for this masterpiece. Even the opening sequence is visual, unlike the usual staged productions. Real combat, emotion and staging are quite effective.

The very beginning of OTELLO with everything so vastly bigger than reality sets the tone for our expectations. Some are disappointed, others are surprised.

It seems, having found out Franco Zeffirelli's entire filmography, that the key movie which truly delivers the director's masterful eye for details as well as the desirable faithfulness in adapting the classical source to the screen is TRAVIATA with Placido Domingo and Teresa Stratas. There, you do not have to be particularly fond of opera to love it. Indeed, echoing Vincent Canby's words of September 1986, in TRAVIATA "opera and film are effortlessly made to seem one." OTELLO, made 5 years later with the great tenor in the lead, appears to be a slightly different case in which aesthetic beauty is combined with classic tragedy but the manner is ultimately individual.

The 2013 Year of Verdi may constitute a wonderful opportunity to broaden one's knowledge of this great composer, the genius of his time. However, many viewers who have seen Franco Zeffirelli's OTELLO will probably agree with the New York Times reviewer, Vincent Canby, that, unlike TRAVIATA, the movie rather "ornaments" the original than "reveals" it. Therefore, from the very opening shot with its grandeur and the majestic display of elaborate visuals rather than Verdi's storm music (which appears to be in the shadow of spectacle), OTELLO is foremost an expression of the director's style.

Yes, it is more Zeffirelli than Verdi in its divided pieces, some chaotic continuity, dreamlike photography by the director's mainstay, Ennio Guarnieri, aestheticism and the vital, engrossing and a little terrifying conclusion. At certain moments, visuals and symbols appear to be supplied with an almost spiritual piety. Such care is being handled, such effort being put to everything. Although it may consist of certain liberties with the original source, nothing seems to stand in the way towards leaving the viewer dazzled at the creative use of images, dazzling costumes, breathtaking colors, camera angles and the cast who make it all beautifully acted and sung. They allow you to search into their souls. Yes, they will completely captivate you.

Of course, the nature of this movie, opera, makes the performances considerably overacted. Viewers who are not used to such pompous execution of the sung lines may feel at odds with the over-dramatized moments. Yet, Zeffirelli, as in many (of not all) of his other movies supplies us with beautiful characters whose looks alone somehow make them easily identified with and likable. The pairing of Placido Domingo as Otello and Katia Ricciarelli as Desdemona rewards us all. By splendid combination of emotional resonance and the dramatic tensions, they deliver exceptionally memorable moments, in particular their wedding night which is a true visual poetry on screen. Domingo beautifully highlights the typical way of a tragic hero - from victory to tragedy, from pride to humiliation, from being hailed to being doomed. Ricciarelli is a delicate dove, an innocent victim, a truly beautiful creature born under evil star. She is incredible in the scene of the prayer at the shroud of Madonna. Piety, subtlety and dignity reach exquisite harmony and surprising balance. Yet, however they differ, as it is in the classical tragedy, they both fall victims of evil scheme, of the hero's evil genius.

One line says: "Beware of jealousy!" This, unfortunately, did not apply to "Beware of an evil man!" Justino Diaz portrays Jago, a malicious man who believes in a god of vengeance...that is his creed. His demonic laughter allures all major human emotions. It is him who plants the seeds of doubt about Desdemona and her alleged lover, Cassio (Urbano Barberini) and his poison really works in the hero's mind. In one of the most powerful scenes of the movie, Jago stands at the cross in a typical Zeffirelli imagery (compare to the film about saint Francis) and, on the verge of blasphemy, he sings out in pride and vanity "Heaven is an idle tale" That scene has its continuation at Otello's oath. Zeffirelli delivers a splendid performance from Justino Diaz, the most memorable character/villain of the movie.

From the supporting cast, a mention must be made of Urbano Barberini. Here, the classical idea of beauty, sort of Michelangelo's David is evoked, in particular, at the additional scene (which Canby relates to as 'gross interruption') when Cassio is showed succumbed to the wild pleasures of erotic dreams about Desdemona. Barberini evokes a certain aspect of an innocent young man so many times depicted by Zeffirelli with its pinnacle in ROMEO AND JULIET.

With the marvelous display of visuals, aesthetic splendor and the director's standard hallmarks, Zeffirelli has never and will never win the hearts of those who are bound to criticize him. Yet, OTELLO may be forgiven its liberal treatments of the classical source and may be considered a significant film by those seeking high art on screen.

A real rarity -- an opera on film that still retains its power. In fact, this version is even more powerful that some stage productions. The subtitles are easy to read, the staging is atmospheric, and the cast is wonderful.