Is it because it's now considered politically incorrect by some for a white actor with black makeup to play Othello?
Very possibly. Though I heard it was over restoration and copyright issues, yet nobody seems to mention what I know...
I saw this when I rented "O" on dvd many years ago, and it was on the special features. So if you can pay for "O," you can have Othello on DVD.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0184791/I'm pretty sure it is this rendition of Othello, and not another version but it's hard to know because it was many years ago that I watched it and most Othello films don't have a large amount of images out for me to check out online. But I do recall the black face more than anything else. The image really sits in one's mind in an unsettling way. I know I can't enjoy the film as it's distracting. Though I do recall it being dull and hard to understand with the poor sound.
In Cloud Atlas, the yellowface was distracting, but at least it wasn't in every scene or even every other scene, so there were times I wasn't distracted by it, and I could enjoy the film for the most part. I don't get why people are still doing it today when we have biracial actors that can do white and Asian roles without weird racist make up. At least something like Tropic Thunder made it ironic and socially ridiculous in the film.
I get at the time most white people accepted it but I'm sure most black people didn't. It's not about people being ridiculous about it now, it's that people were ridiculous and cruel about it then. It's not like they didn't have black people around to do it, they just wouldn't hire them, and instead Orson Welles did it himself. If it wasn't so sad, it would be funny. I know there were budgetary issues, but I wonder what else lead him to cover himself in black makeup. I know it wasn't his first time going that route (ie Voodoo Macbeth).
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