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Saturday 22 November 2008

Morocco’s seaside

The magic of Morocco

The most memorable thing about Orson Welles’s film Othello — he gave one of his hammier performan-ces as the Moor, Micheál MacLiammóir played Iago as an old queen and Desdemona was completely lifeless even before her death — was the ramparts of Essaouira and the sea pounding below them. Welles shot much of the film here on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, and the town of Essaouira (then called Mogador under the French protectorate) showed its gratitude by naming a square after him.

The most memorable thing about Orson Welles’s film Othello — he gave one of his hammier performan-ces as the Moor, Micheál MacLiammóir played Iago as an old queen and Desdemona was completely lifeless even before her death — was the ramparts of Essaouira and the sea pounding below them. Welles shot much of the film here on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, and the town of Essaouira (then called Mogador under the French protectorate) showed its gratitude by naming a square after him.

It is a scruffy piece of garden just outside the medina walls, with a wooden carving of his face, recognisably Orson but the nameplate on the plinth has disappeared. The ramparts are much more impressive, in particular the cannons which, I saw from their inscriptions, were made in Barcelona at the end of the 18th century.

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