| Othello | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Stuart Burge |
| Produced by | John Brabourne Anthony Havelock-Allan |
| Written by | William Shakespeare |
| Starring | Laurence Olivier Maggie Smith Frank Finlay Joyce Redman |
| Music by | Richard Hampton |
| Cinematography | Geoffrey Unsworth |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. (USA) British Home Entertainment (UK Video) |
| Release date(s) | December 15, 1965 |
| Running time | 165 min. |
| Language | English |
Othello is a 1965 film based on the National Theatre's staging of Shakespeare's Othello (1964-66) staged by John Dexter. Directed by Stuart Burge, the film starred Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Frank Finlay, and Joyce Redman, providing film debuts for both Derek Jacobi and Michael Gambon.
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The film retains virtually all of Shakespeare's original play and does not change the order of scenes, as Olivier's Hamlet or Richard III do. The only major omission is the Fool's scene. Derek Jacobi (Cassio) and Michael Gambon both made their film debuts in Othello and would go on to become giants of the stage and screen. Edward Hardwicke, would go on to work with the National for seven years and then become best known as Dr. Watson in TV series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
The film of Othello used enlarged duplicates of the original stage settings, rather than having elaborate new sets built. Olivier's former backers for his Shakespeare films were all dead by 1965, and he was not able to raise the money to do a film version on location or on elaborate sets. Olivier had in fact been planning on doing Macbeth, but the film's main backer, Alexander Korda, died a year after the release of Richard III. The National Theatre had already produced a staged film of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (1963) and would later produce Strindberg's The Dance of Death (1969). The Olivier Othello is the first English-language filmed version of the play made in colour (there had been a Russian version in 1955) and widescreen. In the U.S., it did not play the usual several-week run given to most films; instead, it played for only two days.[1] The film was exhibited as a roadshow presentation. [1]
Olivier played Othello in blackface. He also adopted an exotic accent of his own invention, developed a special walk, and learned how to speak in a voice considerably deeper than his normal one. Columnist Inez Robb disparagingly compared Olivier's performance to the blacked up Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer. She described Olivier's performance as "high camp", and said "I was certainly in tune with the gentleman sitting next to me who kept asking 'When does he sing Mammy?"[2] Noted film critic Pauline Kael gave the production and Olivier's portrayal one of her most glowing reviews, shaming the major movie studios for giving Olivier so little money to make the film that he and the public had to be content with what was almost literally a filmed stage production.[3] John Simon, while disagreeing with the approach the production's interpretation took, declared that "Olivier plays this misconceived Othello spectacularly, in a manner that is always a perverse joy to behold." [4]
It is, so far, the only Shakespeare film in which all the leading actors and actresses were nominated for Oscars. Finlay (Iago) was nominated for Best Supporting Actor despite having the role with the most lines in the play: 1117 to Olivier's 856. Olivier did, however, appear on screen three minutes longer than Finlay.
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