Othello (1965 film)

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Othello (Spanish film poster)

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	British Home Entertainment
Release date(s)	1965
Running time	165 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

Othello is a 1965 film based on the Shakespeare play Othello; starring Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Frank Finlay, and Joyce Redman. It was simply a filmed version of a performance by the actors for the National Theatre, staged by John Dexter, from 1964-66. It even used enlarged duplicates of the original stage settings, rather than having elaborate new and different sets built specifically for the film. 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 real film version. 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. In the U.S., it did not play the usual several-week run given to most films; instead, it received an extremely limited release.

Ironically, it is the only Shakespeare film in which all the leading actors and actresses have been nominated for Oscars. Olivier's portrayal of Othello, for which he wore highly realistic blackface, and for which he 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, is highly controversial and perhaps even offensive to some, but is considered by many to be one of his greatest achievements, and perhaps the definitive performance of the role in the twentieth century. Frank Finlay's portrayal of Iago, much too subtle onstage to make a great impression, came across brilliantly in the film version, with its effective closeups of Iago's face.

The film retains virtually all of Shakespeare's play, only omitting the Fool's scene and a few scattered lines here and there. It also does not change the order of scenes, as Olivier's Hamlet or Richard III do, and, at nearly three hours, is easily the longest theatrical film version of the play. (Most film versions of Othello have drastically cut the play, perhaps because the plot is so simple and concentrated that there is no danger of omitting important plot elements or supporting characters, as in Hamlet or King Lear.)