Othello (1965 film)
| Othello | |
|---|---|
.jpg) |
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| Directed by | Stuart Burge |
| Produced by |
Anthony Havelock-Allan John Brabourne |
| Written by | William Shakespeare |
| Starring |
Laurence Olivier Maggie Smith Joyce Redman and Frank Finlay |
| Music by | Richard Hampton |
| Cinematography | Geoffrey Unsworth |
|
Production
company |
BHE Films
National Theatre of Great Britain |
| Distributed by |
Eagle-Lion Films (UK) Warner Bros. (US) |
|
Release date
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Running time
|
165 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Othello is a 1965 film based on the National Theatre Company's staging of Shakespeare's Othello (1964–66) staged by John Dexter. Directed by Stuart Burge, the film starred Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Joyce Redman, and Frank Finlay, who all received Academy Award nominations, and provided film debuts for both Derek Jacobi and Michael Gambon.
The film retains most of Shakespeare's original play and does not change the order of scenes, as do Olivier's Hamlet and Richard III. The only major omission is the Fool's scene, although other minor lines are cut here and there. (The stage version contained more of the play than did the film.) Derek Jacobi (Cassio) and Michael Gambon both made their film debuts in Othello, while Edward Hardwicke would go on to work with the National for seven years.
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 deceased by 1965, and he was unable to raise the money to do a film version on location or on elaborate sets. Nearly a decade earlier, Olivier had been attempting to find financial backing for his own film version of Macbeth after he performed the role in 1955 at Stratford, but ultimately without success. The National Theatre Company 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 color (there had been a Russian version in color in 1955) and widescreen. It was the second major film adaption of the work having been produced in 1952 by Orson Welles. In the U.S., it did not play the usual several-week run given to most films; instead, it played for only two days. The film was exhibited as a roadshow presentation.
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