It’s hard to imagine two Shakespearen adaptations that are more different, yet almost equally impressive as the Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier versions of Othello. Welles took the Bard’s tragedy and reduced to the level of a fable, shooting on location in Italy with a highly expressionist, formalist style that was stylized as Shakespeare’s prose. The director of Olivier’s version, Stuart Burge, emphasis the psychological aspects of the characters, with sparse sets that make us focus on the actors and little else. Welles’s film runs ninety one minuets, Burge’s is nearly twice as long at two hours and forty five minuets.
According to the super reputable site known as Wikipedia, Olivier was unable to raise the money for a full film version, so used his meager budget to adapt his award winning stage version produced by the National Theatre of Great Britain. However, as the actor explains in a bonus short on the DVD, it is not a filmed stage play (thank God). “It is a film of a stage play” he explains and he’s right. Burge is not a respected director, and his credits are mostly for TV, but he makes the National Theater production a real move.
He is helped immeasurably of course, by the actors, all of which tone done their performances for the film and four of whom were nominated for Oscars. It is understandable why some may object to the idea of a white actor playing Othello and I while agree that in general it is a bad idea for actors to play characters outside of their own ethnic group, it is sometimes not a bad idea in the particular. Laurence Olivier wears realistic black makeup for the part, learned a new accent, and endows Othello with a deep humanity, based on real psychology. There are no stereotypes here.
Although cineastes can deabate whether Welles, Olivier or Laurence Fishburne was the Othello, there is no question that the greatest of all Iagos is Frank Finlay, who is one of the great screen villains, a force of evil right up their with Hannibal Lecter or, yes, Dracula. The remarkable thing about Finlay’s performance is that we kind of get why Iago is so bad- he is negative, mistrusting type, and failed promotion was the last straw, so he’s gone postal. Iago is like a force of nature- he’s evil, he can’t help it, he just is.
The entire cast is great. Unlike Welles film, which was essentially a two character show (Welles and Michael MacLiammoir) this picture features an amazing Desdemona (Maggie Smith) and even a complex Cassio (Derek Jacobi), usually seen as a boring character.
The sparse sets, lack of music and focus on dialogue are reminiscent of the of early films of the sound era, we are drawn in to the lives of these character. The film is features nearly the unabridged text of the play, is never boring, and is one of the screen’s great Shakespearean achievements.
Othello (1965)