| "Othello" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Theatre Night episode | |||
| Episodeno. | Series 5 Episode 1 | ||
| Directed by | Trevor Nunn | ||
| Written by | Trevor Nunn | ||
| Based on | Othello byWilliam Shakespeare | ||
| Original air date | June 23, 1990 (1990-06-23) | ||
| Running time | 205 | ||
| Episode chronology | |||
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Othello is a 1990 film produced by theRoyal Shakespeare Company, starringIan McKellen,Willard White,Imogen Stubbs, andZoë Wanamaker. It is based on a stage production ofWilliam Shakespeare's playOthello, directed byTrevor Nunn, and later rethought for TV and filmed in a studio.[1] It was shot in ablack box theater, so minimal props or scenery were needed, and aired 23 June 1990 onTheatre Night.[2]
Trevor Nunn directed the film himself based on his 1989 production for theRoyal Shakespeare Company. The sets, costumes, and props are from theAmerican Civil War, but the dialogue remains tied toVenice andCyprus. In contrast withAntony and Cleopatra (1974) andMacbeth (1979), Nunn preferred "contemplative"[2]medium shots overextreme closeups. The film makes little attempt to hide that it is a filmed stage production. Michael Brooke, writing forBFI Screenonline, thinks this is because Nunn's state purpose was to preserve the stage production for posterity. The film presents almost the complete text of the play, leaving out just one scene with Cassio and the clown.[2]
The previous film adaptation of a Nunn stage production for theRoyal Shakespeare Company of a Shakespeare play,Macbeth (1979), was "widely regarded as one of the finest screen Shakespeares ever",[2] so expectations for this adaptation were "sky-high".[2] Brooke thinks the expectations were "… generally met by a production that holds a very distinguished place amongst filmed Othellos, and is arguably its most successful television translation."[2] He particularly calls out "the beautifully achieved chemistry between the four leads"[2] as among its strongest features.[2]
In theCambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film,Carol Chillington Rutter finds a feminist perspective in the film:
… this is the oneOthello where the women's stories get fully told. Imogen Stubb's girlish, impulsive, incandescent Desdemona is set against [Zoë] Wanamaker's watchful, damaged Emilia …. Her nuanced playing … establishes Emilia as one of Shakespeare's great tragic roles. When, roaring, Wanamaker defies Othello … and breaks free of her collusion with Iago's lies … the voice Emilia acquires seems to be the voice of women's history. Here is a role that claims the agency that eludes Ophelia, Gertrude, Desdemona.[3]