Othello

Sergei Bondarchuk is the third actor to play Othello on film following Emil Jannings in 1922 and Orson Welles in 1952.

Husband and wife team Bondarchuk and Irina Skobotseva are splendid. He is nobility of character incarnate and she is by far the most 'taking' Desdemona I have seen. I cannot agree with the previous reviewer who opines that their relationship is 'under-developed'. Their tenderness for each other is manifest. Bondarchuk however lacks not just the passion but also the pride which allows him to be so easily convinced of his wife's alleged infidelity. Experience teaches us that the actor playing Iago can very often steal the show but here director Sergei Yutkevich does not allow the excellent Andrei Popov to throw things off balance. Good work also from Vladimir Soshalsky as Cassio and Antonina Maksimova as Emilia.

Yutkevich had long cherished a desire to film this piece and has used the superb translation by Boris Pasternak. It is beautifully shot by Yevgeny Andrikanis with a powerful score by Aram Khachaturian.

The director has taken the play out of the proscenium arch and utilises the glorious coastal scenery of the Crimea and the Genoese fortress at Soudak.

I would not hesitate to recommend this film to students of the Bard and indeed anyone to whom this wondrous play is unfamiliar.