The Plays of William Shakespeare, Vol. 6 - Othello (1983) Review

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(More customer reviews)White Desdemona marries black Othello. A soldier, Othello combines the virtue of Colin Powell with the evil of O.J. Simpson. William Marshall is Othello. Devilish Iago deceives him into thinking that Desdemona is unfaithful. Othello kills her, then himself. Jenny Agutter is Desdemona. Jenny was born, December 20, 1952, in Taunton, Somerset, England. She is a beauty. She had a son at age 37. She is well-connected in the movie business and continues to find roles. I wrote a paper about Othello and the theme of jealousy in college. Beyond jealousy, Shakespeare's play questions interracial relationships and how they affect people.


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The clearest and most understandable Shakespeare productions ever made. Staged as seen in the 16th Century, featuring award-winning performers. A lover's jealousy results in tragedy and death. Starring William Marshall, Ron Moody and Jenny Agutter. 195 minutes.

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Othello (2002) Review

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(More customer reviews)Unlike many Shakespeare enthusiasts, I adore modern adaptations and staging of Shakespeare's works. One of the reasons his plays have endured is that they have a timeless quality that is understood generation after generation. His stories capture something essential about human nature that cannot be confined to a historical period.
Some modern versions of Shakespeare use original dialogue with updated settings, costumes, and character relationships. This sometimes works very well, as in Ethan Hawke's Hamlet or the Julie Taymor's Titus (my favorite). In this version of Othello, however, the dialogue has been modernized to match the setting.
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I saw it in a class on Shakespeare's Tragedies at Syracuse University which was taught by a reknowned Shakespeare scholar. This was her choice as the best film version of Othello to show us. Othello is a story which translates particularly well into a modern version because it deals with issues such as racism, jealousy, and insecurity that make it applicable to a variety of situations. The acting in this movie is excellent - very believable and powerful. I highly recommend this movie to anyone, whether or not you have previous experience with Othello.


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Shakespeare's Soliloquies Review

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(More customer reviews)I was disappointed by this DVD. It is a series of about 20 Shakespearean soliloquies by semi-pro actors. The production quality of the performances are average but the quality of the DVD itself is atrocious. The menus are backwards, non-existant or confusing. I thought the purpose of this DVD was to show the best soliloquies from Shakespeare but the choices don't include Othello and many others where there are great speeches to be found. Might be good for kids or others who have little exposure to Shakespeare (definitely not me). All in all, it's maybe worth half the price I paid for it. Anyone wanna buy my copy?

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The Plays of William Shakespeare - King Richard II (1983) Review

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(More customer reviews)This made-for-television (or possibly video, I'm not sure) production starts off, if you're watching it on DVD, with several knocks against it, as the blurb on the box claims, with rather dubious accuracy, not only that the production is staged as seen in the sixteenth century (not true, it's indoors and there are women in it), but that unlike most filmed Shakespeare it does not feature "unfamiliar English accents." Despite these harbingers of doom I tried to give it a fair shake, and indeed occasionally director William Woodman makes some clever choices, but this is a dull and uninspired effort. In the title role, David Birney gives perhaps the most uncharismatic performance since David Gwillim donned the royal arms and whined at his soldiers to storm a cheap plywood Harfleur in the BBC Henry V; he plows through his speeches rather flatly and spends the whole production with either an arrogant smirk or what I think is supposed to be an anguished smirk. Paul Shenar fares slightly, but not a whole lot, better as a brooding but excessively pasty and sweaty Bolingbroke; the supporting cast ranges from unmemorable to wretched (and frequently causes utterance of the phrase "hey, what have I seen that guy in?"). Don't bother unless you're madly obsessive about Richard II like I am. In fact, if you're madly obsessive about Richard II, you *especially* ought not to watch this production.

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