Othello (1980)
(115 minutes) 16mm color, Optical Track
Director: Liz White
Grant Awarded to: Dan Hassoun, Black Filmmakers Center & Archive, Indiana University
Archive: Black Filmmakers Center & Archive, Indiana University
Still from Othello (1980)
Director Liz White adapts Shakespeare’s Othello with an all-Black cast, drawing closely from the source material’s well-known tale , while also filtering Shakespeare’s text through contemporary themes of Black identity and colorism.
True to its Shakespearean roots, Liz White’s Othello follows the tragic downfall of the titular Moor of Venice, a powerful general newly married to the noble Desdemona. Unaware that his ensign, Iago, resents his decision to promote the inexperienced Michael Cassio instead of him, Othello becomes the target of a calculated scheme. Exploiting Othello’s outsider status and Desdemona’s innocence, Iago sows seeds of doubt in the general’s mind, suggesting an affair between Desdemona and Cassio. As suspicion festers, Othello’s noble character unravels into jealous obsession. Even as Iago’s plan spirals out of control, its success is devastating: Othello, consumed by rage, kills Desdemona and then himself.
Still from Othello (1980)
Elizabeth (Liz) Shearer White (circa 1913-1993) was an independent producer, Broadway dresser, playwright, and theater director. Raised around the Boston area, White studied dance and was determined from an early age to pursue a life in theater. Her parents operated a boarding house in Martha’s Vineyard that welcomed Black patrons, allowing the young Liz to meet Paul Robeson, Adam Clayton Powell, Ethel Waters, and other luminaries who vacationed there. Moving to New York in 1930, White joined the WPA Federal Negro Theatre, worked at the Lafayette Theatre with the likes of Carlton Moss and Orson Welles, and freelanced as a star dresser and stage manager for Judy Holliday, Gertrude Lawrence, and Lauren Bacall. White returned to Martha’s Vineyard in the mid-1940s and began to collaborate more extensively with the actors regularly visiting her family’s cottage. She co-founded the Shearer Summer Theatre, an experimental group of Black performers who staged productions around the island from 1946 until the 1980s. White long dreamed of filming an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello with her team of regular collaborators, and by the 1960s, she managed to raise funds (largely from her own savings) and assemble a crew (including a young up-and-comer named Yaphet Kotto) to begin filming in Martha’s Vineyard. Production on the film continued in fits and starts from 1962 to 1966, with White continuing to work on editing and post-production through the 1970s. Her Othello finally premiered at a 1980 screening at Howard University, making Liz White one of the earliest known Black women to produce a feature-length film. Following her mother’s passing in 1979, White assumed control of the family’s boarding cottage, which she operated until her death in 1993.
