Othello (1995 film) As of December 2017, the film holds a rating of 67% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 39 reviews with the consensus: "Perhaps less than the sum of its parts, "Othello" is still highly entertaining, and features excellent performances from Laurence Fishburne and Kenneth Branagh." Othello (1995 film) Othello is a 1995 film based on William Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name. It was directed by Oliver Parker and stars Laurence Fishburne as Othello, Irène Jacob as Desdemona, and Kenneth Branagh as Iago. This is the first cinematic reproduction of the play released by a major studio that casts an African
Othello is the model for Shakespeare's Othello, but some researchers believe the poet also took inspiration from the several Moorish delegations from Morocco to Elizabethan England "circa" 1600. Another possible source was the "Description of Africa" by Leo Africanus. The book was an enormous success in Europe, and was translated into many other languages, remaining a definitive reference work for decades (and to some degree, centuries) afterwards. An English translation by John Pory appeared in 1600 under the title "A Geographical Historie of Africa, Written in Arabicke and Italian by Iohn Leo a More..." in which form Shakespeare may have seen