A companion webpage supporting Jesús Tronch's essay "Othello
in
Spanish: dubbed and subtitled versions." Shakespeare on Screen: Othello. Ed. Sarah Hatchuel
and Nathalie
Vienne-Guerin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
195-211. ISBN
9781107109735
A version of this essay was delivered as “Dubbed and Subtitled Moor: Welles’s (1952), Burge’s (1965) and Parker’s (1995) Othellos into Spanish” at the Shakespeare on Screen: Othello conference in Montpellier, in June 2012.
With the support of Research Project ARTELOPE, FFI2012-34347, and
TC/12 Consolider, CSD2009-00033, funded by the Spanish Government.
This webpage contains images of Othello films in Spanish dubbed and subtitled versions. They are shown for research and educational purposes.
§ Figure. 1.- Frame from the “luanurbec” subtitles of Welles’s
Othello showing a four-line subtitle
This takes place at 1:21:27 in the film, at 5:28 in MrLite100’s 19/30 clip at <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uoi1khVbKe4>, last accessed 25 April 2013.
§ Figure 2.- Branagh’s gesture for “Lay thy finger thus” in Parker’s Othello
This takes place at 1:42 at MrLite100’s 8/30 clip at <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rlGypoY71U>, last accessed 25 April 2013.
§ Figure 3.- “I cannot say ‘whore’”,
spoken by Desdemona (Irène Jacob) in Parker’s Othello
This takes place at 1:21:27 (at 5:28 in MrLite100’s 19/30 clip
at <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uoi1khVbKe4>),
last accessed 25 April 2013.
ACTORS AND THEIR DUBBED VOICES IN SPANISH
Information from the database www.eldoblaje.com
§ Orson Welles as Othello dubbed by Eduardo Fajardo.
Fajardo's voice associated with: Orson Welles, as well as Charles
Boyer, Clark Gable, John Wayne, Tyrone Power, Raf Vallone
Charles Boyer in Tales of Manhattan (Seis
Destinos) in 1943 and History Is Made at Night [1937]
(Cena de medianoche) in 1945, Clark Gable as
the gambler Candy Johnson in Honky Tonk (Quiero a
este hombre), John Wayne as the young Swedish ex-farmer Ole
Olsen in The Long Voyage Home (Hombres intrépidos)
in 1947, and Tyrone Power as Count de Fersen in van Dyke’s Marie
Antoinette [1938] (Maria Antonieta) in 1947.
§ Laurence Olivier as Othello dubbed by Teófilo
Martínez (Stuart Burge, dir., 1966)
A recorded sample of his voice is available at <http://www.eldoblaje.com/datos/Muestras/143.mp3>, accessed 10 May 2013.
Martínez's voice associated with: Charles Laughton, Orson Welles,
Vittoria de Sica, also with John Gielgud
(Unable to watch the dubbed version of Burge’s Othello with Olivier in the title role, I cannot but wonder if Teófilo Martínez imitated Olivier’s voice as a “bass part, a sound that should be dark violet—velvet stuff”, a deep and “careful way of speaking”, as Olivier described it himself in On Acting, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1987, p. 155.)
§ Frank Finlay as Iago dubbed by Félix Acaso
(Stuart Burge, dir., 1966)
A sample of Acaso’s voice is available at <http://www.eldoblaje.com/datos/Muestras/1249.mp3>
Acaso's voice associated with: Robert Mitchum, Joseph Cotten,
Henry Fonda, David Niven
§ Kenneth Branagh as Iago dubbed by Jordi Brau
(Oliver Parker, dir., 1995)
A sample of Brau’s voice is available at <http://www.eldoblaje.com/datos/Muestras/33.mp3>
(accessed 10 May 2013).
Brau's voice associated with: Robin Williams, Kenneth Branagh,
Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks
Brau is the regular dubbing actor for Branagh in roles such
as Mike Church in Branagh’s Dead Again (Morir
todavía, 1991 / 1992), and more pointedly, the
Shakespearean parts of King Henry in Henry V
(1989 / 1990), Benedick in Much Ado About
Nothing (1994), Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein (1995), as well as Hamlet in the eponymous
tragedy dubbed both in Catalan (in 1996) and in Spanish (in 1997).
Other actors: Dan Aykroyd as the instructor Jack Lambert in H. Miller’s Getting Away with Murder (1996), Brad Pitt as the assassin Early Grayce in D. Sena’s Kalifornia (1993 / 1995), Sean Penn in T. Robbins’s Dead Man Walking (1995 / 1996) and in the TV series Ellen (1996), Daniel Day-Lewis in J. Sheridan’s In the Name of the Father (1993 / 1994), Nicholas Cage in A. Bergman It Could Happen to You (1994 / 1995), and Steven Segal in A. Davis’ Under Siege (1992 / 1993).
§ Laurence Fishburne as Othello dubbed by
Ernesto Aura (Oliver Parker, dir., 1995)
A sample of his voice available at < http://www.eldoblaje.com/datos/Muestras/18.mp3> (accessed 10 May 2013).
Aura’s voice associated with: Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Laurence Fishburne, Tommy Lee Jones, Lance
Henriksen
Christopher Plummer in T. Gillian’s Twelve
Monkeys (1995 / 1996), Abraham Murray in W. Allen’s Mighty
Aphrodite (1995 / 1996), John Gielgud as King Arthur’s
ghost in R. Cohen’s Dragonheart (1996), James Coburn in
P. Barclay’s The Cherokee Kid (1996) and in T. Shadyac’s
The Nutty Professor (1996), and Jeff Bridges in W. Hill’s
Wild Bill (1995 / 1996).
Tommy Lee Jones in J. Schumacher’s The Client (1994)
and Batman forever (1995).
African-American actors: Samuel L. Jackson as Greg Meeker in R. Donaldson’s White Sands (1992), the 1995 remake Kiss of Death (El sabor de la muerte) directed by B. Sshroeder, Morgan Freeman in W. Petersen’s Outbreak (1995, Estallido), Sidney Poitier as Mandela in J. Sargent’s Mandela and de Klerk and M. Caton-Jones’s The Jackal (1997), Mike Tyson as himself in J. Toback’s Black & White (1999 / 2000).
Othello was not Aura’s first Shakespearean role: he had dubbed Michael York as Theobald in F. Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (1968), Derek Jacobi as the chorus in K. Branagh’s Henry V (1989), Alan Bates as Claudius in Zeffirelli’s Hamlet (1990 / 1991), and the narrator in B. Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet (1996 / 1997). Aura occasionally dubbed Welles as narrator in N. Ray’s King of Kings (1961).
* * *
Primary sources.