Othello by William Shakespeare is a tragic play about jealousy, deceit, and hatred.

It was
adapted by Oliver Parker, starring Laurence Fishburne as the unusually hot-blooded Othello,
and also was the first African American to be cast as Othello in a mainstream production. While
the movie does seem to do justice to the Shakespearean tragedy but still has some flaws of its
own.
The movie and the text mostly revolve around the same plotline, the movie has omitted and
added several scenes according to the demand of the audience. The text moves in an almost
linear fashion, whilst the movie showcases scenes running parallel. Othello is a Moorish military
general serving Venice who falls in love with an upper-class Venetian lady named Desdemona.
The movie starts at the very similar scenes that the play starts off with except the fact that the
movie goes on showing Othello’s and Desdemona’s marriage scene, a scene that was originally
not present in the text, in the text it is just assumed that they are married after the
conversation of Rodrigo and Iago. From the very beginning of the movie, the distinction
between Othello and Desdemona is shown using metaphorical indicators, one of them was
seen during their wedding where Othello wore a black cape with a hood whilst Desdemona
wore a white gown, here we can see the use of symbolism for the devil and the angel. Their
union was seen as something unacceptable by the people of the society, particularly
Desdemona’s father-Brabantio for whom this instance of his daughter eloping with Othello was
a huge setback as she was supposed to fear him. Throughout, both the text and the play the
racially charged negativity towards Othello is strongly evident. Iago who is one of Othello’s
most trusted men can be seen plotting against him throughout, he is shown to be a conniver
who gets people to do just as he wanted. The grounds of his hatred towards Othello seem to be
very vague be it Othello cuckolding him or the promotion of Cassio, it is almost as if there is
something more to their interactions than what is mentioned in the text. From the beginning
itself he can be seen declaring on that he is not what he seems to be and is not loyal to
anybody, all the people that he associates with seem to be the puppets of his hand, and the
character of Rodrigo is one of those who was manipulated by Iago for extorting money by
making false promises of possessing Desdemona. He keeps himself mysterious right from the
beginning where he accompanies Roderigo to enrage Brabantio by disclosing the information to
him about his daughter. Iago can be seen talking while hiding behind the boat so as to not
reveal his identity to Brabantio. We can even see usage of dialogues such as “An old black ram
is tupping your white ewe” which is said to further enrage him into believing that this act of his
daughter would ruin his prestige and image in society. Distraught he reaches the duke’s council
where he expected to get justice but the duke and the council were seen favoring Othello due
to the fact that he was one of those who could subdue the Turks. What was also seen was the
immense trust that Othello had in Iago leaving his newly wedded wife with him. His wife, and
others, referred to him as “honest Iago” in numerous instances. He was held to a higher
position as compared to many of his trusted men and at the very end, even with his own wife.
Whilst Iago is seen plotting throughout, manipulating Cassio who was faithful to his duty to
drink during work, also makes Roderigo provoke him which leads to a tussle which further
results in his demotion by a furious Othello who wanted to set an example for his men so as to
not go astray. Here we can see Iago again pretending to be a good friend to Cassio and advises
him to consult Desdemona, this he uses to generate spur, feigning ignorance he creates such
situations that lead to Othello suspecting his wife of infidelity. One of the prime reasons of this
was the handkerchief which was “magically” bound by a spell by an Egyptian witch who
vouched about the faithfulness of whomever the handkerchiefs owner loved, the handkerchief
could be symbolized as Othello’s love through the first present that he gave his wife. Her losing
it further aggravated his suspicions and leaves him devastated after Iago proves that the
handkerchief was in the confidence of Cassio which supposedly proved his affair with
Desdemona, he also tricked Othello into believing that his conversation with Cassio was about
Desdemona when in reality it was about Bianca, but an infuriated Othello later orders Iago to
execute Cassio while he gets ready to erase his love. Desdemona singing “The poor soul sat by
the Sycamore tree” builds tension even in the audience as this song was attached to a sad tale
of her mother's maid who wrote the song “Willow” and ultimately died singing it, this song not
leaving her mind that night can be said to be symbolic of her impending death by the hands of
her lover. She is killed on the very same bed that they united, in the movie it was beautifully
depicted with Othello blowing off the candles of the room with Desdemona asleep on the bed,
a similar scene was present during their consummation except for the fact that this time
Desdemona was not with him blowing off the candles. Despite the immense pain he expresses
through his soliloquy, blinded by the false story woven by Iago, he destroys his life.
The character of Iago is shown to be a hypocrite, unlike his appearance in front of Othello and
others, he is vicious, scheming and also expounds prejudices against women and female
sexuality be it his own wife Emilia or Desdemona, he views them as mere props to satiate his
own hunger and regards all of them to be “strumpets”, this thinking of his clearly reflects in his
backchat with Desdemona during their voyage to Cyprus. He can even be seen occupying a
wider screen space in both the movie and the text which also leads the audience to wonder
whether the play is about Othello or Iago and whose tale is being actually told.
The movie though being a great adaptation, does display some of its flaws, one being the age
difference, Othello in the movie does seem to be a much younger version of the Shakespearean
Othello who barely seems to be a few years older than the Desdemona in the movie, the wider
age gap seen in the text was completely left out of consideration while casting for the movie or
it might've been kept so as to not appall the audience both the scenarios are a possibility. A
Highly erotic version of Othello can be seen in the movie with scenes being overly sexualized,
whilst the text left the readers wondering about Othello and Desdemona's consummation.
Though the dialogues used in the movie seem quite similar to what is written in the text.
Numerous instances of the same dialogue were viewed in both movie and the text. But what
should also be kept in the mind is that taking creative liberty several scenes were added or
omitted as required. The movie does touch upon all the themes that are explored by the text
from the racial discrimination that led the protagonist to fall into self-doubt to the lives of the
women in the Elizabethan ages including their attitudes. The audio and visual representation
made a great difference in the adaptation; the close shots in several scenes aided in building up
the tension and aroused the curiosity of the audience. The aesthetics that were used highly
impacted the way that the characters were viewed, for example, if Othello and Desdemona
were taken to reference the lighting used during their scenes and their clothing helped in
building their character in a certain way. Also, symbolism was used in the adaptation, one of its
instances being Iago placing a knight between a black king and a white queen on a chessboard,
quite like how he played with their lives.