Comparing Othello And The Movie O

Many people prefer the book version of a story rather than the film it tries to become. This is due to the fact that the author’s intent of his own story is much more intriguing and familiar to its readers than just another film version. However, some versions portray the story better than others. Hollywood seems to have taken up the responsibility of creating complicated and compelling characters on screen. Unfortunately, doing so can easily take away a story’s rich, necessary detail. For instance, Shakespeare’s Othello has a few different movie versions of his story. Both movies, the 1990 version by Trevor Nunn and the 1995 version by Oliver Parker, are great productions carried by strong casts. However, there are areas in which the movie and the play differ. These differences tend to interpret the film in a different way compared to what Shakespeare intended. The film portrayals of Shakespeare’s Othello by Parker and the other by Nunn both display the character of Desdemona in very different ways. The Nunn version of this play did a much better job of portraying Desdemona as Shakespeare

‘Othello is one of the brilliant plays written by William Shakespeare. It is the story of man named Othello and how his mind was twisted and manipulated by a man named Iago and how Iago made Othello think that his wife Desdemona was cheating on him with his lieutenant Michael Cassio, which results in many deaths. Tim Blake Nelson has creatively restructured ‘Othello’ into a film to appeal to a teenage audience. It still contains the same central ideas which are racism, jealousy and deception which will be analysed on how they are portrayed in ‘Othello’ and are creatively reshaped in ‘O’.

Shakespeare is prominent in his use of recurring themes throughout his works, particularly those of love, death, and betrayal. All these themes are present in Othello. Most dominant, however, are manipulation and jealousy. Jealousy runs the characters’ lives in Othello from the beginning of the play, when Roderigo is jealous of Othello because he wishes to be with Desdemona, and to the end of the play, when Othello is furious with jealousy because he believes Cassio and Desdemona have been engaging in an affair, but manipulation the prominent action that fuels the jealousy within Othello. Some characters’ jealousy is fashioned by other characters. Iago is involved in much of this, creating lies and implementing confusing situations.

Inside each of us, there is a seed of good and evil since it is a constant struggle for us to

Set in 16th century Venice, Othello, by William Shakespeare, explores the idea of an outsider from the very beginning of the play. Shakespeare uses Othello, a black army general, to explore the relationship of an outsider in high Venetian society using a variety of approaches. The reader sees characters consistently referring to Othello in derogatory and demeaning terms, as well as frequent implications that Othello is scarcely human. Further exploration of an outsider in society comes from Othello himself, as he outlines a few of the major differences that set him and the community apart.

Othello has been described as one of William Shakespeare’s most popular plays because the play focuses on its themes of good and evil, military, politics, love and marriage, religion, racial prejudice, gender conflict, and sexuality; but the controversy and debate surrounding Othello is “Why is Othello a qualification for a tragedy?”

Dalai Lama once said, “We human beings are social beings. Are lives are influenced by jealousy and malicious behavior for the better or for worse”. The darkness of human nature is directly evident in William Shakespeare’s Othello as opposed to J.D Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Within the play Othello, the darkness of human nature is visible through the theme of jealously and how characters react. The emphasis of inequality in the play Othello presents a darker view of human nature as opposed to J.D Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye through the treatment of the protagonists. The dynamic personality of Othello presents a darker view of human nature as opposed to Holden Caulfield as Othello’s personality changes for the worst.

*INTRO*The character Oedipus in the play Oedipus the King by Sophocles, and the character Othello in the play Othello the Moor of Venice by Shakespeare are both tragic characters. Oedipus ends up killing his father, and marrying and having children with his mother, whereas Othello ends up mistrusting and killing his wife. These two individuals have similarities and differences in several aspects such as the roundness of their characters, the retribution that they incur upon themselves and upon their respective wives whether directly or indirectly, and their horrors.

At one point or another, we have all heard that “love is blind”; this saying is a warning of how love can overshadow the truth. Shakespeare verifies the accuracy of this idiom in his play Othello, where its main character, Othello, a black general, is oblivious to the crimes plotted against him because they are being made by his good friend Iago. Shakespeare's tale begins with a seething Iago who is scheming to ruin Othello’s life because Othello picked Cassio to be his lieutenant instead of Iago. He deviously plans to make it seem as if Desdemona, Othello’s new wife, has committed adultery. Othello is a passionate person and loves Desdemona wholeheartedly, but his passion, while making him an ardent husband and friend, also means he reacts

Throughout the years the play Othello by William Shakespeare has been adapted both on the screen and on stage many times. The questions or race and racism that have quite often been a point of discussion with William Shakespeare’s play Othello can be seen through the bard, however some may argue that Othello’s skin colour was purely a plot device. This paper will look at two film that have been re-made since the 1960’s, which provides an analysis of the concept of race and how political ideas and events of that time have influenced each adaptation. It will be seen that the film version of Othello directed by Oliver Parker in 1995 compared to the film version directed by Geoff Sax in 2001 present’s race with differing degrees.

One of the most dominant characteristics in any villain is a craving for destruction, whether it is the annihilation of a specific hero or of an entire world. Occasionally, however, the heel possesses a quality that contradicts this nefarious tendency. Rarely does a story include an evildoer whose actions end up benefitting those around him. This “doer of good and... doer of evil” (“Far Away and Long Ago” 1) is Loki of Norse mythology. While some of Loki’s actions qualify as heinous, many of those who read of his misgivings are too quick to criticize the undervalued deity. This harsh judgment has spun into a popular culture that paints a misconstrued image of Loki in film. Although interpreted by modern media as inherently evil, the Norse god Loki is simply a misunderstood mischief-maker who helps on his own accord, corrects his misdeeds, and ultimately causes the dawn of modern man.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that “Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel. It is to bring another out of his bad sense into your good sense.” When Emerson says that speech is powerful, it is because it is the key to the minds of others and therefore a common and effective tool for manipulation. Such is the case in the tragedy Othello, and the science fiction novel, 1984. Both William Shakespeare and George Orwell present brutal villains, both of whom bring their adversaries to an unfortunate end using speech and other manipulation techniques.

In ‘Othello’, ‘A Streetcar named Desire’ and ‘Enduring Love’, a recognised, recurring theme is lack of communication. This theme appears in most of the relationships presented in the three literary examples, and often this flaw causes damage to several relationships such as: Blanche and Stella’s sisterhood, Clarissa and Joe’s physical relationship, and Othello and Desdemona’s romantic relationship. In this essay, it will be investigated whether this lack of communication, both verbal and non verbal, is the overall reason that these relationships appear flawed. In each of the plays respectively, there is at least one character whose major flaw is lack of communication.

    Is this Shakespearean tragedy Othello at the top of the rating chart, or is it just near the top? And why? This essay intends to examine various aspects of this subject, along with critical opinion.

While the matter is up for debate, an argument could be made that Othello is one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies. What is truly remarkable about Othello is the almost prophetic nature it possesses, given how the work is centuries old. Its commentary on interracial love and sexuality, as professor Kiernan Ryan describes it, “is more powerful now in the 21st century than it could ever have been at the dawn of the 17th.” With Shakespeare’s commentary on a topic of such importance to present times, it is of little surprise that Othello has been modified into an adaptation more suited for a modern audience. Tim Blake Nelson’s 2001 film O takes the tragic romance of Othello and moves it to the setting of a modern American prep school. The film, more or less, mirrors the core plot of Othello, however, the depiction of characters varies greatly between Othello and Iago of Shakespeare’s play and their counterparts, Odin and Hugo, of Nelson’s film. The Odin of Nelson’s film has his dark skin tone and outsider status depicted differently than Othello and he appears more aggressive and violent in the film as opposed to the play. Hugo on the other hand, almost matches Shakespeare’s Iago point for point, but carves out a unique niche for himself in the clear motivations he has for his actions in the film, opposing their inherent ambiguity in the play. The changes made in the film certainly make it more relevant to a contemporary environment, but in doing so, it loses some of what