Film vs. Play Shakespeare’s famous play, “Othello”, has caught the attention of many movie directors and thus creating many adaptations of it. The film, “O”, is an example of one of the many adaptations of the play and consists of many similar elements. Instead of the movie taking place in a 16th century setting, it takes place in a 20th century setting in a high school. Seeing a movie based off a story is always going to be different, but it can enhance the understanding of the text. In this case, the movie helps a lot. The movie and the play are quite similar but there are obvious differences. There are a lot of things to compare and contrast between the film and the play such as themes, characters, and even the way people act. Many of the characters in Othello are represented in the characters in O. Odin is Othello, Desi is …show more content…
The main thing that is different between the film and the play is the setting. Othello takes place in the 16th century and O takes play in the 20th century. Changing the timeline would mean changing the traditions or customs that the original play had. For example, in the 16th century fighting with swords was a common thing, but in the 20th century it's all about guns. The change in setting is a way to help the younger generation to understand the story, and we can relate since many of the viewers are most likely in high school. The character descriptions are also a little bit different. In the play, Othello is a great warrior and general, but in the movie Odin is a great basketball player. Iago was also a mastermind in the play, and took advantage of many people such as Roderigo. For example, in Act 1 Scene 1, Iago tricks Roderigo into helping Brabantio search for Desdemona, but ends up in front of Iago’s sword. In the film, Hugo did not seem like the crazy mastermind like Iago. Hugo did plot some crazy things, but it was nowhere near as genius as Iago’s
With any comparison between a play and its movie counterpart there are bound to be major differences and key similarities between
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?”
In order to compare and contrast the play to the movie,first I will discuss the play .In the play there is a character named Romeo.Lovely Romeo wanted to marry Juliet and stay with her in Verona,Italy.But
Shakespeare’s Othello explores the destructive nature of Iago’s villainy through his ability to confuse appearance with reality through his deception and trickery. In Shakespeare’s Othello, Iago is a scheming antagonist whose goal is to destroy Othello. Iago uses foreshadowing when he says, “I am not what I am.” Iago tells the audience that his loyalty with Othello is all a scheme to destroy him, and his
Texts reflect their contexts. Is this true of Shakespeare’s Othello and Sax’s film Othello? (700-800 words).
The differences are the following: First, in the play, you can see the emotions, feelings and expressions of the characters in the film. Since Shakespeare’s play is written between 1590 and 1597, the English language used was deep and hard to understand for the present people. But with the character’s action and delivery, the viewers were able to understand it easily. Titania, who is played by Michelle Pfeiffer, said
Both of these villains share some similar traits throughout their story. A main trait is being evil hearted. Iago was very evil hearted because he did not care who he hurt in order to get what he wanted. “Awake! What ho,
differences exist between the original play and the film. Apart from the specific techniques of lighting and
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.
Oliver parker's Othello came out in 1995 with Laurence Fishburne as Othello this is also the first time Othello was played by a coloured actor, Kenneth Branagh as Iago and Irene Jacob as Desdemona. Parker kept the original plot and language intact, however the movie seemed to give Othello life through visual and audio aids. Parker's Othello enables the viewer to associate on a personal level and compliments to the anticipation and imagination of those who have read the play before watching the movie.
The time period of the play and the time period of the movie are very different. In the movie, the prologue was on a T.V. screen and it was not in the play. Also in the movie, they used cars instead of horses to get around. In the movie, Romeo and his friends always smoked and would take drugs and they did not do that in the play. In the play, the different families owned castles and in the movie they own different businesses and buildings. They also had guns instead of swords in the movie. Also in the movie, they dressed more modern than they would have in the play.
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
When Shakespeare composed the tragedy Othello televisions were not. Along with no televisions, life in the late 1500s had many different qualities than it does today. This time period had no war on drugs and no high school shootings. Peer pressure was not an issue. The audiences of Othello in the 1500s did not face the circumstances that we, American high school students, face today. With these significant differences in daily life, come the attempts of movie creators to help prevent our modern day tragedies.
Comparing a play to its movie adaptation is something that is hard to do since there is no tangible way a person can capture the original then change it to make the movie version of it up to par to the original. From the original play of A Midsummer’s Night Dream that was created by Shakespeare in the movie version of it created by Michael Hoffman, there are many similarities and differences that are in the movie some are very stark while others are very subtle differences.
First of all, the most obvious difference between these two play is how Medea shows unities (time, place and action) whilst Othello has none. It’s clearly shown in the first scene, as soon as the characters come out, that in the Medea, it’s a set place, and there would be no movement. The staging is nice and clear and throughout the whole story, the characters are in one place, and there is a unity between the time, place and