Othello—Looking for a short-cut to re-reading the play, I first tried the famous 1965 Othello by the Royal Shakespeare Company. It had more Academy Award acting nominations than any Shakespeare movie, according to one source. I quit watching after about half an hour because I could not get used to Sir Laurence Olivier with black grease all over his face pretending to be a Moor. Also, I thought Maggie Smith, who is a wonderful actress, was miscast as Desdemona because she looked too mature. Desdemona has to be young enough to fall for a man who is older and black and a foreigner and a soldier—that is, just about the opposite of what most would predict her husband would be—and to fall for him because she was moved by hearing his life stories of struggle and victory. That all said, from the portion I saw, I admired the Company’s straight-forward, commonsensical interpretation of the play.
Then I tried the 1990s version of Othello (1995) with Laurence Fishburne (Othello), Kenneth Branaugh (Iago), and Irene Jacob (Desdamona). I had seen this when it was released and remembered loving it because Fishburne was macho and Jacob was gorgeous. Whether or not you like this version of Othello will depend partly on whether you have recently read the play. I had recently re-read the first part of the play carefully, and this movie drove me to stop it after 15 minutes and get out my copy of the play to see if I was going crazy. No wonder I was feeling off kilter: Nearly every scene had been edited. I’m not say the editing is bad. I’m saying that with the rhythm and undercurrents of the original play in mind, the edited version sparked all kinds of bothersome brain-chatter. In the opening scene, for example, I wondered why they took only a snippet from Iago’s “motivation” speech in which he says that a good part of his hatred of the Moor, his commanding officer, springs from being passed over for promotion? I am aware that some critics maintain that Iago’s various motivation speeches do not ring true, that he is simply a figure who hates. When I read Iago’s opening motivation speech, however, I am convinced that it is a cornerstone of a complex motivation to undermine and destroy his boss, Othello. Otherwise, note the convoluted mind-games we are left with—In an age not known for complex character motivation, Shakespeare carefully gives Iago several motivations for his hatred of Othello but presents them so as to subtly tell us that they are not the real motivations but rather that Iago has no motivation except primal hate. Pretty convoluted! So I’m thinking that Iago had several good reasons to undermine Othello, but this movie takes only a couple of lines from his lengthy speech detailing a major grievance.
Although Irene Jacob seems perfect as Desdemona, Fishburne’s Othello is problematic. Let’s take a step back and remember that in Shakespeare’s day they classified plays—as we do television shows like “documentary” or “reality TV”—as history, comedy, or tragedy (and near the end of Shakespeare’s time a kind of tragi-comedy). Othello is a tragedy. A tragedy is the fall of a great person because of a reversal of fortune caused by some mistake by the character. Thus, to start with, Othello has to be a great person. But this movie presents him as a great soldier, which is not necessarily the same thing. Thus when Othello makes his entrance in this film, he speaks to two colleagues in a slightly sly manner, as if his new bride is some awesome babe. And when he defends himself for marrying her, he may speak softly to the grandees of Venice but he has a nasty undertone as if to demand “how dare someone falsely accuse an honourable soldier of using magic potients to win over this woman!?” Now, if you return to the text, you find not a soldier but a great man who is above it all. Othello’s entrance in the original play follows Iago’s impassioned speech about how he considered killing a man who besmirched Othello’s honour, and Othello simply says, “Tis better as it is.” What a mild, gracious first speech. When Iago details the fellow’s libel, Othello simply says, “Let him do his spite” and continues that the reality of his (Othello’s) accomplishments will outdo any gossip and backstabbing. This is clearly a guy who has his shit together, who is a great man in action and in word. But already, in his second statement, we may see the seed of his downfall—he trusts reality over gossip, never a smart choice when dealing with other human beings. My point is that Othello should be presented as a great man who is also a great soldier not just the go-to guy when you need to keep the invading Turks out of Cyprus.