Task 10

With the play Othello, there are many different kinds of work based on this play. Movies, filmed performances, or parodies and to compare the original play, I've chosen a movie from 1995, directed by Oliver Parker. The main characters in the movie are represented by Laurence Fishburn (Othello), Kenneth Branagh (Iago) and Irene Jacob (Desdemona). 

I have to say that reading Othello, the language of Shakespeare can get really hard and I had a tough time understanding some of his expressions. The movie was strongly based on the play and with Oliver Parker's respect to Shakespeare, he did not forget any scene from the play and the script perfectly followed the play, so when I found a passage where I did not fully understand the text, the movie helped me a lot with seeing it acted. 

Normally, when I read a book and then see a movie, there is a huge contrast between both pieces of art and usually, for me, the book is more successful, because  with the book, my imagination is freely opened and I create my own version of the main characters and then, when see the movie, it is totally different, than I imagined. However, with this movie, I was positively surprised, because Laurence Fishburn was really closed to what I imagine Othello would be like. What was really exciting about the movie, was Kenneth Branagh, whose role was so persuasively acted, and I could not imagine Iago better. 

I have seen the movie before, because we read the play in my English class in the US, so we watched the movie, too. However, the teacher would always skip the erotic scenes, because she probably thought we would have nightmares after watching it, or I do not know! So I finally enjoyed watching the full movie without skipping scenes (I hate that!) and have to say that I liked it a lot.