Blog 21 Scene Response You Tube Othello

My overall impression of the three clips was the Laurence Fishburne was a better production.  The outside scenes had great lighting and lent themselves well to the story.  I felt the costumes and props were more believable.  In Shakespeare times the play would have been much simpler, but in modern times and with the things that can be accomplished with film I think that the Fishburne version did the best job of taking advantage of the technology.  I felt that Fishburne also delivered his lines better.  Anthony Hopkins came across to me as over-acting and Willard White as under-acting.  I thought the Iago character in the Hopkins version was brilliant though!  He captured how I imagine Iago perfectly.   Having a white man play Othello was also a difficulty for me, as I view Othello’s skin color as pivotal to the plot. Overall I think that the Fishburne version would be the easiest to watch for the uninitiated because his acting makes the dialogue easier to understand.  The other versions often had lines delivered so rapidly that if I had not read the play I would have been completely lost.

I will probably purchase the Fishburne film to add to my Shakespeare film collection.