There are many aspects to compare and contrast after reading and then viewing the play written by Shakespeare, Othello. The book adds a lot more details than the actual film because films only have a certain amount of time to explain everything going on. With that being said, this essay will briefly compare and contrast scenarios in the book and the film, the visual effects added in the film and the casting of characters compared to the portrayal of them in the book. The director, Oliver Parker, added many of the important scenarios into the film that were in the book.
Of course the director had a strict time limit he needed to follow and could not add every single line that was included in the book. The important scenarios that were included in the film were the handkerchief scene, Iago explaining Cassio’s dream, and the death of Desdemona, Emilia and Othello. These scenes were added in the film by the director because that is what made up the whole plot of the famous play. The scenes that the director omitted were not very noticeable because they were not as important to the plot of the film as they were to the plot of the actual play.
In the film Othello the director had many special visual effects that made the movie more interesting. He included special camera angles, lighting and symbols. In the book there are many instances where Iago has his soliloquy and is supposed to be talking to the audience during the actual play. In the film when Iago is speaking to himself, he looks right at the camera to let the audience know that no one else is around and that what he says is to be kept a secret. The director also has Iago plan his plot of ruining Desdemona and Othello by using chess pieces.
This is symbolic throughout the whole movie because whenever Iago furthers his plot he gets rid of a chess piece. After reading the book and then viewing the film, there were a few slight differences in what I thought the characters would look like. First, the actress who played the role of Desdemona in the film was not really what I had imagined in my mind. The actress was not as elegant and beautiful as the Desdemona I pictured to be although the actress did a good job at playing a very young and naive girl.
Othello was exactly what I pictured him to be in my mind, very tall and muscular and stern in the way he talked. Iago was also exactly what I thought of in my mind as well, he was short and not built and he played his role as a sneaky and mischievous character very well. My own personal reaction to the text and film differed a little bit. The text version is always more detailed and better than the film, but since the text was written in old English it was actually more enjoyable to view the film. The book was a little more difficult to follow through ith and it took a lot of time to read but the film summed up the whole text in less than two hours. The pros of the text were that it contained more details than the film and it gave me a better background and understanding of each character. The only con of the text was that it was more difficult to read. The pros of the film were that it was more enjoyable to understand and that it was easier to see the emotions of each character. The only con of the film was that it did not include as much detail as the text did.
