Scene Response

These three scenes, while they were the same part of the story, were all different.

In the 1951 version, the most noticable flaw was the fact that Othello was played by a white man. Othello's character seemed much more dominant that Iago's, which made it hard for me to believe that Iago could have such power of Othello's thinking. They also skipped through a lot of the lines, which made it hard to follow along. Their dialogue was very dry and without a lot of the necessary emotion you would expect in a situation such as this. The actors seemed more concerned about saying the words than delivering the feelings associated with the story.

In the 1981 version, there again was the mistake of Othello being white, and again Iago's character seemed unsure and a little hesitant. However, when Iago behaved this way in this version, I believed that it was all part of his plan and believed that his demeanor did not make him a weaker man, but a clever man. In a way his behavior made him more dangerous, because when he played the weaker man nobody would think him capable of deceit at such a level as he had achieved. There was a significant amount more emotion in the acting, and it was a lot easier to follow because the actors made it possible for you to feel what they were pretending to feel.

The 1995 version was the only one which had Othello played by an African American man, so in that case it was much more true to the story. Iago's character seemed less sheepish than the other two scenes, and emanated that sort of strong personality I came to expect from reading the play. I enjoyed how Iago changed the tone and volume of his voice while lying to Othello. This made the lies seem more treacherous than they did in the other two scenes.