OTHELLO 1995 A film review by Timothy Voon Copyright 1997 Timothy Voon
Cast: Laurence Fishburn, Irene Jacob, Kenneth Branagh, Nathaniel Parker, Michael Maloney Director: Oliver Parker Screenplay: Oliver Parker based on the play by William Shakespeare Cinematograpy
Would you think your wife was having an affair with your best friend, if you saw him with her handkerchief?
That's an unfair question. Handkerchiefs were probably significant items of clothing in the days of Shakespeare, and this in particular, was a special handkerchief. So let's rephrase the question.
Would you think your wife was having an affair with your best friend, if you saw him with her panties?
I probably would not, because women's underclothing all look alike to me, BUT Othello would.
Othello (Fishburne), the greatest general of his time, the respected governor of Cyprus whose one failing was jealousy. Fed by the subtle lies of Iago (Branagh), Othello is led to believe that his wife (Jacob) is having an affair with his lieutenant (Parker). He is driven into such a jealous rage that he has convulsions thinking about it (I didn't know that Othello was an epileptic?). One can only be as jealous as much as one loves, and Othello was jealous enough to kill his wife.
This is not one of the better adaptations of Shakespeare to screen. I'm biased because I personally prefer Shakespeare performed as a play. Nevertheless, the lesson must be taught, that jealousy breeds contempt, and if you're having marital problems - seek a marriage counsellor or you may end up with four dead bodies on your bed.
Strong performances from Fishburne, Branagh and the rest of the cast.
Comment: Shakespeare at his morbid best.
Timothy Voon e-mail: stirling@netlink.com.au
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews