Othelloramaniacalphantasmagoria!!! Two more Othellos

Orson Welles' Othello:  It frequently feels like Welles is intentionally obscuring the story, or using it as a sideline for his showcase of mood and cinematography - this is a play of light, shadow, and space with words lingering in the background. If you have any doubts, check the begining: the film starts ominously with solemn shots of coffins, mourners and a lone man hanging in a cage over the square... the atmosphere thick and clammy with not a word to be uttered; when the actual story emerges from behind a neat little title screen,a narrative overvoice carries us rapidly through the opening scenes, scenes hastily hinted at in cut away shots and quick exchanges. The story's there, but it's the subconscious effect of the story that matters to this film. Iago is more concentrated evil and most of the supporting characters are fairly insignificant, except as voices and shadows. However, Welles gives a solid performance - brooding and drawling in full fulminescence, all in crepuscular half-face lurching onto the screen from the gloom. Desdemona performs surprisingly well, although her part is small. Roderigo is portrayed as quite the fool, but aptly performed. The main star is - as always - the camera and her vision. There are so many shots that just make me shiver and mouth "wow" that I couldn't highlight them all individually.

The actors pass in and out of shadow, but never show themselves directly. They are almost eaten up by the splendid vignettes of light and dark - occasionally, the screen will appear completely black, but for one small reflection of skin or iris as a face emerges into frame. Welles was brilliant at exploiting the limitations of a single vantage point - we as the audience feel increasingly anxious about what we cannot see. If Olivier's was Othello as a stage play and Parker's was Othello as a realistic sexual drama, this is Othello as film noir. And, yes, it will be impossible not to think of Charles Foster Kane and Xanadu watching Othello and Desdemona misunderstanding each other in a cold barren castle to the strains of a ponderous piano. This is a film that gets better once it gets revved up and benefits most likely from a familiarity with the script. Still, you will get Put out the light in the most visceral of fashions, regardless of your experience with the story.

Andrew Davies and Eamonn Walker's Othello: This one in particular is more an update than an adaptation. The teleplay, made for Masterpiece Theatre in the 1990's, tackles the story in modern guise.

Othello is John Othello, a black police officer vaulted to a commisioner's position in the Scotland Yard after a series of political scandals. Iago is Ben Jago, Othello's best friend and the man who would have gotten the job, if not for some racial politics. Desdemona is Desi, who otherwise remains fairly similar to the original character. Cassio is Cass, an officer assigned to protect Desi after Jago secretly posts information about her marriage to Othello on a neo-Nazi site. Instead of a war with the Turks, there is a case of a man who died in police custody and the threat of riots. Roderigo becomes Roderick, the man who testifies against the other officers - Jago is the one who breaks him in interrogation, but Othello gets the credit. He is found dead from an overdose, one suggestedly induced by Jago. Emilia becomes Desi's best friend, whom Jago seduces to tap for information. The affair with the handerchief becomes that of a robe. When Cass gets drunk and spills wine on his shirt at Desi's house, he ends up donning Othello's robe, which Othello finds on him. Jago offers to take the robe to a DNA lab and falsifies the results to indicate that there is sexual fluid from three people on it. In a rage, Othello confronts and eventually kills Desi. The inevitable revelation comes from Jago himself - announcing that the lab had made a mistake and that she had been innocent. The film closes with Jago taking the commissioner's position he had been "robbed."

It's a poignant little (only an hour and a half) film, addressing issues from police brutality, race, affirmative action, as well as the traditional elements of love, envy and jealousy that lead Jago to begin and conclude this was not about race, "it was about love, simple as that." Christopher Eccleston plays a fabulously dapper, ladder-climber of I/Jago and Eamonn Walker is every bit of the Othello one would expect. The film was made for the small screen, but it's one that makes you wish it had had a wider release on the silver screen.

As a side note. I spent about four hours looking for my remote - it has this uncanny ability to dissapear between cushions and what not, only to give up and decide that I can manually push play when it comes down to it. Of course one hour later, I went to pause the movie and just idly picked up the remote and pressed pause before thinking "wait, when did I find the remote???" I'm still not sure. I can't decide if I  have early onset alzheimers or if my remote is just very, very sneaky.