"O"

One very interesting thing I was just thinking about is the use of drugs in this movie. In the play, Othello was accused of using drugs (Act 1, Scene 2, line 75) in order to get Desdemona to marry him, and in the movie, Hugo gives Oden drugs in order to numb all the pain and hurt he feels after Hugo convinces Oden that Dessie is cheating on him with Mike. While they are obviously not talking about the same drugs, it is still curious to think about why the producer of the film chose to have Oden start doing them. Was this a coincidence? Did the producer not realize the connection between the use of drugs?

Do you all have any other insights on the use of drugs in either the play or the movie? Is something else being symbolized by their use in the movie?

Cyprus

Plays and Movies

I really enjoyed our discussion last class about whether the scene we watched in class was an appropriation, interpretation, etc. of the play. I always just thought of a play being turned into a movie as something that wasn't able to be changed much because all of the lines were already given. From watching the movie in class and on the blog, I can see how, especially with Othello not having stage directions or detailed scenery, a director or producer can also take the words of the play and the scenes and portray them in the film very differently than another director or producer would.
Also, while watching the movie in class it was especially interesting to see, in comparison to the movie posted on the blog, how these specific directors chose to portray the play since Shakespeare chose not to leave stage directions. Noticing which lines the directors chose to leave out of the play was curious as well. I wasn't aware of how much of a difference it makes until I watched the version in class where Desdemona doesn't have her "not dead yet" moment.
In middle school we read Romeo and Juliet, and we also watched two versions of the movie. We watched the version with Leonardo DiCaprio in which the movie takes a very modern look at the play but keeps all the original dialogue, and we watched an older version in which the original dialogue is the same but a much more traditional view.
A Question to Think On:
Do you think Shakespeare purposefully left his play without stage directions so that it may be left up to interpretation; Did he want people to use their imagination or for the play to be timeless, to fit into any future culture?

Drama Drama Drama

While reading this play, Othello, I keep getting very frustrated with Othello and a few other of the characters in the play. They all think Iago is such a great guy, and as the reader who is able to see all the mischief he is creating, this is very irritating. Cassio even says to Iago at one point, "I never knew a Florentine more kind and honest" (95). They don't realize that Iago is manipulating every single one of them and essentially turning them all against each other.
I also become very frustrated with Othello when he believed Iago so easily about Desdemona being unfaithful to him. Instead of confronting Desdemona about it, he takes the false evidence Iago gives him as fact without checking if it is trustworthy evidence.
Was anyone else really irked by Iago and how he so easily pulled the wool over everyone's eyes? Or were you more irritated by the fact that everyone was so ready to believe anything he told them?
I also have some questions about the times. Were a woman's views on a situation seen as irrelevant? Were women inferior to men in that way and that is why Othello never confronted Desdemona? Do you think it would matter if she explained the situation or would Othello have still believed Iago?