William Shakespeare’s play Othello is a tragedy about a man named Othello who gets tricked by his jealous friend Iago into believing that his wife has been unfaithful to him. In the play, Iago tricks and manipulates many characters into doing what he wants, especially the character Roderigo. Roderigo is a gullible Venetian gentleman that longs to be with Othello’s wife Desdemona. In Act 1 Scene 3, Shakespeare shows his reader how manipulative and deceitful Iago can be through his dialogue with Roderigo. The 1995 film Othello, directed by Oliver Parker and starring Kenneth Branagh as Iago and Michael Maloney as Roderigo, effectively stages this scene in a way that makes it easy for the audience to understand what is happening and in a way …show more content…
The director chose to change three parts of this scene. The first major change that Parker made to this scene was cutting Iago’s lines in verses 362- 371. In these lines Iago continues his analogy of the body being a garden (1.3. 367-371). In this analogy Iago mentions a lot of information about gardening that would be hard for an audience to follow unless they are into gardening or are paying their full undivided attention to Iago. By cutting out these lines, Parker makes it easier for the audience to follow what Iago is talking about. In addition, Parker makes an interesting choice to cut Iago’s line at verses 407- 412, where Iago tells Roderigo that he “hates the Moor” (Act 1.3. 409). Cutting this line out of the scene makes the audience have to wait until the very end of the scene in order to figure out the true meaning behind Iago’s intentions. By cutting those lines Parker allows for tension to build in the scene and also allows for it to be even more shocking to the audience when Iago finally voices out loud that he hates