Watermarks Othello and 20th-Century Race Consciousness by Joel Worth

William Shakespeare's Othello is only moderately interested in questions of race and racism. For Shakespeare, Othello's blackness was mainly a plot device. Though the bard did demonstrate concerns about racial and religious prejudice, in Othello and The Merchant of Venice, his interest in the tragedy of the Moor was principally psychological. For Shakespeare and his contemporary audience, Othello was about jealousy, hatred, and vindictiveness.

The play has aged well, as have all Shakespeare's plays, but not, perhaps, in the ways Shakespeare's contemporaries would have predicted. In Shakespeare's time, it would have been acceptable for Othello to kill his wife, had she truly been unfaithful. What made Othello a tragic criminal to Shakespeare and his Globe audience was that the Moor misjudged his wife. That is no longer the case in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This age does not recognize Othello's right to murder his wife under any set of circumstances. We do, however, live in a time that has become increasingly sensitive to race issues. The civil rights movement of the 1960s paved the way for the sometimes stifling political correctness of the 1990s and early 21st century. Film versions of Othello made since the 1960s reflect our time's preoccupation with race. This paper will look at several film versions of Othello in this light. Filmed versions of the drama--directed by Orson Welles (1952), Stuart Burge (1965), Oliver Parker (1995), Tim Blake Nelson (2000), and Geoff Saxes (2001)--visually boost or minimize the race factor in the story, subject to the political ideas of their time.

In the first Hollywood version of Othello (1952), directed by Orson Welles, race was not an issue. Instead, Welles' film dealt with the psychological aspects of the plot while providing a vehicle for Welles' celebrated experiments in camera angles and use of light and shadows. Douglas Brode states, "Wells was fully aware that Shakespeare had been a pre-Freudian psychologist" (154). Brode adds that, in the early 1950s when the psychological film was at its peak, Othello served Welles' interest in Freudian psychology (154-155).

According to Michael MacLiammoir, who plays Iago to Welles' lead, Welles believed Iago was impotent and a closet homosexual who married Emilia, played by Faye Compton, as his cover so he could pass for heterosexual. In his published diary of the making of the film, Put Money in Thy Purse, MacLiammoir goes on to say that Welles' Iago has a hero's crush on Othello, and becomes upset and jealous as a hurt lover when Othello gives a promotion to Cassio, played by Michael Laurence, instead of him. To add insult to injury, Othello is rumored to have slept with a frustrated Emilia. In Welles version, both the director and Iago buy this motive. When Iago sees Othello and Cassio, played by Derek Jacobi, joined together as brothers, it is too much for Iago. According to Brode, Welles was adamant that MacLiammoir, appear, with the help of makeup and performance, to be castrated (155).

Welles shot Othello on location in North Africa and Europe, and his use of camera angles and the outdoor scenery is striking, as Jack F. Forgens notes:

Shapes on the screen are less and less easily recognizable: compositions are tense, full of diagonals and faces are obscured, crossed with shadows, or bars, harshly side-lit, or set askew in the frame. Often we see not human figures but their shadows, which distort as the figures move. (180-81)

It is a daring production, but, in light of the film versions of Othello that followed in the next fifty years, one thing is conspicuously absent: any attitude about the role race and racism play in the story.

In fact, Welles seems eager to minimize any suggestion of racial tension in his rendition of Othello. He plays the role in black face, a centuries-old tradition, but makes no other attempt to distinguish Othello's ethnicity. Furthermore, his directorial use of camera angles and sometimes overly harsh, other times overly subdued lighting make his Othello's skin tones really inconclusive. He does not look like a Caribbean, a northern African, or any of the other specific ethnic identities that have been imposed on Othello. His race is indeterminate, though he could probably pass for a white man with a deep tan more than anything else. In discussing Welles' play, critics and reviewers make no mention of race issues. In every way, Welles' vision of Othello predates the civil rights' consciousness of the decade to follow.

At the same time, Welles' Othello, innovative as it was, illustrates an assumption that had been held about Othello since Shakespeare's time: That there is nothing wrong about a white man putting on some degree of dark makeup and impersonating a black man in order to produce this play. Whether the role of a black character might not be better served by a black actor is a question that is not entertained, evidently, by Welles and other directors of film and stage versions of the play prior to 1960. In casting a white actor to play the role of Othello, Welles sent the message that race and racial tension were not the subject of the play. If a white man can play the role with little attempt to disguise the fact that he is white, then clearly the concerns of the play must lie outside the realm of the race question. It is a convenient assumption for people who believe that great art should be above politics and social issues.

That is not the case during the time in which Stuart Burge's Othello (1965), starring Laurence Olivier, was filmed. Aware of the growing black population in England and intrigued by the community of West Indies' immigrants, Olivier decided to play Othello as a contemporary Caribbean. To this decision he brought the same professional care and attention to detail that characterize his other roles. He studied the speech of the West Indies' immigrants, the way they moved and the style of clothes they wore. He debuted this novel interpretation of the stage of the National Theatre in a production managed by John Dexter (Brode 161).

Olivier's new ideas about Othello's race created a stir of public interest and controversy, which served to make the film commercially successful. Olivier made his Othello unambiguously black, not an indeterminate race as the character had been played before. Olivier's Othello featured crinkled hair. In playing the part, the honored actor rolled his eyes and smacked his pink lips, behaviors which, according to Olivier, he picked up from his observation of Caribbean immigrants in England.

It's a measure of those times that Olivier's performance met with widely mixed reviews. Some hailed it as THE definitive performance of Othello. Others, even then, were sensitive to the incorrectness of it. Time magazine made the following comments:

Olivier overworks it, for his portrayal appears geared primarily to the task of impersonating a Negro. In his accomplished mimicry, there is often too much mammy singer, [Othello] emerg[ing] as a modern stereotype. (Brode 164)

Forgens writes: "Persons hypersensitive to racial prejudice could make the charge that this eye-rolling, pink-lipped, tongue-thrusting, coal-black Pappy is a demonstration of the most rearguard white man's concept of the primitive Negro" (192). Burge's Othello was shot on a sound stage with limited scenery and many closeups, accentuating Olivier's use of heavy makeup and drawing even more attention to his controversial portrayal of Othello.

Olivier probably gave himself credit for basing his performance on a sort of anthropological study of actual behaviors and appearances rather than a set of assumptions. And many of his contemporaries, no doubt, gave him similar credit. Certainly, the awards Olivier was accustomed to were forthcoming; he won an academy award nomination for best actor for this film. It is hard to measure Olivier's sincerity in retrospect. Does his extreme, over the top Othello give the character a larger than life nobility? Or is it just hammy and embarrassing? One thing critics do not talk about is whether, in point of fact, a high-ranking official in the military could get away with acting the way Olivier does in his Othello. The title character is, after all, a general. Furthermore, it is clear, in the context of the play, that he earned that rank based on his merits--his prowess and savvy on the battlefield. It is impossible for me to believe in Olivier's rendition because no one would make it to that rank, based on merit, in any military by acting hysterical and psychotic, as Olivier acts in his film. People who ascend in the military, on the contrary, must maintain external calm and keep their personal problems to themselves so they do not lose the ability to lead in wartime. I have to challenge Olivier's portrayal of Othello on these grounds. If he was trying to give the character grandeur, he overdid it. If he was trying for realism, he should have made his Othello more of a general and less of a ninny.

Times change, and the definition of appropriate, sensitive behavior also changes. No one could make such a film today. No reputable studio would touch it. If a distributor could be found for it, politically correct hordes would picket the film at the theaters. Brode sums up Olivier's controversial performance, saying that the actor's interpretation "qualified the film as the first civil rights' version of the play, while also opening Olivier to the charge of racism" (Brode 238). For those raised with the heritage of the 1960s and the civil rights' movement, Olivier's Othello will always be a tainted masterpiece at best. I believe I represent the average educated viewer when I say it was ultimately impossible to get past the fact that I was watching a white man trying to act black. Furthermore, he was made up in black face, evoking the memory of black minstrelsy, a particularly hateful footnote in American culture in the consciousness of black Americans.

Why did it take 30 years for another widely distributed feature film to be made out of Othello? Was it because Olivier's performance as Othello was so lauded by most serious film critics that many felt it was the final word on the play? Or were Olivier's hysterics and extreme use of black makeup so embarrassing that they finally put an end to the tradition of white actors playing Othello before society was ready to see a black actor in the role? Posterity may never find the answer to these questions, but we do know that Olivier was the last white man to play Othello in a feature film.

In 1995, Oliver Parker finally took a deep breath and cast a talented black actor in a role made intimidating by the big guns of Olivier and Welles. Even though Othello had previously been portrayed by James Earl Jones on stage, this was the first time Laurence Fishburne, a highly regarded black actor, played Othello in a major film. The film got mixed reviews and its message concerning race was also largely ignored by critics.

When the movie was released, the O. J. Simpson trial was going on. The trial put a strain on America's race relations, with lines severely drawn between the majority of whites who believed the accused was guilty of killing his wife and the majority of blacks who thought he was being set up to take the fall for a crime he did not commit (Associated Press 1).

Joe Baltake, film critic for The Sacramento Bee, went so far as to claim in his review of Othello that, when Parker cut about 70 percent of Shakespeare's dialogue, he discovered that the film was really about the Simpson trial. Baltake stated in his review, "Racism, always a big part of the text, is even more important in this version, given our current state of race relations" (1-2). Kevin Thomas of the L. A. Times said in his review, "Racism, that persistent evil, triggers the downfall of Othello as much as his jealously does in Parker's telling" (1).

Other critics denied that Parker's version in any way entertained the subject of race. Brode and Rick Groen, a reviewer for The Globe and Mail Review, thought it was a sexual thriller with overtones of homosexual attraction.

The film is visually stunning, and the visual interest extends to a sizzling love scene between Othello and Desdemona, played by Irene Jacob. To say it is a comment on the Simpson trial is absurd. Though Parker does severely pare Shakespeare's dialogue, nothing is said in the film that does not come straight out of the play. There is such a thing as coincidence. However, both the Simpson trial and Parker's Othello tell us something about the rise in race consciousness in our society. In today's world, it is no longer possible, as it was for centuries, to ignore the possibility that Iago, played by Kenneth Branagh, may be a racist or the possibility that Othello's race consciousness may affect how he relates to Desdemona.

One of the most interesting things Parker did was to have Iago delivering his monologues over a chess board with a starkly black king, clearly symbolizing Othello, opposing a starkly white queen and knight. It does not require too much of a stretch to interpret these figures as Desdemona and Cassio, played by Nathaniel Parker, both of whom Iago is manipulating in life just as he manages their effigies on the chess board. Whether or not his own motivation is racist, Iago uses the fact of Desdemona's and Cassio's whiteness to plant a seed of insecurity and doubt in Othello's mind about his own attractiveness to Desdemona.

In one of the film's first scenes, Parker shows Othello with his face under a white mask, suggesting that Othello is making his way through a precarious white man's world, pretending to be something he knows he is not in order to get what he wants, fitting himself into a society where he is "other" by making himself indispensable to the white man's safety through military arts.

Parker's Othello wants to fit in with the white world. So does Parker's Bianca, played by Indra Ove, a black woman who cultivates a relationship with the white Cassio. It is a surprise for those who are used to traditional staged productions of Othello, which assume that Bianca, whose name means "white" in Italian, is white. And yet there is no mention of Bianca's ethnicity in Shakespeare's play, so the placement of a black Bianca cannot be said to be a violation of the bard's words.

When Parker cast a black woman as Bianca, he forced the viewer to look again at the relationship between Cassio and his mistress. Though the white knight is, in other ways, a picture of chivalry, he treats Bianca with contempt, not as an equal or someone he can deal with seriously in a relationship. Is it because she is not white?, Parker wonders out loud. And if white people in this Venetian culture frequently use blacks as sex toys, as they have throughout history in any number of cultures, then this fact, no doubt, contributes mightily to Othello's insecurity about Desdemona. Could she simply be playing out a Venetian custom of sexual exploitation in which he is the plaything?

Whether one reads these messages regarding race in the film or not, one thing is certain: Fishburne's strong, masterful depiction of Othello made it impossible for a white man ever again to play the role on the big screen. Where Olivier may have been guilty of overacting, Fishburne is calm and introspective. Where Olivier fails to behave like a general, Fishburne seems born to command with his quiet authority and air of self assurance. Like Olivier, he says his lines with a hint of an accent, but unlike Olivier, he seems authentic. He keeps the focus on the story line, not on his acting. Fishburne not only shows that a black actor is the best choice for Othello, his performance is also destined to influence future interpretations of the play.

In 1999, Miramax, a division of Disney, was set to release an updated version of Othello titled O, directed by Tim Blake Nelson (2001) and written by Brad Kaaya, an African American screen writer. But right before the film was to be released, the shootings at Columbine High School occurred and shocked the nation. Disney refused to release the film because the ending of the movie dealt with teenage sex and gun violence in a fictional high school. They feared the themes in the film were too similar to what was happening in our schools at the time. So for two years, O sat on the shelf, before another film company, Lions Gate, bought the rights and released the movie in 2001, uncut (Taylor 1).

Nelson's film adaptation of Othello sets the story in a private Southern preparatory school. Othello is now Odin James or O, played by Mekhi Phifer. He is a star basketball player and the only African American student in the school. Kaaya's screenplay is true to the plot of Othello, with its themes of jealousy, revenge, and betrayal. Moreover, according to Meghan Day's review,

Aside from being one of the most controversial films recently because of its honest depiction of sex, drugs, and violence among teens, it is also one of the most important films of our generation to see because of its true and raw depiction of race. (1)

Day also says in her review that Odin is a successful black man in a white world and that scares some people. Plus, the interracial relationship between O and Desi, played by Julia Stiles, is becoming more and more common in life and film (2).

When Nelson did an interview for the The New York Times, he said that he wanted O to follow Shakespeare's theme of envy and not of race. But according to David Orland in his film review,

Throughout, Nelson defers to cliches of black masculinity. It is no mistake, I think, that Nelson and his writers should have chosen Odin to be a basketball player, a choice so obvious that it risks turning the film into a cartoon from the first scene. Nor is it an accident that the film's soundtrack consists of almost entirely of aggressive rap music. (2)

Orland also mentions the metaphors Nelson uses, such as the white doves busily cleaning their feathers while a single black hawk circles above. Orland states,

Nelson drives his lesson home in the final narrative voice-over: "They hate [superior men like Odin] for what they themselves can't be... proud, powerful, determined, dark. Odin is a hawk. He soars above us--he can fly." (2)

Cultural commentator Charles Taylor asks, if Nelson wanted to avoid racial cliches of the times, as he claimed in an interview with The New York Times, why did he make Odin the only black student in his school? This suggests that parents in the growing African American middle class cannot afford to send their children to private schools, Taylor insists. Nevertheless, Taylor's appraisal of the film's insight into race is overall positive, while his estimate of the film as a production of the Shakespeare play is low:

I think what the filmmakers are trying to do here is paint a world where, no matter how good or successful or admired you are, you are always reduced to your race. And that's a fine subject. But not for an adaptation of Othello. (3)

Nelson's film explores the subtleties of race in America without sacrificing Shakespeare, in my opinion. The black hawk among the pigeons is a multilayered image that symbolizes Odin's blackness in an all white school while it also symbolizes individuality within a crowd of conformists. As such, the hawk is a symbol both of the Othello character and the Iago character. Part of Odin's individuality, at the same time, is his racial difference from the rest of his high school community.

In O, Iago is transformed into Hugo, played by Josh Hartman, a second string player whose coaching father ignores him in favor of noticing and cultivating Odin. Ironically, coach sees Odin as "high risk" while missing how high risk his own son is. The film here is playing with political correctness, noticing its flaws, its assumption that the black person is always the more troubled, the more needy of attention, the more on the brink of failure. Odin's coach, the Duke, played by Martin Sheen, practices a sort of psychological affirmative action, giving more to Odin because of his skin color than he does to his white son.

In the end, Odin, in the character of Othello, rejects race as in any way to blame for his actions, in a moving presuicide speech worthy of Shakespeare though it was not part of the original play. He did not have a poor upbringing, he was not hopelessly addicted to drugs, he did not come from the "hood," the character avows. He affirms the exact same thing that Shakespeare's Othello affirms just before his suicide: He is the victim of his own overwhelming passions.

The final adaptation of Othello, directed by Geoff Saxes (2202), is a television movie produced by ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theater. This is also an updated version in which John Othello, played by Eamonn Walker, is the first black commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Written by Andrew Davies, the film has all of Shakespeare's themes of jealousy, betrayal, corruption, vindictiveness, and sex. The twist is that Davies sets the story in present day Britain in the era of neo-Nazis and race riots. Spliced into Davies' screenplay is a true life event that was dramatized in another Masterpiece production, the docudrama "The Murder of Stephen Lawrence" (airdate 21 Jan. 2002), which looked at the 1993 killing of a black teenager in London and the mishandling of the police investigation that led to charges of institutional racism (ExxonMobil, "Othello" 1). It is over this compromised department that Saxe's Othello has charge.

After viewing the film, what I found interesting about the production is how it handled the race issue. Was Othello promoted over Ben Jago, played by Christopher Fox, because he was black? And might Othello's promotion have helped ease the unrest going on at time, the anger at racial profiling in the British police force? According to Eamonn Walker, who was asked in an interview how this production of Othello reflected what was going on in present day Britain,

Our police force in Britain is very different from the police in the states. Very few black people join. They have their reasons, but there's definitely a lack of trust in how things go--not that you don't have that problem in the states, too; it just manifests itself in a different way. (3)

Walker also said in the interview that at the present time there are no black police commissioners in England. Walker further said,

I'm sure this Othello is going to make a lot of people think about how the political system is run, how the police [department] is run, about people living on the street, about mixed relationships that they see around them... It is going to hit them on many, many levels. (4)

When Shakespeare wrote Othello over 400 years ago, the green eyed monster of jealously was the main issue, not race. However, in the 21st century when men no longer duel over a woman's honor, modern filmmakers are more interested in exploring how Shakespeare's play ties in with our concerns about race and what it does or does not mean. That could be a primary reason why Shakespeare is considered one of the greatest writers ever. Centuries after Othello was written, people continue to see in it the preoccupations of their own time.

Associated Press. "For the Nation: Different Verdict, Same Reaction." 05 Feb. 1997. USA Today 16 April 2002.

Baltake, Joe. "Pared-down 'Othello': Is it really O. J.'s tale." 29 Dec. 1995. The Sacramento Bee 19 April 2002.

Brode, Douglas. Shakespeare in the Movies: From the Silent Era to Shakespeare in Love. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2000.

Day, Meghan. "'O' so important." 27 Sept. 2001.

The Digital Collegian. 27 April 2002. ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theatre. Othello. 28 Jan. 2002.

ExxonMobel Masterpiece Theatre Website. 09 April 2002.

Fine, Marshall. "O Story of High School Violence is a Take on Shakespeare's." 31 Aug. 2002. The Gannett News Service. 10 March 2002.

Forgins, Jack F. Shakespeare on Film. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1977.

Groen, Rick. "Othello, Film Review." 29 Dec. 1995. The Globe and Mail Review 17 April 2002.

Orland, David. "'O' Where Art Thou?" Boundless Webzine. 04 April 2002.

Taylor, Charles. "O." 31 Aug. 2001. The Salon.Com Reader's Guide to Contempory Authors. 18 April 2002.

Thomas, Kevin. Othello Film Review. 29 Dec. 1995. The L. A. Times 18 April 2002.

Walker, Eamonn. "Othello." Interview. ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theatre Website. 13 April 2002.