Welles was reportedly extremely satisfied with the film's musical score by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino, and Lavagnino again provided the musical scores of Welles' two subsequent Shakespearean films, Chimes at Midnight (1965) and The Merchant of Venice (1969). History [ edit ] Othello was one of Nintendo's first arcade games, and was later ported to a dedicated home game console in 1980. Original version [ edit ] Iago is ecstatic when Emilia gives him the handkerchief, which he plants in Cassio’s room as “evidence” of his affair with Desdemona. When Othello demands “ocular proof” (III.iii. 365) that his wife is unfaithful, Iago says that he has seen Cassio “wipe his beard” (III.iii. 444) with Desdemona’s handkerchief—the first gift Othello ever gave her. Othello vows to take vengeance on his wife and on Cassio, and Iago vows that he will help him. When Othello sees Desdemona later that evening, he demands the handkerchief of her, but she tells him that she does not have it with her and attempts to change the subject by continuing her suit on Cassio’s behalf. This drives Othello into a further rage, and he storms out. Later, Cassio comes onstage, wondering about the handkerchief he has just found in his chamber. He is greeted by Bianca, a prostitute, whom he asks to take the handkerchief and copy its embroidery for him. A jealous suitor of Desdemona. Young, rich, and foolish, Roderigo is convinced that if he gives Iago all of his money, Iago will help him win Desdemona’s hand. Repeatedly frustrated as Othello marries Desdemona and then takes her to Cyprus, Roderigo is ultimately desperate enough to agree to help Iago kill Cassio after Iago points out that Cassio is another potential rival for Desdemona. Bob Dylan's song Po' Boy features lyrics in which Desdemona turns the tables on Othello, borrowing the idea of using poisoned wine from the final act of Hamlet. [326] Literature [ edit ]

Kabushiki Kaisha Othello, which is owned by Hasegawa, registered the trademark "OTHELLO" for board games in Japan; Tsukuda Original registered the trademark in the rest of the world. All intellectual property regarding Othello outside Japan is now owned by MegaHouse, the Japanese toy company which acquired Tsukuda Original's successor PalBox. [17] Rules [ edit ]

A Tragic, Poetic, and Visually Stunning Work from the Director of Citizen Kane" (PDF) (Press release). Carlotta Films US. 2014 . Retrieved 2015-06-04. Gross, John "Shakespeare's Influence" in Wells, Stanley and Orlin, Lena Cowen (Eds.) "An Oxford Guide: Shakespeare", Oxford University Press, 2003, pp.633–644, at p.642. By planting a handkerchief, Iago convinces Othello that Desdemona is having an affair with Cassio. Othello had previously promoted Cassio to lieutenant over Iago, hence Iago's jealousy.

F contains about 160 lines which are not in Q, sometimes in passages which are quite extended and well-known, such as Othello's "Pontic Sea" speech [44] and Desdemona's "Willow Song". [45] [46] Brabanzio’s kinsman who accompanies Lodovico to Cyprus. Amidst the chaos of the final scene, Graziano mentions that Desdemona’s father has died. Clown Booth was also an acclaimed Iago, and his advice to actors of the role was: "to portray Iago properly you must seem to be what all the characters think and say you are, not what the spectators know you to be; try to win even them by your sincerity. Don't act the villain." [219] Greenhall, Susanne and Shaughnessy, Robert "Our Shakespeares: British Television and the Strains of Multiculturalism" in Burnett, Mark Thornton and Wray, Ramona (eds.) "Screening Shakespeare in the Twenty-First Century" Edinburgh University Press Ltd., 2006 pp.90-112 at p.94. These led Samuel Taylor Coleridge to refer to Iago's "motive-hunting of motive-less Malignity". [158]

Interrogate

Othello was performed in the Shimpa style in Japan in 1903 by Otojiro Kawakami, resetting the location Cyprus to Taiwan, which was then a Japanese colony. [221]

Othello confronts a sleeping Desdemona. She denies being unfaithful, but he smothers her. Emilia arrives, and Desdemona defends her husband before dying, and Othello accuses Desdemona of adultery. Emilia calls for help. The former governor Montano arrives with Gratiano and Iago. When Othello mentions the handkerchief as proof, Emilia realizes what Iago has done, and she exposes him. Othello, belatedly realising Desdemona's innocence, stabs Iago (but not fatally), saying that Iago is a devil, but not before the latter stabs Emilia to death in the scuffle. Othello smothers Desdemona, who dies just as Emilia enters the bedroom, but Cassio is only wounded by Iago's stooge, Roderigo. When Iago is confronted, Emilia tells Othello the truth behind Iago's lies and he realizes what he has done. The authorities and Othello turn on Iago, and, after a running fight, capture him. In despair, Othello stabs and wounds Iago. Othello then kills himself, and Iago is taken away to be tortured and executed. Ferraro, Bruno (translator) Gli Hecatommithi - Third Decade, Seventh Novella in Neil, 2006, Appendix C pp.434-444 at p.440. Watts, Cedric "Othello's Magical Handkerchief" in Sutherland, John and Watts, Cedric (eds.) "Henry V, War Criminal? & Other Shakespeare Puzzles" Oxford World's Classics series, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp.76-84 at pp.78-79 Othello - although a tragedy - takes elements from other genres, including comedy. For example there are similarities between Egeus' complaint about his daughter Hermia's lover Lysander, in the first Act of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream:

Scholars have identified many other influences on Othello: things which are not themselves sources but whose impact on Shakespeare can be identified in the play: [7] these include Virgil's Aeneid, [8] Ovid's Metamorphoses, [9] both The Merchant's Tale and The Miller's Tale from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, [10] Geoffrey Fenton's Certaine Tragicall Discourses, [11] [12] Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, [13] George Peele's The Battle of Alcazar, [14] [15] the anonymous Arden of Faversham, [16] Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, [17] and Heywood's A Woman Killed with Kindness. [18] These also include Shakespeare's own earlier plays Much Ado About Nothing, in which a similar plot was used in a comedy, [19] The Merchant of Venice with its high-born, Moorish, Prince of Morocco, [20] and Titus Andronicus, in which a Moor, Aaron, was a prominent villain, and as such was a forerunner of both Othello and Iago. [21] Portrait of Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun, Moorish ambassador to Queen Elizabeth I in 1600, sometimes suggested as the inspiration for Othello. [22]

Orgel, Stephen "Introduction" in Sutherland, John and Watts, Cedric (eds.) "Henry V, War Criminal? & Other Shakespeare Puzzles" Oxford World's Classics series, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp.ix-xvi at p.xi. Lamb, Charles and Lamb, Mary "Tales from Shakespeare", 1807, Penguin Popular Classics edition, 1995, p.281. This jealousy is symbolized in the play through animal imagery. In the early acts of the play it is Iago who mentions ass, daws, flies, ram, jennet, guinea-hen, baboon, wild-cat, snipe, monkeys, monster and wolves. But from the third act onwards Othello catches this line of imagery from Iago as his irrational jealousy takes hold. [62] The same occurs with "diabolical" imagery (i.e. images of hell and devils) of which Iago uses 14 of his 16 diabolical images in the first two acts, yet Othello uses 25 of his 26 in the last three acts. [63] Shakespeare's direct sources for the story do not include any threat of warfare: it seems to have been Shakespeare's innovation to set the story at the time of a threatened Turkish invasion of Cyprus - apparently fixing it in the events of 1570. Those historical events would however have been well known to Shakespeare's original audience, who would therefore have been aware that - contrary to the action of the play - the Turks took Cyprus, and still held it. [5] [6]In addition to Orson Welles, the cast consisted of Micheál Mac Liammóir as Iago (one of his only starring film roles), Robert Coote as Roderigo, Suzanne Cloutier as Desdemona, Michael Laurence as Cassio, Fay Compton as Emilia and Doris Dowling as Bianca. Three different versions of the film have seen theatrical release — two supervised by Welles, and a 1992 restoration supervised by his daughter, Beatrice Welles. In spite of Othello's protestations in the first act that no magic was used in his wooing of Desdemona, he later claims magical properties for the handkerchief, his first gift to her. [122] [123] A question which has interested critics is whether he himself believes these stories or is using them to pressure or test Desdemona. [124] [125] There is certainly a contradiction between Othello's assertion - linked to its supposed magical properties - that his mother received the handkerchief from an Egyptian charmer in Act 3 Scene 4, [126] and his later assertion that his father gave it to his mother, made in Act 4 Scene 2. [127] [128] Are we, the audience, intended to believe in the handkerchief's magical properties? [129] Iago plants the handkerchief in Cassio's lodgings, then tells Othello to watch Cassio's reactions while Iago questions him. Iago goads Cassio on to talk about his affair with Bianca, a local courtesan, but whispers her name so quietly that Othello believes the two men are talking about Desdemona. Later, Bianca accuses Cassio of giving her a second-hand gift which he had received from another lover. Othello sees this, and Iago convinces him that Cassio received the handkerchief from Desdemona. Oliver Parker's 1995 Othello was trailed as an "erotic thriller", including a ritualized love scene between Othello and Desdemona, and, most memorably, Othello's jealous fantasies of encounters between Desdemona and Cassio. [275] [276] Swiss actress Irène Jacob as Desdemona struggled with the verse, as did Laurence Fishburne, more experienced in expletive-ridden thriller roles, as Othello. [277] Iago was Kenneth Branagh in his first outing as a screen villain. [278] The overall effect was to create, in Douglas Brode's words "the tragedy of Iago" - a performance in which Iago's dominance is such that Othello is a foil to him, not the other way around. [279] The film was described as a "fair stab at turning the Bard into a decent night at the multiplex" [280] but failed to achieve success at the box office. [281] Bate, Jonathan (ed.), Rasmussen, Eric (ed.) and Shakespeare, William "Othello", The RSC Shakespeare, The Random House Publishing Group, 2009, p.3.