Othello (1995 film) Othello (1995 film) Othello is a 1995 film based on William Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name. It was directed by Oliver Parker and stars Laurence Fishburne as Othello, Irène Jacob as Desdemona, and Kenneth Branagh as Iago. This is the first cinematic reproduction of the play released by a major studio that casts an African American actor to play the role of Othello, although low-budget independent films of the play starring Ted Lange and Yaphet Kotto predated it. This film is an adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Othello". Othello is a Moor who has secretly married his native Venetian lover
Othello that opposition of Brabantio to Desdemona marrying Othello-a respected and honoured general-cannot make sense except in racial terms, citing the scene where Brabantio accuses Othello of using witchcraft to make his daughter fall in love with him, saying it is "unnatural" for Desdemona to desire Othello's "sooty bosom". Singh argued that since people with dark complexions are common in the Mediterranean area that for a Venetian senator like Brabantio to oppose Desdemona marrying Othello for merely being swarthy makes no sense, and that character of Othello was intended to be black. Michael Neill, editor of "The Oxford Shakespeare", notes that