The Film version of the text "Othello" is very effective in presenting the ideas that Shakespeare conveys in the original text. It contains the various themes and ideas of jealousy and revenge, moral and immoral behaviours of characters and good versus evil. These Themes are represented through various techniques and visual features such as the movement and deletion of scenes and speech, the use of colours and sounds and the visual images of the characters. It is these features that have been used by the film version of "Othello" to show the cinematic language and the ideas that Shakespeare conveys in the original text. .
One of the important themes in the text "Othello" is that of jealousy and revenge. Throughout the text there are many examples of this, though the major ones are those involving the characters Iago and Othello. Iago is a very deceptive and manipulative character who plans revenge on Othello because he did not choose him for the role of Lieutenant. Iago's intentions are shown immediately in Act 1 Scene 1 where he is shown talking to Roderigo. He says "I follow him to serve my turn upon him" to show his feelings and he then tells Roderigo to inform Brabantio of Othello's marriage to his daughter, Desdemona. In the original text Shakespeare uses animal imagery, "an old black ram is tupping your white ewe", as well as other language techniques to show his ideas. In the film version of the text there is a great use of colour, lighting and sounds to express these feelings more evidently. The scene is set in Venice, during a dark night and there is very damp and dim lighting. Iago and Roderigo are shown wearing quite dull clothes and when they are talking to Brabantio he is positioned quite high above them and is wearing more formal clothing. This shows his high stance as a senator compared to the lower stance of Iago and Roderigo. It is also interesting to note the camera use and angles on Iago, of which there is a close up to show his true feelings and a low angle camera to show his power.
