Othello truly has an emotional intimacy with Desdemona that is not show by the brief greeting in the filmed version.In summary, Lawrence Fishburn appears to have interpreted the role of Othello as a strong, authoritative, confident general in the filmed version of Othello, while the written play showed Othello to be a passionate man in love and confused. Fishburn's interpretation of Othello as shown through his persona is far more that the average reader can grasp from the written play. Certainly Fishburn understood the role of Othello, but may have struggled with acting out the intimate emotions because of cultural influences that surrounded the movie set. Since Fishburn is seen in the black community as a highly respected role model and most of consider mixing of the race unpopular, I'm sure he felt uncomfortable being so intimate with a woman of the white race in a public setting. This would account for the little emotional intimacy shown through Fishburn's persona; because he would have be too far out of character had he perused that aspect of Othello's character. Still I think Fishburn was the best man for the job. ...
