The Movie "O"

The movie O is a good rendition of Shakespeare's play Othello. The movie opens with with doves contrasting against a black background. This opening scene foreshadows the contrast between good and evil, dark and light. Opening the scene with this enables the director to show the audience what the movie is going to focus around, however in a play the writer is able to use words to construct the imagery. This is not the first place we see the contrast. During the basketball game, everyone is white and the only black person or object is Oden. Another scene where we see a contrast is when Oden and Desi are in bed together and their skin on skin contact draws the attention to the difference. I found it interesting how the director chose to constantly remind the audience of the black and white separation, I thought it was emphasized very well.

The movie shows us that Shakespeare is applicable to everyday life. Without knowing the movie is based off of Othello the audience is able to believe in the it. The plot is not a stretch from reality, everything that happens in the movie in some sense can happen in real life. The director does a good job of translating what happened in Othello to what would happen in modern life if the play was to be written now. It was nice having all of the characters of the movie resemble the characters from the play. This also helps the audience be able to relate the movie back to the play.

One of the differences in the movie was Hugo's addiction to steroids and their responsibility for his actions. The play does not have anything responsible for Iago's actions, his actions are based off of revenge and pure jealousy. Another difference was the ages of Desi and Oden. I thought it was interesting that the director chose to cast them as the same age instead of creating an age gap as Shakespeare did in his play.

Overall I thought the director did a good job of interpreting Othello and translating it into a modern day movie.