Wednesday, March 4, 2020

O: Othello in a Prep School Setting

O. Dir. Tim Blake Nelson. Perf. Mekhi Phifer, Josh Hartnett, Andrew Keegan, Julia Stiles, and Rain Phoenix. 2001. DVD. Lions Gate, 2002.
I've never been greatly enamored of O, even though Julia Stiles is in it. It seemed to be one of many in the "Shakespeare set in high school" genre, and, even though it captures the way emotions run high in high school, it didn't seem very realistic.

Still, the opening is exciting, and it does set the clear black / white dichotomy that the film is looking to develop. Take a look!



I think the opening is the best part. I'm not convinced by O's Roderigo—or by much else in the film.

Anyone want to weigh in in the comments on what I ought to realize or recognize about this Shakespeare derivitive?
Links: The Film at IMDB.

Click below to purchase the film from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

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Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
All material original to this blog is copyrighted: Copyright 2008-2039 (and into perpetuity thereafter) by Keith Jones.

The very instant that I saw you did / My heart fly to your service; there resides, / To make me slave to it; and, for your sake, / Am I this patient [b]log-man.

 —The Tempest