O v. Othello

O: Summary(my opinion)

The movie O, is a more modernized version of Othello, that was made for students like us to be able to better understand the writings of William Shakespeare. In this version, all of the characters are in high school, and it is portrayed through a basketball team. Basically, there is deception, lies, betrayols, several murders, and a suicide. This all occurs behind due to one student, Hugo. He is jealous of his friend O, who is the only african american student at his school, yet his father seems to show more love for this young man, than for his own son. To hugo, this is hurtful. Hugo decides to manipulte all of his friends into ruining O's life. He does this by using O's girlfriend Desi. O and Desi are a pretty close couple, viewers know this by the scarf that O gives her. Hugo starts up this lie saying that she is not a virgin and was sleeping around with one of their buddies. At first O doesn't believe it, but after a while, his mood changes and he finally believes his buddy. Together Hugo and O plot against Desi and their basket ball buddy. Their plan ends up messing up and several others are killed including: Desi, her roomate, Hugo's accomplise, and then O commits suicide. Overall, this movie really helped me to take in the Othello story and apply it to todays lifetime. It really did help me alot to put everything together, and made everything make much more sense.

Othello: Summary(my opinion)

The story of Othello is alot like the movie, just in the historic times. The difference is that it is placed on an island and they are in the military. It basically shows the same deception that Iago does upon Othello, as well as all of his other friends too. The one big difference is the hankershief and that everyone in the play are already married. In the movie the hankerchief was O's grandmothers and he was supposed to pass it down to the one that he loves. In Othello, the hankershief symbolizes virginity I believe. At least this is what Shakespeare leads his readers to believe. Cassio, which is was the lutienant who had his job taken away is the guy in which Othello believes is sleeping with his wife. One of the reasons that Othello believes Iago's manipulative lies are because he steals the hankercheif and gives it to Cassio. This instantly makes Othello believe all of Iago's comments about them sleeping together.

In Comparison:

Overall, I feel that watching the movie really helped me to better understand the Othello play. Without help, it is pretty hard to understand, but the movie helped to clarify anything that I was having problems with. I still feel sort of unsure of why exactly Othello believed Iago over his wife. If someone is your wife then you should at least respect them enough to come to then with any conflict in which you may have. The play leads me to believe that maybe they didn't have that strong of a relationship to begin with. If you truly love someone you will abide in their trust and not believe others over them. It doens't hurt at least ask, but accusing without even speaking a word to your significant other show complete disrespect. Why did Othello not have enough trust in his wife?

Another question that I have would be that why did Shakespeare decide to write suck a sorrowful story. I know that all of his plays portarys sorrow, but why? Also, I wonder what the deal is with the birds in the movie? It just doesn't make any sense to the plot or purpose of the story. Maybe there is something that I'm just missing, but it sort of confuses me. It could be possible that maybe the birds are Hugo's symbol of how he feels. I believe that at the end of the movie, that his final speech included the talk of the birds. He mentioned that he would fly away like the birds and be free. It could be a possibility that the birds are his symbol, and are his way of relating to something.

For the most part these are my only questions that I have thought of thus far. Overall, I feel that Othello and O are very close versions, just one is made to the modern day, so we can better understand what Shakespeare was really getting at in his play.