William Shakespeare is long dead but his dramas continue to play out in the global stage and on the big screen
Othello, Shakespeare’s classic tale of treachery and betrayal, will open on the big screen in South Africa next month with far greater relevance than the Bard could have imagined.
The movie, O, is based on Shakespeare’s Othello but is dramatically distant from the era in which the play was originally set. Set in present-day America at an elite private school, O explores a number of issues that should resonate well with South African audiences.
The movie is tailor-made for educators, learners and parents. Racism, black versus white, love across the colour line and privileged schools are issues prevalent in South African society today and director Tim Blake Nelson brilliantly captures this on film. Beneath these undercurrents, the contemporary issues that affect educators, learners and parents in South Africa and around the world dominate. Violence in school, teenage sex, parent-child relationships and more.
The common thread through which all the factors play out is on the basketball arena where it is more than just a game.
Mekhi Phifer (I Still Know What You Did Last Summer) stars, in the title role, as National Basketbell Association hopeful Odin James, the only black learner at a school, where he is not only popular, but also the envy of male pupils because of his white girlfriend, Desi Brable, played by Julia Stiles (Save the Last Dance, 10 Things I Hate About You). The envy of all their friends, Odin and Desi enjoy what many others lack – a love that is deep, honest and pure.
Odin’s best friend, Hugo Goulding, played by Pearl Harbor hero Josh Hartnett, is based on Shakespeare’s evil Iago. Hugo also plays on the basketball team, managed by his dad, and has been asked by his father to look out for Odin because of the particular pressures facing him at Palmetto Grove.
But Hugo is bitterly envious of Odin and the attention he receives from the coach and everyone at school, and sets about manipulating schoolmates for his own gain.
Placed by his father as Odin’s confidant, Hugo, in reality, wants to destroy the person he pretends to befriend. He convinces Odin that Desi is having an affair with another member of the basketball team. Meanwhile, Hugo’s rich roommate Roger Rodriguez, played by Elden Ratliff (The Mighty, She’s All That, Idle Hands), will do anything to be popular and becomes a pawn in the plot against Odin.
As the basketball season comes to a dramatic finish, conflict among the friends escalates into tragedy when Hugo devises a diabolical plan that prompts Odin to throw away all that he cares about most – the girl he loves, his bright future, his very soul.
The current popularity of films based on Shakespeare’s plays is testimony to the fundamental brilliance and timeless quality of these stories. “A lot of people are intimated by the language of the work, but underneath it there are some really powerful stories and great characters teenagers can relate to,” says Stiles.
“Shakespeare wrote such great human stories, about love and jealousy, about the basest emotions possible, and that’s interesting and always will be,” adds Hartnett.
Phifer says he has always been a fan of Shakespeare and loved Lawrence Fishburne’s film version of the tragedy. “I knew the Othello story already. What Shakespeare wrote is timeless. He knew how to add love, and trials and tribulations, heartache and passions, and a lot of human qualities that we all have, and make it into a work of art. But if you change the language a little and make it more accessible to the public, I think people will be able to relate to it a lot more,” he says.
O opens in South Africa at selected cinemas on September 28
– The Teacher/M&G Media, Johannesburg, August 2001.