Othello Movie Comparison

Tim Blake Nelson’s 2001 film “O” is a modern day adaptation and remediation of William Shakespeare’s classic play, Othello. Although the remediation is a more modern approach, it still manages to capture the main theme despite the fact that The film takes place within a school and focuses mainly on the school’s basketball team and their girlfriends. Throughout the film the antagonist, Hugo Goulding, does a great job of manipulating the other characters and using them to his full advantage. The basketball team that Hugo and the other character’s play for is called the Hawks. The film starts by showcasing how great of a basketball player Odin James is and how beneficial he is to the team. The coach, Duke Goulding, finishes the game by using Hugo, his son, as a decoy and tells the team not to throw the ball to Hugo. Although this seems like a minor situation, it grows into something much bigger. Hugo takes this as an act of betrayal and understands this as his dad’s way of saying that Odin is the better basketball player and that he’s his favorite player. In Hugo’s eyes this gets proven to him later in the film when the MVP award is presented to Odin, and Odin shares the award with another player, Michael. Hugo …show more content…
In Shakespeare’s play the antagonist was Iago, a soldier who thought he better deserved the rank that Cassio received from the Moor, Othello. From this point out he makes it his duty to not only turn Othello against Cassio, but destroy them both in the process. Iago is extremely manipulative and uses this to his full advantage by turning the two men against each other so that his hands stay clean, even though he’s the one antagonizing them. This is much like Hugo in the film. He uses the other characters as his pawns in order to get him to where he wants to be so that he can get revenge on not only Michael and Odin, but also on his