I was studying Sophocles' play Oedipus Rex, and was given an opportunity to do a video dramatization, setting the story in modern day. In class, we were shown a drab stage production, and challenged with making a better version. I was excited about being able to do a video away from a bedroom or a confined school. This was the first film I shot in an actual location, and the first one I wrote a script for.
I was given the option to do a video or write an essay. A fellow classmate, Morgan Davenport, offered to help with the talent and the shooting, because it gave him an excuse not to have to write a paper. In my version of the story, I wanted to poke fun at Oedipus' sexual relationship with his mother Jocasta. I also wanted to add some sexual humor to the overall story, because the actual play doesn't focus on that important aspect. For example, Tiresias, the blind prophet who reveals Oedipus' wrong-doings, winds up as a perverted shepherd with a collection of pornographic magazines. One of my favorite scenes is where Tiresias stands on top of the hill, fondling a Braille issue of Playboy.
For whatever reason, the project ended up being a topic of controversy. More so than Short Future, my teacher refused to show the full video in class because she was appalled at the final product. Regardless, it was one of the funnest projects to work on, and a continued exercise in the art of visual storytelling.
I told Morgan from the beginning that I was attempting something a little edgy. He didn't think much of it, because the story dealt with some mature material, namely the subject of incest. I simply wanted to poke fun at it. The opening scene transitions from a Star Wars-ish opening crawl to a ceiling fan, which ends up being symbolic later on. We pan down to a bed, where Oedipus and Jocasta lie in bed together. This shot was directly inspired by a scene in Heavy Metal, where a robot has just finished making love to a human woman.
The two have obviously just finished having sex, when Oedipus complains that he wants to go another round. Jocasta retaliates, stating that the townspeople won't gain confidence in their almighty king if they find all he wants to do is "bang his wife all day."
Keep in mind that both Oedipus and Jocasta are completely clothed, and the only giveaway that they've had sex is the dialogue, which I felt was pretty clever.
I also felt it would be funny if I made Jocasta a part-time stripper. This was meant to be more of a joke than a critical plot point, but it also fueled the teacher's impassion for the project.
As for the part of the chorus, I substituted a poster of four bikini-clad females to take over. All of these things started to add up, and it seemed that the further we delved into this video, the more offended the teacher got.
Irina Polozova, another classmate, volunteered to play the part of Jocasta, while Dan came along to film. We were using Shepherd Park as the set of the kingdom of Thebes, which was a park I had grown up by. It was funny, because from the top of the hill, where we filmed, it looks nothing like a kingdom, but a children's playground. There's a life-sized painted train, and a few swing sets. Irina and Morgan were never available on the same days, so I had to shoot their scenes separately.
The first day shooting at the park, I had to pick Morgan up from his house. As soon as we took off, he had to get out of the car to throw up. I have to give him credit: despite that, he was willing to continue working, which showed a lot of dedication on his part.
Aside from the usual flubbing of lines, we also had a few technical setbacks. The location of the park was right next to the city police station. This normally wasn't a big deal, but every twenty minutes a squad car would roll by to check out what we were doing. At one point, they called us over to their car to see if we had seen a drunk bicyclist pedaling around the area.
I also brought along my stereo in order to play the music for one of the scenes. I sincerely regret this now, because the audio level of the music drowns out the spoken dialogue between Morgan and myself. It was the most important scene in the film, and it was ruined because I didn't have access to editing software.
Surprisingly, the one shot that caused the teacher to shut off the video was one that had nothing to do with the overall story, and was more a bad judgment call than anything else.
Dan wanted to make his little mark on the film, so he wanted there to be a scene where out from nowhere, he pops into frame with the Playboy magazine and shouts, "Yes! Porno!" It's a completely random scene that I should have probably left out. But for some reason, his uttering of that line was what caused the teacher to pull the tape out of the VCR, calling it a piece of garbage that should have never been brought into class.
Eventually, Jocasta appears before Oedipus and reveals that she is, in fact, his mother. In order to inject some modern day traditions, I had the scene occur on Halloween, which explains why she shows up in a Darth Vader mask. It was also poetic, because she is revealing her parentage to Oedipus, similar to Darth Vader revealing his relationship to Luke. This revelation leaves Oedipus a battered-up, depressed form of a man. I especially love at the tail-end of the scene when Oedipus marches down the hill and grabs the Playboy from Tiresias.
The rest of the film was simply a series of comical acts. Oedipus finds Jocasta hanging from a ceiling fan. This effect was accomplished by tying up a Darth Vader figurine to my ceiling fan, which brings us full circle to the opening of the film. Oedipus stabs out his eyes, which is what actually happens in the play, and then gets confronted by Creon, who banishes Oedipus from the land of Thebes. There's a really humorous moment where both Dan and Morgan, doubling as Oedipus' children, simply laugh at his misfortune while rocking on a pair of rocking horses.
When the film was finished, I had a project that I was really proud of. However, the teacher got offended by the material, shut it off midway, embarrassed us in front of the class, and told us that in order to get a passing grade, we would each have to write an essay.
The project was to do a modern take on the play, which we did. I was unable to see where the problem lie, because the most offensive material - Oedipus having sex with his mother - was already inherent in the source material. All I did was bring it out into the open, because in modern films and stories, sex is much more prevalent, anyway.
The most upsetting factor was, after keeping the tape for a week, she still refused to watch the rest of the video and give it a fair grade, claiming that it was simply too offensive. I would like to think that she was challenging me as much as I was challenging her. However, I didn't think it was a teacher's job to challenge their students. And I couldn't for the life of me figure out what she found so offensive about the project.
In the end, I fought for a grade, as we did set out to do the project. I felt that the teacher was being a film critic as opposed to an English teacher, and if that was the case, now I understand. The film isn't very good. It's funny to those who worked on it, but it suffers in the story department. Needless to say, we were able to find a middle ground. The teacher discovered that once she fast-forwarded to the final act of the film, it was doable.
Oedipus was the last film I shot in high school, but it left a lasting impression on how I made movies from then on. It taught me that regardless of the material or the nature of the project, it's our duty as filmmakers to stick to our guns and stand up for our visions, no matter how crappy they may seem.