The film is set in rural Mississippi in 1937, and it follows three escaped convicts searching for hidden treasure while a sheriff relentlessly pursues them. Its story is a modern satire which, while incorporating social features of the American South, is loosely based on Homer's epic Greek poem The Odyssey.[11] Some examples of this include Sirens, a Cyclops, and the main character's name, "Ulysses", which is the Roman name for "Odysseus".[12] The title of the film is a reference to the 1941 Preston Sturges film Sullivan's Travels, in which the protagonist is a director who wants to film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a fictitious book about the Great Depression.[13]
Three convicts, Pete, Delmar and leader Ulysses Everett McGill, escape from a chain gang to retrieve a buried treasure before the area is flooded to make a lake. The three get a lift from a blind man driving a handcar on a railway. He tells them they will find a fortune, but not the one they seek. The trio make their way to the house of Wash, Pete's cousin. They sleep in the barn, but Wash reports them to Sheriff Cooley, who, along with his men, torches the barn. Wash's son helps them escape.
They pick up Tommy Johnson, a young black man who claims he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the ability to play guitar. In need of money, the four stop at a radio station where they record a song as the Soggy Bottom Boys. That night, the trio part ways with Tommy after their car is discovered by the police, and they briefly fall in with outlaw Baby Face Nelson. Unbeknownst to them, the recording becomes a major hit.
Near a river, the group hears singing. They see three women washing clothes and singing. The women give them corn whiskey and they lose consciousness. Upon waking, Delmar finds Pete's clothes lying next to him, empty except for a toad. Delmar is convinced the women were Sirens and transformed Pete into the toad. Later, one-eyed Bible salesman Big Dan invites them for a picnic lunch, then mugs them and kills the toad.
On their way to Everett's hometown, Everett and Delmar see Pete working on a chain gang. Upon arriving Everett confronts his wife Penny, who changed her last name and told his daughters he was dead. He gets into a fight with Vernon, her new "suitor". Later that night, they sneak into Pete's holding cell and free him. As it turns out, the women had dragged Pete away and turned him in to the authorities. Under torture, Pete gave away the treasure's location to the police. Everett then confesses that there is no treasure. He made it up to persuade the men he was chained with to escape with him in order to stop his wife from getting remarried. Pete is enraged at Everett, because he had two weeks left on his original sentence, and will likely face fifty more years for the escape.
The trio stumble upon a Ku Klux Klan rally, who are planning to lynch Tommy. The trio disguise themselves as Klansmen and move to rescue Tommy. However, Big Dan, a Klan member, reveals their identities. Chaos ensues, and the Grand Wizard reveals himself as Homer Stokes, a candidate in the upcoming gubernatorial election. The trio rush Tommy away and cut the supports of a large burning cross, immolating Big Dan.
Everett persuades Pete, Delmar and Tommy to help him win his wife back. They sneak into a Stokes campaign gala dinner she is attending, disguised as musicians. The group begins a performance of their radio hit. The crowd recognizes the song and goes wild. Homer recognizes them as the group who humiliated his mob. When he demands the group be arrested and reveals his white supremacist views, the crowd runs him out of town on a rail. Pappy O'Daniel, the incumbent candidate, seizes the opportunity, endorses the Soggy Bottom Boys and grants them full pardons. Penny agrees to remarry Everett with the condition that he find her original ring.
The next morning, the group sets out to retrieve the ring, which is at a cabin in the valley which Everett had earlier claimed was the location of his treasure. The police, having learned of the place from Pete, arrest the group. Dismissing their claims of having received pardons, Sheriff Cooley orders them hanged. As Everett prays to God, the valley is flooded[lower-alpha 5] and they are saved. Tommy finds the ring in a desk that floats by, and they return to town. However, when Everett presents the ring to Penny, it turns out it was her aunt's ring. She declares that she will not marry him with that ring, but only her wedding ring, which is still lost.
John Turturro as Pete. (He is never called by a last name in the film. However, when Pete is lamenting his betrayal of his friends, he invokes his cousin's earlier betrayal, saying "it must be my Hogwallop blood.") Along with Delmar, Pete represents Odysseus' soldiers who wander with him from Troy to Ithaca, seeking to return home. His singing is dubbed by Harley Allen.
Chris Thomas King as Tommy Johnson, a skilled blues musician. He shares his name and story with Tommy Johnson, a blues musician who is said to have sold his soul to the devil at the Crossroads (also attributed to Robert Johnson).[19][20]
John Goodman as Daniel "Big Dan" Teague, a one-eyed mugger and Ku Klux Klan member who masquerades as a Bible salesman. He corresponds to the cyclops Polyphemus in the Odyssey.[18]
Holly Hunter as Penny Wharvey-McGill, Everett's ex-wife. She corresponds to Penelope in the Odyssey.[18]
Charles Durning as Menelaus "Pappy" O'Daniel, the grumpy governor of Mississippi. The character is based on Texas governor W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel.[21] He shares a name with Menelaus, an Odyssey character, but corresponds with Zeus from the narrative.[18]
Daniel von Bargen as Sheriff Cooley, a ruthless rural sheriff who pursues the trio for the duration of the film. He corresponds to both Poseidon in the Odyssey and also possibly the devil.[18] He has been compared to Boss Godfrey in Cool Hand Luke.[22]
Wayne Duvall as Homer Stokes, a candidate for governor and the leader of a Ku Klux Klan chapter. His singing is dubbed by Ralph Stanley.
Gillian Welch and Dan Tyminski also appear as a record store customer and a mandolinist respectively. Del Pentacost, JR Horne, and Brian Reddy appear as members of Pappy O’Daniel's staff. Ed Gale appears as Homer Stokes' ceremonial "little man". Three members of the Fairfield Four (Isaac Freeman, Wilson Waters Jr, and Robert Hamlett) cameo as gravediggers. The Cox Family and The Whites appear as fictionalized versions of themselves.
Production
The idea of O Brother, Where Art Thou? arose spontaneously. Work on the script began in December 1997, long before the start of production, and it was at least half-written by May 1998. Despite the fact that Ethan Coen described the Odyssey as "one of my favorite storyline schemes", neither of the brothers had read the epic, and they were only familiar with its content through adaptations and numerous references to the Odyssey in popular culture.[23] According to the brothers, Tim Blake Nelson (who has a degree in classics from Brown University)[24][25] was the only person on the set who had read the Odyssey.[26]
The title of the film is a reference to the 1941 Preston Sturges film Sullivan's Travels, in which the protagonist (a director) wants to direct a film about the Great Depression called O Brother, Where Art Thou?[13] that will be a "commentary on modern conditions, stark realism, and the problems that confront the average man". Lacking any experience in this area, the director sets out on a journey to experience the human suffering of the average man but is sabotaged by his anxious studio. The film has some similarity in tone to Sturges's film, including scenes with prison gangs and a black church choir. The prisoners at the picture show scene is also a direct homage to a nearly identical scene in Sturges's film.[27]
Joel Coen revealed in a 2000 interview that he traveled to Phoenix to offer the lead role to Clooney. Clooney agreed to do the role immediately, without reading the script. He stated that he liked even the Coens' least successful films.[28] Clooney did not immediately understand his character and sent the script to his uncle Jack, who lived in Kentucky, asking him to read the entire script into a tape recorder.[29] Unknown to Clooney, in his recording, Jack, a devout Baptist, omitted all instances of the words "damn" and "hell" from the Coens' script, which only became known to Clooney after the directors pointed this out to him during shooting.[29]
The Coens used digital color correction to give the film a sepia-tinted look.[15] Joel stated this was because the actual set was "greener than Ireland".[29]CinematographerRoger Deakins said, "Ethan and Joel favored a dry, dusty Delta look with golden sunsets. They wanted it to look like an old hand-tinted picture, with the intensity of colors dictated by the scene and natural skin tones that were all shades of the rainbow."[30] Initially the crew tried to perform the color correction using a physical process, but after several tries with various chemical processes proved unsatisfactory the process was performed digitally.[29]
This was the fifth film collaboration between the Coen Brothers and Deakins, and it was slated to be shot in Mississippi at a time of year when the foliage, grass, trees, and bushes would be a lush green.[30] It was filmed near locations in Canton, Mississippi,[31] and Florence, South Carolina, in the summer of 1999.[32] After shooting tests, including film bipack and bleach bypass techniques, Deakins suggested digital mastering be used.[30] Deakins spent 11 weeks fine-tuning the look, mainly targeting the greens, making them a burnt yellow and desaturating the overall image in the digital files.[15] This made it the first feature film to be entirely color corrected by digital means, narrowly beating Nick Park's Chicken Run.[15]O Brother, Where Art Thou? was the first time a digital intermediate was used on the entirety of a first-run Hollywood film that otherwise had very few visual effects. The work was done in Los Angeles by Cinesite using a Spirit DataCine for scanning at 2K resolution, a Pandora MegaDef to adjust the color, and a Kodak Lightning II recorder to put out to film.[33]
A major theme of the film is the connection between old-time music and political campaigning in the American South. It makes reference to the traditions, institutions, and campaign practices of bossism and political reform that defined Southern politics in the first half of the 20th century.
The Ku Klux Klan, at the time a political force of white populism, is depicted burning crosses and engaging in ceremonial dance. The character Menelaus "Pappy" O'Daniel, the governor of Mississippi and host of the radio show The Flour Hour, is similar in name and demeanor to W.Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel,[34] one-time Governor of Texas and later U.S. Senator from that state.[35] O'Daniel was in the flour business and used a backing band called the Light Crust Doughboys on his radio show.[36] In one campaign, O'Daniel carried a broom, an oft-used campaign device in the reform era, promising to sweep away patronage and corruption.[37] His theme song had the hook, "Please pass the biscuits, Pappy", emphasizing his connection with flour.[36]
While the film borrows from historical politics, there are clear differences between the characters in the film and historical political figures. The O'Daniel of the movie used "You Are My Sunshine" as his theme song (which was originally recorded by singer and Governor of Louisiana James Houston "Jimmie" Davis[38]), and Homer Stokes, as the challenger to the incumbent O'Daniel, portrays himself as the "reform candidate", using a broom as a prop.
The music was originally conceived as a major component of the film, not merely as a background or a support. Producer and musician T Bone Burnett worked with the Coens while the script was still in its working phases and the soundtrack was recorded before filming commenced.[39]
Much of the music used in the film is period-specific folk music.[14] The selection also includes religious music such Primitive Baptist and traditional African Americangospel, most notably the Fairfield Four, an a cappella quartet with a career extending back to 1921. The quartet appears in the soundtrack and as gravediggers towards the film's end. Selected songs in the film reflect the possible spectrum of musical styles typical of the old culture of the American South: gospel, delta blues, country, swing, and bluegrass.[26][40]
The use of dirges and other macabre songs is a theme that often recurs in Appalachian music[41] ("O Death", "Lonesome Valley", "Angel Band", "I Am Weary") in contrast to bright and cheerful songs ("Keep On the Sunny Side", "In the Highways") in other parts of the film.
"Man of Constant Sorrow" has five variations: two are used in the film, one in the music video, and two in the soundtrack album. Two of the variations feature the verses being sung back-to-back, and the other three variations feature additional music between each verse.[44] Though the song received little significant radio airplay, it reached #35 on the U.S. BillboardHot Country Singles & Tracks chart in 2002.[39][45] The version of "I'll Fly Away" heard in the film is performed not by Krauss and Welch (as it is on the CD and concert tour), but by the Kossoy Sisters with Erik Darling accompanying on long-neck five-string banjo, recorded in 1956 for the album Bowling Green on Tradition Records.[46]
Release
The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 13, 2000, the United Kingdom on September 15, 2000 and the United States on December 22, 2000.[3][47] It grossed $71,868,327 worldwide on a $26 million budget.[8][10]
Critical reception
The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 78% of reviews critics are positive based on 158 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Though not as good as Coen brothers' classics such as Blood Simple, the delightfully loopy O Brother, Where Art Thou? is still a lot of fun."[48]Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average, gave it a score of 69 out of 100 based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."[49] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale.[50]
Roger Ebert gave two and a half out of four stars to the film, saying all the scenes in the film were "wonderful in their different ways, and yet I left the movie uncertain and unsatisfied".[51]
The Soggy Bottom Boys are the fictional musical group that the main characters form as part of the plot; their songs also serve as accompaniment for the film. It has been suggested that the name is in homage to the Foggy Mountain Boys, a bluegrass band led by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.[60] In the film, the actors lip-synched the songs credited to the band, except for Tim Blake Nelson's own voice on "In the Jailhouse Now".
Joel Daniel Coen and Ethan Jesse Coen, together known as the Coen brothers, are an American filmmaking duo. Their films span many genres and styles, which they frequently subvert or parody. Among their most acclaimed works are Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), No Country for Old Men (2007), A Serious Man (2009), True Grit (2010) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013).
Timothy Blake Nelson is an American actor and playwright. Described as a "modern character actor", his roles include Delmar O'Donnell in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), Gideon in Minority Report (2002), Doctor Steve Pendanski in Holes (2003), Doctor Jonathan Jacobo in Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004), Danny Dalton Jr. in Syriana (2005), Samuel Sterns in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Richard Schell in Lincoln (2012), the titular character of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) and Henry McCarty in Old Henry (2021). He portrayed Wade Tillman / Looking Glass in the HBO limited series Watchmen (2019), for which he received a Critics' Choice Television Awards nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2020.
George Timothy Clooney is an American actor and filmmaker. Known for his work in both blockbuster and independent films, he has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award and four Golden Globe Awards. His honors include the Cecil B. DeMille Award, the Honorary César, the AFI Life Achievement Award, and the Kennedy Center Honor.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? is the soundtrack album of music from the 2000 American film of the same name, written, directed and produced by the Coen Brothers and starring George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, and John Goodman.
Wilbert Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel was an American Democratic Party politician from Texas, who came to prominence by hosting a popular radio program. Known for his populist appeal and support of Texas's business community, O'Daniel served as the 34th governor of Texas (1939–1941) and later its junior United States senator (1941–1949). O'Daniel chose not to run for reelection to the Senate in 1948 and was succeeded by future U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson.
Daniel John Tyminski is an American bluegrass singer-songwriter, musician, composer, vocalist, and instrumentalist. He is a member of Alison Krauss's band Union Station, and has released four solo albums, Carry Me Across the Mountain (2000) on the Doobie Shea Records label, Wheels (2008) on the Rounder Records label, Southern Gothic (2017) on the Mercury Records label, and God Fearing Heathen (2023) on the 8 Track Entertainment label.
Charles Edward Durning was an American actor who appeared in over 200 movies, television shows and plays. Durning's best-known films include The Sting (1973), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), The Muppet Movie (1979), True Confessions (1981), Tootsie (1982), Dick Tracy (1990), and O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for both The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) and To Be or Not to Be (1983). Prior to his acting career, Durning served in World War II and was decorated for valor in combat.
Intolerable Cruelty is a 2003 American romantic comedy film directed, co-written and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen, and produced by Brian Grazer and the Coens. The script was written by Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone and Ethan and Joel Coen, with the latter writing the last draft of the screenplay. The film stars George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Geoffrey Rush, Cedric the Entertainer, Edward Herrmann, Paul Adelstein, Richard Jenkins, and Billy Bob Thornton. It premiered at the 60th Venice International Film Festival and was released in the United States on October 10, 2003.
Chris Thomas King is an American blues musician and actor based in New Orleans, Louisiana.
James Carter was an American singer. He was born a Mississippi sharecropper and as a young man was several times an inmate of the Mississippi prison system. He was paid $20,000, and credited, for a four-decade-old lead-vocalist performance in a prison work song used in the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?
"Man of Constant Sorrow" is a traditional American folk song first published by Dick Burnett, a partially blind fiddler from Kentucky. It was titled "Farewell Song" in a songbook by Burnett dated to around 1913. A version recorded by Emry Arthur in 1928 gave the song its current titles.
The Ladykillers is a 2004 American black comedy crime thriller film written, directed, produced and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen. The Coens' screenplay was based on the 1955 British Ealing comedy film of the same name, which was written by William Rose. The Coens produced the remake with Tom Jacobson, Barry Sonnenfeld, and Barry Josephson. It stars Tom Hanks, Irma P. Hall, Marlon Wayans, J. K. Simmons, Tzi Ma and Ryan Hurst, and marks the only time the Coens have worked with Tom Hanks so far and the first remake by the Coens. This was the first film in which Joel and Ethan Coen share both producing and directing credits; previously Joel had always been credited as director and Ethan as producer.
Down from the Mountain is a 2000 documentary and concert film featuring a live performance by country and traditional music artists who participated in the Grammy-winning soundtrack recording for the Joel and Ethan Coen film, O Brother, Where Art Thou? The concert, held at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee on May 24, 2000, was a benefit for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. The documentary was directed by Nick Doob, Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker. The artists in the concert also participated in a Down from the Mountain concert tour.
Burn After Reading is a 2008 black comedy film written, produced, edited and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. It follows a recently jobless CIA analyst, Osborne Cox, whose misplaced memoirs are found by a pair of dimwitted gym employees. When they mistake the memoirs for classified government documents, they undergo a series of misadventures in an attempt to profit from their find. The film also stars George Clooney as a womanizing U.S. Marshal; Tilda Swinton as Katie Cox, the wife of Osborne Cox; Richard Jenkins as the gym manager; and J. K. Simmons as a CIA supervisor.
"In the Jailhouse Now" is an American novelty blues song originally found in vaudeville performances from the early 20th century, The earliest known version was written in 1915 by Davis and Stafford. It later became associated with Jimmie Rodgers, by way of the yodeling country music versions he recorded in 1928 and 1930, and has been extensively covered in the subsequent years, often giving songwriting credit to Rodgers. The song's first two verses trace the exploits of Ramblin’ Bob, who cheats at cards and gets caught, while the final verse tells about taking a girl named Susie out on the town and winding up in jail together.
Pat O'Daniel and his Hillbilly Boys was a Texan Western swing band with its own radio program during the mid-1930s. Pat O'Daniel, the son of "Pappy" O'Daniel, was the band's leader. The Hillbilly Boys, associated with Pappy O'Daniel's flour company which produced Hillbilly Flour, helped catapult Pappy O'Daniel to the governorship of Texas.
Inside Llewyn Davis is a 2013 period black comedy drama film written, directed, produced, and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen. Set in 1961, the film follows one week in the life of Llewyn Davis, played by Oscar Isaac in his breakthrough role, a folk singer struggling to achieve musical success while keeping his life in order. The supporting cast includes Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund, F. Murray Abraham, Justin Timberlake and Adam Driver.
Hail, Caesar! is a 2016 black comedy mystery film written, produced, edited, and directed by the brothers Joel and Ethan Coen. An American-British co-production, the film stars Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill, Scarlett Johansson, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, and Channing Tatum, with Michael Gambon as the narrator. It is a fictional story that follows the real-life studio fixer Eddie Mannix (Brolin), working in the Hollywood film industry in the 1950s, trying to discover what happened to a star actor during the filming of a biblical epic.
The Peasall Sisters are a country harmony group formed by three of the six Peasall siblings. They are best known for their singing in the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?.
1 2 3 4 Robertson, Barbara (May 1, 2006). "CGSociety — The Colorists". The Colorists: 3. Archived from the original on January 22, 2012. Retrieved October 24, 2007. It was filmed near locations in Canton, Mississippi; Vicksburg, Mississippi and Wardville, Louisiana.
↑ "Blues Singers". University of Virginia. Archived from the original on November 1, 2009. Retrieved August 24, 2016.
↑ Sorin, Hillary (August 4, 2010), "Today in Texas History: Gov. Pappy O'Daniel resigns", The Houston Chronicle, archived from the original on October 12, 2012, retrieved August 2, 2011, Many cultural and political historians think the character Gov. Menelaus "Pappy" O'Daniel of Mississippi is based on the notorious Texas politician, Wilbert Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel.
↑ Molvar, Kari (March–April 2001). "Q&A: Tim Blake Nelson". Brown Alumni Magazine. Archived from the original on December 26, 2001. Retrieved December 26, 2001.
1 2 3 Allen, Robert. "Digital Domain". The Digital Domain: A brief history of digital film mastering — a glance at the future. Archived from the original on February 4, 2012. Retrieved May 14, 2007.
↑ Fisher, Bob (October 2000). "Escaping From Chains". American Cinematographer. 81 (10): 36–42, 46–49. Archived from the original on March 4, 2023. Retrieved March 4, 2023.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
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