O Brother, Where Art Thou?

For the film soundtrack, see O Brother, Where Art Thou? (soundtrack). For the unrelated Simpsons episodes, see Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? and O Brother, Where Bart Thou?.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Joel Coen Ethan Coen (uncredited)
Produced by	Ethan Coen Joel Coen (uncredited) Tim Bevan (executive producer) Eric Fellner(executive producer)
Written by	Joel Coen Ethan Coen
Based on	Odyssey by Homer
Starring	George Clooney John Turturro Tim Blake Nelson John Goodman Holly Hunter Charles Durning
Music by	T-Bone Burnett
Cinematography	Roger Deakins
Editing by	Roderick Jaynes Tricia Cooke
Studio	StudioCanal Working Title Films Mike Zoss Productions
Distributed by	United States Touchstone Pictures Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International Universal Pictures United International Pictures
Release date(s)	December 22, 2000 (2000-12-22)
Running time	108 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$26 million[1]
Box office	$71,868,327[2]

O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a 2000 comedy film directed by Joel and Ethan Coen and starring George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, and Charles Durning. Set in 1937 rural Mississippi^[3] during the Great Depression, the film's story is a modern satire loosely based on Homer’s Odyssey. The title of the film is a reference to the 1941 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?^[4]

The American folk music soundtrack won a Grammy for Album of the Year in 2001.^[5]

Plot

In 1937, Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney), Pete Hogwallop (John Turturro), and Delmar O'Donnell (Tim Blake Nelson) escape from a chain gang at Parchman Farm and set out to retrieve the $1.2 million in treasure that Everett claims to have stolen from an armored car and buried before his incarceration. They have only four days to find it before the valley in which it is hidden will be flooded to create Arkabutla Lake as part of a new hydroelectric project. Early on in their escape, while still chained together, they try to jump onto a moving train with some hobos, but fall off due to Pete's inability to get on. They then encounter a blind man (Lee Weaver) traveling on a manual railroad car. They hitch a ride, and he foretells their futures in the musical.

They walk to the house of Pete's cousin, Wash Hogwallop (Frank Collison), who removes their chains, but then turns them in to the police, led by Sheriff Cooley (Daniel von Bargen), because he needs the money. They escape from the barn where they were sleeping, which the authorities have set on fire, and continue on their journey. When they pass a congregation on the banks of a river, Pete and Delmar are enticed by the idea of baptism. As the journey continues, they travel briefly with a young guitarist named Tommy Johnson (Chris Thomas King). When asked why he was at a crossroad in the middle of nowhere, he reveals that he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the ability to play the guitar. Tommy describes the devil as being "White, as white as you folks ... with empty eyes and a big hollow voice. He love to travel around with a mean old hound." This description happens to match the policeman who is pursuing the trio.

The four of them come across a radio station owned by a blind man (Stephen Root) and record the song "Man of Constant Sorrow", calling themselves the Soggy Bottom Boys. While they initially record the song for some easy money, it later becomes famous around the state, unknown to them as they are on the run. The trio parts ways with Tommy after their car is discovered by police, and they continue their adventures on their own. Among the many encounters they have, the most notable are a car trip and bank robbery with the famous bank robber George Nelson (Michael Badalucco), a run-in with three sirens who seduce the group and drug them with alcohol before seemingly turning Pete into a toad, and a mugging by a one-eyed Bible salesman named Big Dan Teague (John Goodman).

Everett and Delmar arrive in Everett’s home town only to find that Everett's wife, Penny (Holly Hunter), is engaged to Vernon T. Waldrip (Ray McKinnon), campaign manager for gubernatorial candidate Homer Stokes (Wayne Duvall). She refuses to take Everett back and is so ashamed of him that she has been telling their daughters he was hit by a train and killed.

While watching a film in a cinema, Everett and Delmar discover that Pete is still alive, the sirens having turned him in to collect the bounty on his head. After Everett and Delmar rescue him from jail, Pete tells them that he gave up the location of the treasure. Everett reveals that there was never any treasure; he only mentioned it to persuade the other men to escape so he could reconcile with his wife. Pete is outraged at this news, primarily because he only had two weeks left on his original sentence, which has now been extended 50 years in light of his escape.

As Everett scuffles with Pete, the group stumbles upon a Ku Klux Klan lynch mob, who have caught Tommy and are about to hang him. The three disguise themselves as the mob's color guard and attempt a rescue. Big Dan, one of the Klansmen, reveals their identities, and chaos ensues, in which the Grand Wizard of the gathering reveals himself as Stokes. The four flee the scene with Everett cutting the supports of a large burning cross, which falls on, crushes and incinerates some of the Klansmen (including Big Dan) causing chaos among the ranks of the lynch mob.

Everett convinces Pete, Delmar, and Tommy to help him win his wife back. They sneak into a Stokes campaign dinner that she is attending by disguising themselves as musicians. Everett tries to convince his wife that he is "bona fide", but she brushes him off. The group begins an impromptu musical performance, during which the crowd recognizes them as the Soggy Bottom Boys and goes wild. Stokes, on the other hand, recognizes them as the group who disgraced his lynch mob and shouts for the music to stop, angering the crowd. After he reveals his white supremacist views, the crowd runs him out of town on a rail. Pappy O'Daniel (Charles Durning), the sitting state governor of Mississippi, seizes the opportunity and endorses the Soggy Bottom Boys, granting all of them a full pardon while the entire event is being recorded and played on the radio. Penny accepts Everett back, but she demands that he find her original ring if they are to be married. As they leave the dinner, they run into a mob taking a jubilant George Nelson to die in the electric chair. Delmar comments, "Looks like George is right back on top again."

The group sets out with Tommy to retrieve the ring, which is at a cabin in the valley that Everett originally claimed to have hidden the treasure in. When they arrive, the police order their arrest and hanging. Everett protests, stating that they had been pardoned on the radio, but the policeman pursuing them ignores their pleas. The three begin to despair while Everett improvises a prayer to be saved. Suddenly, the valley is flooded and they are saved from their hanging. Tommy finds the ring in a desk that he is floating on in the new lake, and they return to town. However, when Everett presents the ring to Penny, she tells him it is the wrong one and demands that he get her ring back. As Everett protests the futility of trying to find it at the bottom of the lake, the blind prophet the trio met earlier rolls by on his railway handcar.

Cast

• George Clooney as Ulysses Everett McGill, imprisoned for practicing law without a license. He claims to have escaped from prison so that he can find his buried loot, though in reality it is so he can get back to his family before his wife remarries.
• Tim Blake Nelson as Delmar O'Donnell, a small-time crook, imprisoned for robbing a Piggly Wiggly in Yazoo City; he at first claims innocence, but later admits he is guilty. Delmar says that he will spend his share of Everett's nonexistent money buying back his family farm, believing that "you ain't no kind of man if you ain't got land."
• John Turturro as Pete Hogwallop, who reveals little about his past. He believes in being true to one's kin, even when his cousin Washington B. Hogwallop betrays him. He dreams of moving out west and opening a fine restaurant, where he will be the maître d'. He agreed to go along with the breakout, even though it is revealed that he only had two weeks left on his sentence.
• Chris Thomas King as Tommy Johnson, skilled blues musician. He is the accompanying guitarist in the Soggy Bottom Boys. He claims that he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his skill on guitar. He shares his name and story with the real-life Tommy Johnson, who is said to have sold his soul to the devil at a rural Mississippi crossroads.^[6]
• John Goodman as Daniel "Big Dan" Teague. Masquerading as a Bible salesman, he robs Everett. Later, he reveals the identity of the trio when they are disguised at a Ku Klux Klan rally. Big Dan is blind in one eye. It has been suggested that the character is based on the itinerant Bible salesman who exploits a naive woman in Flannery O'Connor's short story "Good Country People"^[7]
• Holly Hunter as Penny McGill (née Wharvey), Everett's ex-wife; a demanding woman, she is fed up with Everett's wheeling and dealing and divorces him while he is in prison, telling their children that he was hit by a Louisville & Nashville train. She is engaged to Vernon T. Waldrip until Everett wins her back.
• Charles Durning as Governor "Pappy" O'Daniel (probably based on W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel^[8][9]), the incumbent Governor of Mississippi. He is frequently seen berating his son and his campaign managers, who are depicted as simpletons.
• Daniel von Bargen as Sheriff Cooley, who pursues the trio for the duration of the film. He eventually captures them after they have been pardoned by the governor; he intends to hang them regardless. He fits Tommy Johnson's description of the devil in that his sunglasses look like "big empty eyes" and he travels with a bloodhound.
• Wayne Duvall as Homer Stokes, the reform candidate in the upcoming election for Governor. He travels the countryside with a midget, who depicts the "little man", and a broom, with which he promises to "sweep this state clean". He is secretly a Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan.
• Ray McKinnon as Vernon T. Waldrip, Penny's "bona fide" suitor. He is the manager of the Homer Stokes campaign. It has been suggested that the character's name is a nod to novelist Howard Waldrop, whose novella A Dozen Tough Jobs is one of the inspirations behind the film.^[10]
• Michael Badalucco as George Nelson, portrayed as a manic depressive bank robber who dislikes being called "Baby Face".
• Stephen Root as Mr. Lund, the blind radio station manager who pays musicians to "sing into a can" and originally records the Soggy Bottom Boys' hit, "Man of Constant Sorrow."
• Lee Weaver as the Blind Seer, a significant character in the film, who accurately predicts the outcome of the trio's adventure as well as several other incidents.

Critical reception

The film was entered into the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.^[11]

O Brother, Where Art Thou? was well-received by critics, with praise going to its more modern adaption of The Odyssey, and the film received a 77% on Rotten Tomatoes. It was nominated for two Academy Awards, for best screenplay and best cinematography.

Music

See also: O Brother, Where Art Thou? (soundtrack) and Down from the Mountain

Much of the music used in the film is period-specific folk music,^[12] including that of Virginia bluegrass singer Ralph Stanley.^[13] The musical selection also includes religious music, including Primitive Baptist and traditional African-American gospel, most notably the Fairfield Four, an a cappella quartet with a career extending back to 1921 who appear in the soundtrack and as gravediggers towards the film's end.

There is a notable use of dirges and other macabre songs, a theme that often recurs in Appalachian music^[14] ("O Death," "Lonesome Valley," "Angel Band," "I Am Weary") in contrast to bright, cheerful songs ("Keep On the Sunnyside," "In the Highways") in other parts of the film.

Soggy Bottom Boys

The "Soggy Bottom Boys" singing "Man of Constant Sorrow".

The Soggy Bottom Boys, the musical group that the main characters form, serve as accompaniment for the film. The name is an homage to the Foggy Mountain Boys, a bluegrass band led by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.^[15] The band's hit single is Dick Burnett's "Man of Constant Sorrow", a song that had already enjoyed much success in real life.^[16]

The voices of the Soggy Bottom Boys were provided by Dan Tyminski (lead vocal on "Man of Constant Sorrow"), Nashville songwriter Harley Allen, and the Nashville Bluegrass Band's Pat Enright.^[17] The three won a CMA Award for Single of the Year^[17] and a Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals, both for the song "Man of Constant Sorrow."^[5] Tim Blake Nelson sang the lead vocal on "In the Jailhouse Now".^[4]

"Man of Constant Sorrow" has five variations: two are used in the film, one in the music video, and two in the soundtrack. Two of the variations feature the verses being sung back-to-back, and the other three variations feature additional music between each verse.^[18] Though the song received little significant radio airplay^[19], it reached #35 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in 2002.^[20]

After the film's release, the fictitious band became so popular that the country and folk musicians who were dubbed into the film, such as Ralph Stanley, John Hartford, Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Chris Sharp, and others, all got together and performed the music from the film in a Down from the Mountain concert tour which was filmed for TV and DVD.^[12]

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 5-string banjo, recorded in 1956 for the album Bowling Green on Tradition Records.^[21]

Tommy, the lead guitarist of the Soggy Bottom Boys, is an intentional reference to the legend of Delta Blues artist Tommy Johnson, who claimed to have sold his soul to the devil in return for blues fame.^[22]

Other allusions

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?^[4] that will be a "commentary on modern conditions, stark realism, 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' 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' film.^[23]

Film style

The use of color correction in the film gives it a distinctive sepia tone.

Another example of the sepia tone color correction used throughout the film.

One of the notable features of the film is its use of digital color correction to give the film a sepia-tinted look.^[24]

“	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.	”
—cinematographer Roger Deakins, [25]

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.^[25]

It was filmed near locations in Canton, Mississippi and Florence, South Carolina. After shooting tests, including film bipack and bleach bypass techniques, Deakins suggested digital mastering be used.^[25] Deakins subsequently spent eleven weeks fine-tuning the look, mainly targeting the greens, making them a burnt yellow and desaturating the overall image timing the digital files.^[24] This made it the first feature film to be entirely color corrected by digital means, narrowly beating Nick Park's Chicken Run.^[24]

Deakins was recognized with both Academy Award and ASC Outstanding Achievement Award nominations for his work on the film.^[25]

O Brother, Where Art Thou? was the first time a digital intermediate was used on the entirety of a first-run Hollywood film which otherwise had very few visual effects. The work was done in Los Angeles by Cinesite utilizing a Spirit DataCine for scanning at 2K resolution, a Pandora MegaDef to adjust the color and a Kodak Lightning II recorder to output to film.^[26]

References

1. ^ "Box Office Data:O Brother Where Art Thou". The Numbers.com. http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2000/BTHOU.php. 
2. ^ "O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=obrotherwhereartthou.htm. Retrieved 2008-01-08. 
3. ^ Richard J. Gray, Owen Robinson. A companion to the literature and culture of the American south. Blackwell Publishing ltd. ISBN 9780631224044. 
4. ^ ^{a b c} Lafrance, J.D. (2004-04-05). "The Coen Brothers FAQ". pp. p33–35. http://www.youknow-forkids.com/coenbrothersfaq.pdf. Retrieved 2007-11-08. 
5. ^ ^{a b} "2001 Grammy Awards — Infoplease.com". 2001 Grammy Award Winners. Infoplease.com. 2001-02-27. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0886880.html. Retrieved 2007-11-08. 
6. ^ Orshoski, Wes (2001-09-22). "Chris King builds on 'O Brother'". Billboard: 11. 
7. ^ Schaap, David. "Review: O Brother, Where Art Thou?". Nothing More, and Nothing Less. Mars Hill Review. http://www.marshillreview.com/reviews/brother.shtm. Retrieved 2007-11-08. 
8. ^ Sorin, Hillary (2010-08-04), "Today in Texas History: Gov. Pappy O’Daniel resigns", The Houston Chronicle, http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2010/08/today-in-texas-history-gov-pappy-odaniel-resigns/, retrieved 2011-08-02, "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." 
9. ^ Flensted-Jensen, Pernille (2002), "Something old, something new, something borrowed: the Odyssey and O Brother, Where Art Thou", Classica Et Mediaevalia: Revue Danoise De Philologie 53: 13–30, http://books.google.com/books?id=_otjS0BC2dMC&pg=PA13 . Flensted-Jensen elaborates on the connection between the fictional and the real Pappy O'Daniel on pp. 27–28.
10. ^ Datlow, Ellen; Howard Waldrop (2003). "Howard Waldrop Interviewed". Readercon 15. http://fanac.org/Other_Cons/ReaderCon/r15-rpt.html. Retrieved 2007-11-09. 
11. ^ "Festival de Cannes: O Brother, Where Art Thou?". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/5158/year/2000.html. Retrieved 2009-10-10. 
12. ^ ^{a b} Menaker, Daniel (2000-11-30). "A Film Score Odyssey Down a Quirky Country Road". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/30/movies/arts-in-america-a-film-score-odyssey-down-a-quirky-country-road.html. Retrieved 2010-02-04. 
13. ^ "NPR: Pioneering Bluegrass Musician Ralph Stanley". National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=892951. Retrieved 2007-11-02. 
14. ^ McClatchy, Debbie (2000-06-27). "A Short History of Appalachian Traditional Music". Appalachian Traditional Music — A Short History. http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/appalach.htm. Retrieved 2007-11-08. 
15. ^ Temple Kirby, Jack (2006). Mockingbird Song: Ecological Landscapes of the South. UNC Press. p. 314. ISBN 978-0-8078-3057-4. 
16. ^ "Man of Constant Sorrow (trad./The Stanley Brothers/Bob Dylan)". Man of Constant Sorrow. http://www.bobdylanroots.com/sorrow.html. Retrieved 2007-11-02. 
17. ^ ^{a b} "Soggy Bottom Boys Hit the Top at 35th CMA Awards". http://www.bmi.com/news/entry/233045. Retrieved 2007-11-08. 
18. ^ Long, Roger J. (2006-04-09). ""O Brother, Where Art Thou?" entry page". http://home1.gte.net/longrj2/fluff/o_brother.html. Retrieved 2007-11-09. 
19. ^ "O Brother, why art thou so popular". BBC News. 2002-02-28. pp. 1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/1845962.stm. Retrieved 2007-11-08. 
20. ^ "Top Music Charts — Hot 100 — Billboard 200 — Music Genre Sales". pp. 1. Archived from the original on 2007-12-23. http://web.archive.org/web/20071223035246/http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/esearch/chart_display.jsp?cfi=357&cfgn=Singles&cfn=Hot+Country+Songs&ci=3045248&cdi=7847789&cid=04/27/2002. Retrieved 2007-11-02. 
21. ^ "O Kossoy Sisters, Where Art Thou Been?". http://www.countrystandardtime.com/d/article.asp?xid=548. Retrieved 2009-01-08. 
22. ^ Orshoski, Wes (2001-09-22). "Chris King builds on 'O Brother'". Billboard: 11. 
23. ^ "Sullivan's Travels (1941)". http://www.filmsite.org/sull.html. Retrieved 2007-11-08. 
24. ^ ^{a b c} Robertson, Barbara (2006-05-01). "CGSociety — The Colorists". The Colorists. The CGSociety. pp. 3. http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=3549. Retrieved 2007-10-24. Filmed near locations in Canton, MS; Florence, SC; and Wardville, LA.
25. ^ ^{a b c d} Allen, Robert. "Digital Domain". The Digital Domain: A brief history of digital film mastering — a glance at the future. http://www.cameraguild.com/technology/digital_history.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-14. 
26. ^ Bob Fisher (October 2000). "Escaping from chains". American Cinematographer. http://www.theasc.com/magazine/oct00/brother/. 

External links

	Mississippi portal
	Film portal

• O Brother, Where Art Thou? at the Internet Movie Database
• O Brother, Where Art Thou? at AllRovi
• O Brother, Where Art Thou? at Box Office Mojo
• O Brother, Where Art Thou? at Rotten Tomatoes
• Coenesque: The Films of the Coen Brothers
• American Myth Today: O Brother, Where Art Thou? American Studies at the University of Virginia
• Official website for the soundtrack