O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (2000)

Early on, after the trio of convicts at the heart of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the Coen Brother’s The Odyssey-inspired tale, go on the lam, they encounter a blind clairvoyant. He works for no man and has no name, a passing, transient traveller. Recognising their plight and their dreams of success (specifically $1.2M, whose exact location one of the convicts swears to), he tells them that their journey will offer them wonderful stories to tell, and that despite inevitable hardships along the way, it will all be worth it since it can only lead to salvation. This is easy to say, but by the third or so bend in this hilarious yet wearisome road, this sage advice has been completely forgotten. Such is life; we have to remember to remind ourselves of sage advice when experiences succeed in dulling our recognition and appreciation of them.

These three pitiable souls—Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney), Pete Hogwallop (John Turturro), and Delmar O’Donnell (Tim Blake Nelson)—must prove their worth in this insane gamble of their safety for a chance at ultimate freedom. Only then shall their souls be saved. Just under a decade before Joel and Ethan Coen challenged audiences to contend with whether it is possible for a thinking person to believe in a higher power in A Serious Man (2009), here they ask how someone could dare not to believe in such mysterious, unknowable laws of the universe. (‘Thinking person’ goes a little too far in this case to explain the dense Pete and Delmar.) As the de facto leader of the group, Ulysses dismisses religious thinking or notions of fate as mere superstition, yet is noticeably taken aback whenever an inexplicable event occurs (including even the wise words of a clairvoyant blind man, eternally travelling down train tracks and plains he will never see).

After all, what stubborn atheist could repel the temptation of religious thinking after undergoing a scarring, fantastical series of adventures, pit stops, and harrowing moments? O Brother is intelligent enough not to try to make one believe firmly in any higher powers–rational thinking can usually produce an explanation for the delightfully deranged twists and turns in this plot—but they certainly hold sway over the film’s career politicians, Klan members, and singing Christians seeking absolution, all of whom make up just a few components of this rambling narrative.

Ulysses, Pete, and Delmar must embark on a wild adventure to secure this giant fortune, with Ulysses leading the charge to locate the money. He’s also desperate to reunite with his wife Penny Wharvey-McGill (Holly Hunter), only to discover that she’s shacked up with a new beau, Vernon T. Waldrip (Ray McKinnon). She and Ulysses’ gaggle of children (all girls, and who seem to multiply in number in each scene they’re featured in) regard their father’s existence passively when they see him after a long absence. Along the way, Ulysses and his two compatriots regularly skirt the boundaries of the law and brush paths with far more sinister figures than they could have ever envisaged.

Regardless of whether religion plays a role in these events, what is certain is that this trio must embark on a story. On the one hand, stories are usually self-contained, with no grander view of the universe than what viewers are afforded through the handful of characters they follow. They each have a creator who decides their every action and ensures that the path they embark on is the only one they could have chosen. But is there any freedom to life outside of the realm of storytelling? We are all prey to the narratives that guide us forward, which dictate our personalities and identities, insisting on our shortcomings and bolstering us with pride whenever needed.

When joys or calamities, whether minor or major, occur to tear apart the simple boundaries of our everyday life, it is as if we have finally been thrown off the path we were naturally headed down. In life, this can often feel like misdirection, but in storytelling this is always where the good stuff happens. Regardless of whether one puts these occurrences down to happenstance or the work of a higher power, they will always be imbued with meaning. We spend our lives governed by internal narratives and the external cogs of humanity’s great machine, both of which are often beyond our grasp of understanding even as they prod us forward.

While O Brother does plenty of philosophising, the Coen’s, like in A Serious Man, have no interest in answering grand questions about the meaning of life. They laugh in the face of cosmic darkness, unearthing comic brilliance amidst this futile quest to understand the journey of life, where the travails of these three men are juxtaposed with Odysseus’ trials and tribulations in Homer’s The Odyssey.

While Ulysses is sometimes swayed by the religious thinking of his compatriots, whether out of the romanticism or terror inherent to the existence of a higher being in total control of each of us, he ultimately listens to his main inner narrative, which urges him to ignore such notions and focus on the mission at hand. He’s a crafty, ingenious trickster, which is a nice way of saying that he is a conniving cheat. Bad fortune has a way of being twisted around so thoroughly by Ulysses’ thought patterns that it almost strikes him and his brothers-in-arms as a grand new opportunity, with the trio doggedly pressing on even as their luck seems like a well that dry decades ago.

Like Terry Gilliam in his loose adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 in Brazil (1985), the Coen Brothers confessed to never having read The Odyssey. One wonders whether that isn’t simply a joke given how many of the film’s characters correspond to figures in the ancient Greek poem. Regardless, it’s the impression of a multi-faceted and intentionally convoluted journey that gives this film its charm, not shared plot specifics between both works. O Brother’s comedic antics are ridiculous, but the film commits to them as doggedly as its three protagonists do in their venture to secure that aforementioned fortune.

Whereas other comedies from the prolific brothers have a tendency to turn in on themselves through self-parody, like The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) or Intolerable Cruelty (2003), here the Coen’s stay true to this story’s general tone, ensuring that no character acts out of turn. Each of them has a role, and outside of a few key players, that role is to emerge from nowhere, completely dominate the scene (or scenes) they’re in, take O Brother‘s three protagonists on a mini-adventure, and then depart. You recognise the formula quickly after it’s been set in motion. In almost any other film, it would feel like you’re being cheated. In this case, it finds the perfect balance between continuing to keep you guessing and never feeling as if this story compromises its humour or heart.

That’s because the Coen’s are keen to demonstrate that the quest for life’s meaning is just as comic as any goofy one-liner, borderline slapstick moment, or humorous vocal inflection. This is a gleeful shout into the void, complete with bluegrass music and religious hymns, the power of transformation (whether real or imagined), electioneering, and more than one sadistic villain. As overarching antagonist Sheriff Cooley (Daniel von Bargen) tells the trio late in this journey, ‘the law is a human institution’. This ties into some clever re-incorporation regarding this character and what he represents in the film, but it also applies to the rest of the odd souls that our protagonists bump into along the way. Each of them might not literally be supernatural, but they’re all so much larger than life—and different from one another—that they contort reality itself, making these escaped convicts search beyond the mortal realm for answers.

If you can accept that you will never get them, O Brother is a revelation, a pitch-perfect film from dozens of collaborators at the top of their game. The three main characters are always delightful, especially Delmar’s guileless stupidity. This was Tim Blake Nelson’s breakout role, whose casting he attributes to his friendship with Joel Coen and his wife, decorated actress Frances McDormand. (According to the prolific brothers, he was also the only person on set that they were aware of who’d read The Odyssey prior to filming).

Pete and Ulysses are always capable of malice, with flaring egos that cause them to butt heads and lock horns, and for as entertaining as this is to watch, it is Delmar’s childlike purity that binds the trio together. He is the true believer in all things fanciful, with his unquestioning belief even casting seeds of doubt in the supposedly uber-rational Ulysses. He’s also an excellent dispenser of comedic gold. Showier examples of this exist, but a personal favourite is when the three men decide to vote on who will be the leader. Ulysses and Pete, predictably, vote for themselves. Before he even utters a word, and despite the fact that one has hardly even heard him speak at this point in the film, it’s obvious that Delmar isn’t going to pick himself, just as one knows that a punchline is coming. But the simple-minded trustfulness of Nelson’s delivery of “Okay, I’m with you fellas” still catches me off guard with its humorous charm on repeat viewings.

The trio’s endless wandering often leads to them coming across important political figures, brushing paths with the fake charm of governor Menelaus “Pappy” O’Daniel (Charles Durning) and his rival candidate Homer Stokes (Wayne Duvall) in an upcoming election, as well as Pappy’s bootlicking entourage, who have a penchant for reiterating one another’s points. Homer may be a fine orator, a seemingly compassionate politician, and a completely different man behind the scenes, but it is struggling incumbent candidate Pappy who steals every scene he’s in, from his fits of anger to the desperation that takes hold of the governor when a rare chance at electoral success lies before him. Durning is a comedic powerhouse; his recurring presence in this narrative is always a joyous occasion.

Whenever I re-watch O Brother, I’m always torn between thinking it is a farce or a meaningful interpretation of The Odyssey on the silver screen. But it’s more apt to say that this entire film is constructed like a bluegrass song, not unlike its smash hit “Man of Constant Sorrow”, where the mournful depths of existence aren’t delivered with a sad frown, but with plenty of dancing and jubilance. Is it paradoxical, silly, and illogical? Maybe. But when has life ever been rational? The song derives pleasure from pain the same way this movie extracts joy and humour out of these characters’ dire circumstances. The track is also incredibly catchy, making your soul sing as much as it inspires a rousing feeling that has you understanding why it inspires so many characters in this film to give in to pure joy. Throughout its runtime, O Brother embodies these feelings thoroughly, making it an interesting companion piece to the Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), which played out as a weary, bleak folk song of pain and perseverance.

Though “Man of Constant Sorrow” is easily the best composition here, the rest of the tracks are all brilliant picks, from the self-consciously old-timey “In The Jailhouse Now” (performed by Tim Blake Nelson) to the sublime hymn “Down to the River to Pray”, which, when performed by a choir baptising themselves in still waters, could convince even the most unsentimental of folks that there is great beauty stirring within this world and its many occupants.

It’s not just its audio elements, but O Brother’s visuals that are a treat. The sepia tint draped over this film was often overused around this time (with Steven Soderbergh’s Erin Brockovich being a noticeable misfire in this regard), but it captures the time period of the 1930s beautifully here. There isn’t any greenery to appreciate, but this world isn’t drenched in darkness, either. Instead, its colour palette ensures that it can’t be viewed through a purely optimistic or bleak lens, landing somewhere in the middle for every step of this journey.

The brothers (under the pseudonym Roderick Jaymes) and Ethan’s wife Tricia Cooke should also be commended for their phenomenal editing. Not only does it add so much to the film’s rhythm (an essential quality given its oft-featured music and the fact it feels like a song of its own), there isn’t a single moment where an important line of dialogue is undercut in chaotic scenes. It is just as impressive a feat as its actors and actress’ consistent ability to imbue their lines with humour and charm.

Every performance in O Brother is a delight, from the sleazy and charming Clooney to performers who only utter a single line. In the case of the latter, one particular example springs to mind, that of a shopkeeper who throws Ulysses out of his store with ease, then points at him sternly and tells him never to enter again. After issuing this warning, was this actor instructed by the Coen Brothers to contort his facial expression into the live-action re-imagining of a donkey, or was this creative choice orchestrated by its performer? Like this film’s approach to life—or when approaching this film—it’s better not to know the answers, and to instead take pleasure in these precious moments and the raucous laughter they can provoke.

UK • FRANCE • USA | 2000 | 107 MINUTES | 2.39:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

directors: Joel & Ethan Coen.
writers: Joel & Ethan Coen (based on ‘The Odyssey’ by Homer).
starring: George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, Charles Durning, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, Chris Thomas King, Wayne Duvall, Daniel von Bargen, Ray McKinnon & Michael Badalucco.