O Brother, Where Art Thou

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

In the film Sullivan’s Travels, the main character is a filmmaker who travels to find what real life is about and make a film entitled O Brother Where Art Thou? In the Coen Brothers movie with that title, we have a farcical version of true life, reversing the process of the earlier motion picture’s protagonist, but showing the real-life situations beneath the exaggerated exterior. The opening notes cite The Odyssey as the film’s source material, but the tone here is mock epic.

The main character is Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney), and his real goal is to return to his wife, Penny (Holly Hunter). So, the names and the quest establish the link to Homer’s epic, Penny referring to Penelope in Homer’s epic. This Ulysses, however, is a convict, not a war hero, a character that can be associated with everyday life. Clooney excels in delivering fast-paced, pretentious speech here, as he also does in the Coens’ Intolerable Cruelty. His language is in contrast to the lowly situation he is in, since he is incarcerated in a chain gang. There are many contrasts here as the whimsical, humorous aspects contrast with the bigotry and corruption in the tale. As Adam Nayman points out in his book The Coen Brothers, the song included in the film, “The Big Rock Candy Mountain,” suggests a utopia where “the downtrodden and dispossessed” do not exist, which is in direct contrast to what the Coens depict in their Depression-era movie. Nayman says the colors used in the cinematography are vivid, making the film a “gilded Dust Bowl” story. Again, there is that sense of artifice stressed in the midst of a movie relating a dark time in American history. (The soundtrack of traditional, downhome music was a hit and received the Grammy for “Album of the Year.).

The movie begins with this Ulysses handcuffed to other convicts on a chain gang, the volatile Pete (John Turturro) and the intellectually challenged but sweet Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson). Being bound together physically brings about an emotional bonding despite the differences in these characters and adds an optimistic aspect to the story.

The three men escape their captivity, and as Nayman points out, we see them popping into the horizon like plants growing out of the soil. Nayman says that the whole film has this universal homage to what is basic and universal to humankind, as if the men were “products of the rich, fertile Delta soil.” Perhaps the Coens using a mythological structure means that they are aiming at the universal that binds us all.

They visit Pete’s cousin who removes the shackles, change out of their prison garb, and spend the night in the barn. Everett tells the other two men he has over a million dollars that he hid from a robbery and will split it with them if they help him. However, the cousin called the police to get the reward on the men. Greed is a continuing theme in the Coens’ films, and it does harm to those who worship profit and the collateral damage associated with monetary gain. Everett utters a repeated phrase here when he says, “We’re in a tight spot!” The words are in opposition to his usual long-winded style when not in immediate danger. They are able to escape with the help of the cousin’s son, which shows compassion in the midst of selfishness.

The travelers come across a religious group. Delmar and Pete feel the need for salvation and are baptized. Everett, the rational-minded member, does not participate. However, despite the draw of splitting Everett’s cash, the desire for the other two to mend their ways shows that they are more upstanding than others in society who appear upright morally. Delmar is childlike, and it is that incorruptible aspect that puts him in contrast to the schemers that the men encounter on their journey. It’s as if the real culprits of society are on the loose, and the three convicts are minor transgressors in the scheme of things. These scenes are played broadly, but, as Nayman says, “lowbrow humor is deployed in the service of social commentary.”

The men then meet a hitchhiker, a black musician named Tommy Johnson (Chris Thomas King), who plays guitar and says he made a pact with the devil to become talented. Tommy says that Satan is not the scaly creature people envision, but is actually “white, as white as you folks. With empty eyes and a big hollow voice. He likes to travel around with a mean old hound.” For the black man, the devil is white, especially at this time. As it turns out later, we discover the demon is a policeman, one who is supposed to stand for morality, but instead is the devil beneath the trappings of justice.

The foursome come across a radio station run by a blind man (Stephe Root) who thinks the fellows are a black musical group. They record a song, “Man of Constand Sorrow,” as the “Soggy Bottom Boys” and collect some money for the performance. They do not realize it, but the recording becomes a hit, which helps them later. Nayman says that the blind DJ shows a white man’s not recognizing the music of African Americans and it is an example of cultural appropriation. However, could it also mean that music is universal, and thus it addresses people of all backgrounds despite its source?

The police are on their trail, headed by the devil-like Sheriff Cooley (Daniel von Bargen). They escape but become separated from Tommy. They run into “Baby Face” Nelson (Michael Badalucco) and are drawn into a bank robbery. Nelson is an unhinged character, and his nickname is in sync with the theme of the film in that the gangster’s innocent name hides a nasty fellow underneath.

The next attack on their innocence comes in a form that mirrors the temptation of the Sirens in The Odyssey. Beautiful women sing and do their laundry in the river. They are awash in clingy, wet clothes that stress their allure that draws the men to them. The next morning Delmar finds Pete missing. Inside his strewn clothes is a frog, and the superstitious Delmar believes the women cast a spell and turned Pete into the creature. The Coens continue to give us a magical exterior to the story, but it again is a coating of artifice that storytellers use to embellish the harshness of reality.

At a restaurant Everett and Delmar meet Big Dan Teague (John Goodman). He has that way with words that reflects a kinship with Everett. Big Dan has one eye, so he is the cyclops character in this version of the Ulysses tale. He is a bible salesman. All of this is a front that hides a mean character beneath the friendly surface. In a field where they are having a picnic, he beats up the two men, steals what money they have, kills the frog Delmar was carrying, and steals their car. Big Dan is the Mr. Hyde to Everett’s Dr. Jekyll.  

Everett and Delmar arrive at Everett’s hometown where Everett tries to talk with his wife, Penny, who is taking care of their seven daughters (seven being a magical number which fits in with the mythic framework of the story?) She is so ashamed of him she told the children he was killed. Penny is now engaged to Vernon T. Waldrip, who is the campaign manager for Homer Stokes (Wayne Duvall), who is running for governor. Nayman believes Waldrip is a reference to a writer, Howard Waldrop, who wrote a story that re-envisioned the labors of Hercules to the time of the Depression. In a way is what the Coens are doing with this film, reimagining a mystical tale. Stokes is another fraud. He acts like he is planning on getting rid of corruption, while in fact he is the head of the local KKK. He has a little person with him on the campaign using a broom to symbolize sweeping things clean for the “little” people in society. As Nayman points out, it is a condescending image, and the man’s campaign smacks of the “proximity of populist rhetoric and fascist ideology.”

Everett and Delmar find Pete (not a frog) as part of a prison chain again. The prisoners are in the audience in a movie theater (a film within a film? The Coens stressing storytelling?). He was turned in by the Sirens (more deviousness). They help Pete escape. Everett now reveals that there is no armored car stash of money. He was arrested for practicing law without a license – not so horrendous a crime compared to acts committed by some others - and all he wants to do is get back with his wife. His other character flaw may be his vanity, insisting on using “Dapper Dan” pomade. The problem is they will get fifty years for escaping, a geometrical multiplication of original infractions, which points to inequities in the legal system.

These three Depression musketeers come upon a KKK meeting where the white-robed Klansmen are ready to hang their pal, Tommy. Although the KKK rally mimics The Wizard of OZ, a fantasy, with its chanting like the scene in the 1939 film, what is happening is actually frightening. Stokes says, “Oh brothers … our women … looking to us for protection. From Darkies! From Jews! From papists, and from all those smart-ass folks say we come descended from monkeys! That’s not my culture and heritage!” The call to “brothers” echoes the title of the film, which here questions what people stand for. The three men are admirable as they rescue their African American friend in a dangerous situation (like the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion helped Dorothy), and show their place on the moral measuring stick. They topple a burning cross onto KKK member Big Dan in a bit of ironic justice, apparently killing the brute.

The four men come upon a campaign rally for governor. When they sing “Man of Constant Sorrow,” they reveal themselves as the Soggy Bottom Boys, and are wildly popular. The dancing and mugging as they sing the song is diverting, but the song identifies the four men with the hardships of everyday people. The crowd condemns Homer Stokes who derails himself by attacking the Boys for ruining his KKK rally. The shrewd current governor, Pappy O’Daniel (Charles Durning), embraces the Boys, knowing he will win the popularity of the masses. He pardons them. It is a left-handed way of doing the right thing.

Penny says she will take Everett back, but he must retrieve her wedding ring from their old cabin. The men go there but Sheriff Cooley is present and doesn’t care about a pardon. His men have dug their graves. Everett prays and then there is divine intervention this time to save them. A biblical-like flood immerses the valley. The men come across a floating desk and retrieve a ring from it (it almost reminds one of how Ishmael is saved in Moby Dick). However, when Everett gets back to Penny, she tells him that it’s not the right ring, which is now at the bottom of the lake. The man is always in that tight spot. Finding the ring at the end is like a Herculean task, an impossible thing in the real world, which fits with the mythic, mock-epic feel of this story.

Nayman sums up the way the Coens present their story by saying, “art with a message is less valuable than that which sets out, energetically and unpretentiously, to entertain.”