Joel Coen, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” (2000)
An amusing road film based on Homer’s The Odyssey, “O Brother …?” takes viewers on a quick and superficial tour of the culture and music of the US Deep South during the Great Depression. Shyster lawyer Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney) and two pals Peter (John Turturro) and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) escape from a prison chain-gang and go on the lam in search of stolen money McGill has hidden. They have only a few days to do this before the area where the money is buried is flooded by water created by a new hydroelectric dam. The trio git themselves into plenty o’ hot water during their search: they stay with Pete’s impoverished cousin who turns them over to police as he needs the bounty money but they escape in the nick of time; they hitch a ride with a dangerous bank robber; they record a song at a local radio station with another guy, Tommy (Chris Thomas King), as the Soggy Bottom Brothers; they are seduced and left for dead by three lovely lasses who turn Pete in to the authorities to collect the bounty on him; and McGill and Delmar fall in with thuggish Cyclops-like Bible salesman Big Dan Teague (John Goodman). Meanwhile unbeknownst to them, their Soggy Bottom Brothers song shoots to No 1 position on the radio hit parade.
The men rescue Peter and McGill tries to reconcile with his missus Penny (Holly Hunter) who is engaged to marry the campaign manager for a local political candidate, Homer Stokes. Later the comedy trio stumbles upon a Ku Klux Klan gathering, officiated over by a Grand Wizard who is none other than Stokes, and discover their pal Tommy is about to be lynched. They disguise themselves and rescue him but not before their identities are revealed by Teague (who was only wearing his eye-patch as disguise earlier) among the Klansmen. The quartet take off after a burning cross mysteriously falls on top of Teague and several other Klansmen.
Our heroes never do find the treasure that McGill claims is buried but, disguised as the Soggy Bottom Brothers, they successfully derail Stokes’ political campaign after he exposes his Klan connections at a campaign luncheon function.
The most that can be said for the film is that it pokes fun at the popular stereotypes about the Deep South – its insitutionalised racism, the political corruption, the divisions between rich and poor, the effect of poverty on people’s thinking and the wish for easy wealth, people’s clinging to religion and their gullibility – in a safe context of movie comedy. Underdogs and those rogues with hearts of gold and innocence and compassion to spare end up blessed by God and winning in the most unexpected of ways.
Chance and luck play a huge part in the film as they do in most Joel and Ethan Coen films I have seen. Here the action takes place in a benevolent universe, albeit one where slavery, the American Civil War, Reconstruction and their devastating psychological and cultural after-effects took place, giving rise to the Ku Klux Klan and corrupt Southern politics aimed at denying black people and other minorities the right to fully participate in society. The main characters earn redemption through good deeds they perform, repentance and sheer luck. An unseen force helps them along: what caused those cows to suddenly amble onto the road, preventing the police from pursuing the bank-robber George Nelson with his hitch-hikers, or the flaming cross to crash down on several Klansmen so that our heroes could take Tommy to safety?
Other themes in the film include the clash between the old and the new: the old ways of fanatical religion, superstitious beliefs, political corruption and a hierarchical society based on class, monied power and race on the one hand versus the new ways promised by radio communication and the arrival of electricity when flood waters created by a hydroelectric dam sweep over the land and literally cleanse it. Even the structure of the narrative places an old myth with its story-telling structure into a new context. This leads to a constant motif of renewal; it is no surprise that McGill, Peter and Delmar experience redemption and renewal throughout the film as they wander, physically, psychologically and spiritually, through the labyrinths of the Deep South.
On a more technical level, the film is notable for its use of sepia tones and old methods of editing to achieve an “aged” look. Although several actors in the film are Coen regulars, the casting of George Clooney with his smoky Clark Gable looks as McGill is inspired; viewers can easily see the entire cast give their best with enthusiasm to spare. Although Clooney dominates with his charm and his character’s pompous quirks, Goodman as Teague and Hunter as prissy Penny nearly steal the show whenever they appear. The script is cleverly written in a way that all loose ends are tied very neatly (and quite literally – the McGill daughters are tied with twine as if to simulate a prison chain-gang) after the main treasure-hunt plot and the Homer Stokes sub-plot have played out, in the process revealing historical references though characters and their names, and the music soundtrack. The movie has a number of cultural layers both particular to its setting and universally.
Nevertheless I can’t help but feel that most criticism in this film was aimed at easy targets – it’s easy for Western audiences today to laugh at the racism and religious gullibility of the past – and that aspects of life in the southeast US were glossed over or made fun of: the struggle of share-croppers to survive, their isolation, the ways in which wealthy people brutally exercised power over poorer folks, the casual racism and misogyny, and a fatalistic outlook expressed in the music. The directors have taken on a huge topic – an examination of American Southern culture, how it could have yielded such beautiful and despairing music, distinctive cooking and an idiosyncratic style yet produced incredible horrors – and somehow have failed to discover the historical roots of those phenomena to make an effective critique.