Customer Reviews

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

5 star:		(312)
4 star:		(82)
3 star:		(42)
2 star:		(29)
1 star:		(28)

 

 

While my favorite Coen brothers' film is "Miller's Crossing," "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" is my favorite comedy by these two mavericks.

Loosely based on Homer's "The Odyssey," earning an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay even though the Coens' admitted to reading only the Cliff Notes, "O Brother" is the Coens' tribute to American bluegrass music. For some reason, this movie was shamefully snubbed at the Oscars, but George Clooney earned his Golden Globe award for best actor.

Clooney plays the fast-talking Clark Gable wannabe, Ulysses Everett MacGill. Unfortunately for Ulysses, his mouth runs about five steps ahead of his brain, and his delight in the clever, hyper-articulate use of the English language cannot mask his delightful naivete. In a performance of sly self-mockery (can you think of another major film star who would so earnestly ask for a hair net to sleep in or speak movingly about being a "Dapper Dan Man"?), Clooney steals one heck of a show.

Ulysses escapes from a chain gang in Depression-era Mississippi with his sidekicks, the hot-blooded Pete (John Turturro) and easy-going Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson). Allegedly going to find some treasure before a river gets dammed, sinking the treasure beneath a deep lake, this trio begins a bizarre journey across the Deep South.

Along the way they meet guitarist Tommy Johnson, who followed an American musical legend by selling his soul to the devil at a crossroads in exchange for the ability to play the guitar, Big Jim Teague (the Cyclops), three Sirens, a blind seer, Baby Face Nelson, a spelling-challenged rifle-toting youngster, and Governor Pappy O'Daniel (conveniently relocated from Texas to Mississippi). Recalling the ultimate road story of the Odyssey, "O Brother" breezes from episode to episode with delightful ease.

As ever with Coen brothers' films, the movie looks wonderful and feels authentic. You can feel the oppressive heat of the Mississippi sunshine, you choke on dusty roads, and you glory in the greens and yellows of the languid countryside. Unlike so many films set in the Old South, characters are fully-realized (even if hilariously flawed) rather than caricatures. The minor details of daily life in the South (a mild oath from Ulysses gets a stern warning -- "Watch your mouth, young feller, this is a public shop") are delightful touches.

Of course, the true star of this movie, other than Clooney, is the soundtrack. Almost solely responsible for the recent Bluegrass explosion, "O Brother" lovingly grounds this musical genre in its appropriate time and space, and the songs form a perfect accompaniment to the rest of the movie. When the congregation sings is gospel tunes, or Pappy O'Daniel leads the Soggy Bottom Boys (what a name!) in a rendition of "You Are My Sunshine," the powerful force of music resonates throughout this delightful film.

One of the best movies of recent years, it's hard to understand why "O Brother" was so snubbed by the Academy. Like other recent snubs (e.g., "Shawshank Redemption," this movie is sure to generate more critical acclaim as it ages.

Whether it's for the wonderful acting, terrific writing, or amazing soundtrack, "O Brother" should be in your collection!

Joel and Ethan Coen seem incapable of making a film that isn't at least interesting, and often their movies are absolutely delightful. I think everyone has their favorites (mine are "Fargo" and "Raising Arizona"), but this film touched a few cultural nerves that are infrequently accessed.

For one thing, the soundtrack features a brilliant collection of grass-roots and Americana music - acoustic blues and jazz and bluegrass. Alison Krauss, already a novelty around Nashville as a platinum-selling bluegrass artist, received a thunderbolt of a boost to her career by supplying several tunes and vocal parts to the soundtrack (for example singing the Heavenly "Down to the River to Pray" during the baptism scene and the seductive voice of one of the sirens later on). Dan Tyminski, one of the musicians from Alison's band, Union Station, supplies the singing voice of George Clooney and Dan Tyminski's "Man of Constant Sorrow" became even MORE of a novelty around Nashville as it won one Country Music Award after another without the benefit of any significant radio play.

The script is VERY loosely based on Homer's Odyssey and knowing that allows the moderately educated a few hearty chuckles recognizing, for example, that John Goodman's Eye-Patched Bible Salesman represents the Cyclops.

George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson deliver the Coen's rib-tickling dialogue with gusto. I don't know why it's so entertaining to watch characters who are clueless, or at least more clueless than they think they are, but to see three bravura performances as chain-gang refugee dunces is a treat here.

In a typical early sequence our trio has just made their break from the chain-gang and Clooney's Everett begins taking charge. Turturro's Pete questions him:

"Wait a minute. Who elected you leader of this outfit?"

Everette responds "Well, Pete, I figured it should be the one with the capacity for abstract thought. But if that ain't the consensus, then hell, let's put it to a vote."

"Suits me", says Pete. "I'm voting for yours truly."

"Well, I'm voting for yours truly too" replies Everett, not backing down.

Pete and Everett turn to their slightly denser partner Delmar to break the deadlocked vote.

He ponders it thoughtfully."Okay.... I'm with you fellers".

Classic Coen Brothers.
----------------------------
One tidbit provided on the "Alison Krauss and Union Station LIVE DVD": Dan Tyminski, upon learning that he was going to be providing the singing voice for George Clooney, called his wife to give her the exciting news.

"Honey! They're making a movie and I'm doing a voiceover for George Clooney!"

"Oh, that's good, Dan. What's a voiceover?"

"Well, when people go to see the movie and look up on the screen, they'll see George Clooney, but when he sings it'll be my voice coming out of his mouth!"

"Oh Dan", Mrs. Tyminski replied. "That's my fantasy!"

After The Big Lebowski, the Coen brothers refined their approach to movie-making. They stuck with the idea of including any idea that was funny and slightly strange, but this time they imposed a plot that made sense. Like Fargo --- which was supposed to be based on a true story but really wasn't --- Oh Brother Where Art Thou is based on the Odyssey (a seemingly true story that they could use when it served them, or dump when it didn't). Then they added the Depression, southern politics, and lots of music.

If this had been written and directed by anyone else, it would have been a mess. But with the Coen brothers, it's a musical comedy disguised as a screwball period piece. It helps that the casting is perfect. From the three principal actors to the major secondary characters (like John Goodman's Big Dan Teague/Cyclops) to the smaller parts (like the governor's two dim-bulb campaign managers and the radio station owner) every actor is funny and perfectly in sync with the tone of the film.

The Coens added quite a bit of computer effects and all of it works. The obvious example is the color-grading. The short documentary on the DVD shows how computers were used to wash out colors and tint different scenes. Then there are small parts, such as the underwater shot of Dapper Dan cans and a dog floating by. Those cans are computer-generated, and the dog was composited into the shot. You don't notice this stuff until the third or fourth time you see it. Once you notice, it makes the movie even better.

This is one of the best Coen brothers movies, and one of the best movies of the last 10 years. The music is so good, you'll be humming every tune the day after you see it. It's very funny and beautifully designed, as well.

I LOVE THIS MOVIE! EVERYTHING IS PERFECT FROM THE DUMB CHARACTERS TO THE BEAUTIFUL SOUNDTRACK! A GREAT STORY AND OVERALL, A WONDERFUL ADDITION TO YOUR MOVIE COLLECTION! BUY IT NOW PLEASE.

I liked many things about this film. The stereotypes of Southern culture we've all grown up with were cleverly caricatured...the fat but good-natured politicians, the fat and ill-natured ones, the Ku Klux Klan, chain gangs and their cruelty, the simpleminded and uncultured poor. Then there is the denatured moonshine on Saturday night, and the good-natured "You-are-my-Sunshines" on Sunday morning. And that odd Southern combination of careful etiquette with downright meanness ("Well Suh, I'll thank you to get off my porch a'fore I blow you ta Kingdom Come.") Southern populism with all its racial contradictions- low culture brought to a high art.

And let's not forget the music! "Land sakes alive... them Soggybottom Boys shore can sing"! All of this is tied together in a most appealing way with Homer's Oddyssey- the blind oracle on the railroad tracks, the Sirens singing in the river... This movie is really different! Nostalgia for the Old South brought back full force, leaving you feeling guilty for liking it, just the same.

Senryu

This might be the funniest and wackiest Cohn bros. film I've seen yet. I even enjoyed the Blue Grass sound track, although I'm more of a pop, classical, and jazz kind of guy. But the music was great, too, and it really added to the overall ambience of the movie.

Some of the scenes are just classic, such as the Baby Face Nelson gettaway with the cows, the KKK "dance of the sugar plum fairies," (as I call it), the scene with the "river sirens," and the scene at the concert where the Soggy Bottom Boys finally sing their hit song to the entralled crowd, which the guys can't figure out.

I recognized the actor who played George Nelson from The Practice TV show but hadn't seen any of his other work before, and I thought his over-the-top portrayal was really amazing considering he plays a stolid, respectable lawyer and very different character in the TV show.

I was also amazed at how well George Clooney pulled off the dancing and high-stepping at the concert and political rally. He proved himself to be a pretty competent hoofer in the great tradition of hoofer actors (like Bob Hope, James Cagney, and Gregory Hines, etc., although of a different style).

So overall, another very funny, wacky movie from the Cohn bros. that certainly won't disappoint the fans, and with a classic Blue Grass sound track that really fit the movie well.

I must say at the outset that I am a TOTAL Coen Brothers fan and have seen ALL of their projects. This ranks right up there as one of their crowning achievements.

This is a re-telling of the "Odyssey" by Homer and after viewing this, I finally got a handle on just what the "Odyssey" was about. In a nutshell, it follows the exploits of a man and the exotic characters he meets along his journey. The way the Coen Brothers personified such stalwart literary characters as the Cyclops (John Goodman) and the Furies is most creative.

Excellent performances all around from the likes of George Clooney (in one of his most endearing roles), the incomparable John Goodman, Holly Hunter, John Turturo, Charles Durning and a wonderfully strong supporting cast.

However, one cannot mention the merits of this movie without a mention of the soundtrack. It is most obvious that the Coen Brothers invested an enormous amount of research to make sure that the music adequately accompnaied the mood and tone. A wonderfully indelible example is the use of an acapella song (that utilizes no words, only moans) still used in African-American churches that is beautifully realized.

The music in this project is positively spellbinding, regardless of your particular musical preferences - there is something here for everybody. The soundtrack deserved the kudos it received.

This one you will enjoy over and over and over again!!!!
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeexcellent!

This movie in my eyes parallels the best movies in all times. From the characters, to the time and plot. This movie is perfect in all aspects. Watching this movie and reading The Odyssey fit together as well as Pink Floyd and The Wizard of Oz. To Coen Brothers have produced yet another piece of exquist art with O Brother, Where Art Thou?, taking a book and reproducing it in a "modern" time that many people can relate to. Having these characters go through more realistic hardships instead of mythological beasts and hardships. In my opinion, O Brother is a most excellent film....I give it 5 Stars.

Joel and Ethan, the inimitable and unstoppable Coen brothers, score yet again. It's an over-the-top funny - and touching - movie about three cons on the run in Mississippi in the 30s. George Clooney, playing dapper Ulysses Everett McGill, is the thinker, the planner, the schemer, of the impossible trio. He's slick, quick-talking, and funny as hell.
John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson play the two side-kicks, dumbos who go along for the ride and add comic bits to the action as the runaways encounter every possible sort of human as obstacles in their path. There's a blind man, a one-eyed crook, sexy singing girls, a Blues guitarist, crooked politicians (is there any other kind?), and so forth.
And the soundtrack is so incredibly good that you'll want to go right out and buy it - as I did - and I don't even like country. But this is foot-stompin' banjo-banging, twangy bluegrass stuff that's totally infectious.
If you haven't yet seen it, SEE IT NOW.

There really is nobody in mainstream American cinema to touch the Coen Brothers. Young aspiring screenwriters must look at most big Hollywood movies and think, Oh gee, I could write better than that so easily. Then they must look at what the Coens write and think, Oh gee, I could never write like that. As screen writers, the C. Bros are giants in a race of pygmies.

At the heart of their work are three of the finest films ever made in the United States, made consecutively, "Fargo", "The Big Lebowski" and this. One of the glorious things about these three films is how different they are. "Fargo" is a police procedural and morality tale set in the snowbound backwater of Minnesota, "Big Lebowski" a glorious send up of film noir set in the asinine wilderness of Los Angeles. "Oh Brother" is a musical epic, an enchantment, set in Depression era Mississippi. If the idea here is to signal which movies are not simply worth seeing but specifically worth buying, where a movie worth buying is a movie that will delight not just on a single viewing but repeatedly, on viewing it again and again, all these three movies are eminently worth singling out. I've seen them all several times now and they just get better. Many movies get to be classics because of just one or two scenes that have some peculiar magic. This movie is composed almost entirely of such scenes.

In essence it's a comedy and seems to spring from an almost infinite well of comic invention. Here we get George Clooney as Ulysses Everett McGill, the smooth talking "Odysseus" character with his loquacity and vanity, John Goodman as Big Dan Teague, the one-eyed "Cyclops" (with an neat pun on that word's murky second life as a term for a KKK officeholder) bible salesman and thief, Michael Badalucco as George "Baby Face" Nelson the manic depressive cow-hating bank robber, Stephen Root as the strangely manic blind recording engineer and radio station manager in the middle of nowhere, Wayne Duvall as Homer Stokes the KKK-affiliated candidate for governor with his performing midget, Charles Durning as Menelaus "Pappy" O Daniel, the incumbent governor, terrified of losing, Holly Hunter as Mrs "Penelope" McGill who has told her army of children that her fallen ex-husband was run over by a train, Ray McKinnon as her suitor who, inverting the Homeric source, is more than a match for Everett in a bout of fisticuffs, Lee Weaver as the "Tiresias" character, the blind driver of a handcar, and Daniel von Bargen as an avenging angel, the sheriff, who is also at once The Devil and the Greek God Neptune. All the above act like people who never expect to be offered a better-written part and many of them never will. Quite good comic films could be made from one twentieth of the cinematic ideas on display here. The Coens just have such an abundance of them, they toss them off, exult briefly in them, and them move gaily on to the next. If there's one quibble, it might be Pete and Delmar, McGill's companions, who have escaped with him from a chain gang. While Walter Sobchak in "The Big Lebowski" was not merely an idiot but a magnificent, outrageous idiot of Dickensian dimensions, these two, though certainly well enough acted by John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson, are much closer to being stock comic characters whose plain unembellished dumbness is intended to render them funny. If "Big Lebowski" is a better comic film, as I think it is, I'd single that out as a reason why.

As well as the Coen's, the movie's magnificence owes a large debt to T Bone Burnett who put the music together. It's very much a musical and the soundtrack is pure heaven to listen to, especially those items involving the marvellous singing of Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch. Though if there is one slightly off note here too, it is Ralph Stanley's "O Death" sung by a hooded KKK chief who turns out to be Stokes. Not only is credulity strained in supposing Stokes could have a singing voice remotely like Stanley's but it seems far too cool a song to be found on the lips of so desperately uncool a character. But again now I'm splitting hairs. This is a classy, classy movie and a pure joy to watch.