"Pete,
it’s a fool who looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart.”
-Ulysses Everett McGill
“O Brother Where Art Thou?” seemed to all observing eyes
like it would be a flop. Upon its initial unveiling at the 2000 Cannes
International Film Festival, it received mixed notices. Such a reaction from the
institution which had previously bequeathed director Joel Coen its Best Director
prize twice, for “Fargo” and “Barton Fink” (the latter of which was also
the only film to win the Palme d’Or and Best Actor, for John Turturro),
didn’t bode well for Joel and his brother Ethan, who’d always been a bit
irregular at the US box office. The film wasn’t highly anticipated, even among
Coen fans.
“O Brother,” starring George Clooney, featured the Coens’ largest budget ever. Part of this budget was spent on its exploration of a newly developed process by which the release prints are digitally timed. It was the first film to use this new process allowing cameramen a greater control over the final look of their photography -- and Roger Deakins, previously nominated for “Kundun,” “The Shawshank Redemption,” as well as the Coens’ “Fargo,” would eventually receive another Oscar nod.
The
film opened at the end of 2000 without a great deal of fanfare. The reviews were
the brothers’ weakest since “The Hudsucker Proxy,” their last big-budget
foray some six and a half years earlier. Audiences weren’t too enthused at the
prospect of sitting through two hours of redneck lore. I had seen their last
three films on opening day, but was in no rush to see this one.
My initial reaction after seeing it was that I didn’t really know how to
react. I was glad that something so unusual had gotten made; yet I wasn’t sure
whether I really liked it. Certain images rattled my skull for some time
afterward, such as John Goodman's Big Dan Teague throwing a hand-crushed frog
believed to be Pete, John Turturro’s character, against a tree as an
exclamation of existential futility, or the indulgent CGI climax involving a
one-minute underwater parade of debris washed away by a flooded valley.
It
was that last image in particular that I kept coming back to. It was so long and
so confident in itself that I began readjusting my receptors to the movie. I
figured “O Brother” wouldn't last long at the box office, and I’d wait to
watch it again on video. However, about two months later it was still playing in
the same theater it had opened in, United Artists Union Square 14. It wasn’t
uncommon for a large art film to do well at this theater, as ”Fight Club”
and “Magnolia” both staked out shelter there long after their unsuccessful
theatrical releases. (This theater has the best commercial facilities within
walking distance of NYU.) What I did notice, however, was that the film, though
never at the top of the box office charts, held steady and maintained a gross of
several million dollars per weekend. After six months, it had become the
Coens’ highest grossing film ever, with roughly $45 million taken in. Its
soundtrack had also become a surprise top 10 hit, spawning the “O Brother,
Where Art Thou?” tour, featuring a variety of blues and bluegrass performers.
”O Brother, Where Art Thou?” had become that rarest of modern novelties: A genuine sleeper hit.
I decided not to wait for the video release and saw it a second time about three
months after the first viewing. It all came together at that point. I realized
it was essentially a pro-evolution atheist taunt dressed up like a lowbrow
cartoon. The Coens’ had ingeniously gotten people to watch one thing while
thinking it was something else completely, like chocolate flavored laxatives.
It purports to be based on Homer’s “The Odyssey,” and though it received
an Oscar nod for Best Adapted Screenplay, the two are only vaguely related. The
Coens, in fact, claimed that they had never read “The Odyssey,” but based
the script on things they'd heard and previous cinematic turns. This is
probably a lie on the level of Roderick Jaynes, their faithful editor, an Oscar
nominee for “Fargo,” who doesn’t even exist. Also, being that Ethan was a
philosophy major at Princeton, I’m sure he would have been forced to read it
at some point before he was expelled. The basic plot is similar, in that an
imprisoned man named Ulysses (Odysseus) is trying to return home before his wife
Penny (Penelope), is remarried. Both stories feature Sirens and a Cyclops (Big
Dan Teague). However, that’s where the similarities end -- as one was about
the importance of gods, while the other, iconoclastic, seeks to deconstruct God.
First,
let’s deal with the film’s setting, which is Depression-era Mississippi.
Starting on an image of a black & white field, color begins permeating the
scene, as we come across a chain gang breaking rocks in the hot Southern sun. As
the camera tracks past the convicts and hovers over them from above, it becomes
apparent that all of the convicts are black, while all of the guards on
horseback are white. Playing off this opening, the Coens now introduce us to our
three main characters, as they escape the chain gang. They just happen to be the
only white men we’ve seen in shackles. This choice is directly calling
attention to our natural prejudices by pointing out whom mass audiences will
accept as their heroes, regardless of the reality of the situation.
As the three convicts, Everett, Pete and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson), progress on
their odyssey, both Pete and Delmar consistently arrive at supernatural
explanations for the bizarre encounters they face. Everett is the only one of
the group who attempts to determine rational reasons for things.
With
this setup in place, the chain gang, and with it, the Southern legal system of
old (if still not today), become representative of the tyranny of ignorance from
which man must escape. Technology has become his savior. “O Brother, Where Art
Thou?” is an allegory of the human situation as it has evolved through time.
Though settings and appearances might change, there are still plenty of things
which remain the same, such as politics, male/female relations, human ignorance
and the way tools have reshaped civilization.
Just after Pete and Delmar have both been baptized, and both claim to have been
absolved of their sins, Everett suggests: “...Even if it did put ya’ square
with the Lord, the State of Mississippi’s a little more hard-nosed,”
reminding them that no matter how they feel emotionally inside, the world around
them -- the physical world -- operates on its own terms. Shortly after this, the
convicts pick up Tommy Johnson, a black guitar player in the mold of Robert
Johnson, who sold his soul at the crossroads to play guitar. When Tommy¹s asked
why he sold his soul, he replies: “Well, I wasn't using it.” Everett,
always the cool head, remarks: “I guess I'm the only one that remains
unaffiliated.
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 ol’
hound.” Tommy’s description plays out in the form of the Sheriff intent on
tracking the convicts down and locking them back up. The Sheriff is white, wears
mirrored sunglasses, voiding his eyes; he speaks with a deep pitiless voice and
is always accompanied by his hound. When his men find the convicts’ car, Tommy
cuts out and, as we’re told that he’s run off, we see a shot of the hound
from behind, then we tilt up to the Sheriff, both silhouetted by flames.
However,
he is not Satan. Just a Sheriff. And when the Klan’s favorite Bible salesman,
Big Dan Teague, throws that toad against the tree and proclaims: “It’s all
about the money, boys!”, it's nice to think “Magnolia” is being taken to
task for all of its coincidences and contrivances. (Upon first discovering the
toad, Delmar chases it into the stream and flops about like he’s undergoing
another baptism.)
There are several transitions between scenes that play up the Sheriff’s role
as a demon of ignorance. During the baptism scene, just as Pete runs off to join
Delmar, to be saved, there is a cut to a single shot sequence, in which the
hound comes upon a can of Everett's Dapper Dan pomade; ignorance has just found
a clue to their trail. Later, once Pete has been strung up by the Sheriff,
who’s preparing to hang him, Pete yells, “God forgive me!” The Sheriff
immediately stops his men from proceeding, ordering them to, “Hold,” as Pete
has been saved by reembracing ignorance in the form of religion. (The irony here
is that by dying, Pete would go to God. However, he is too afraid and later begs
forgiveness for not going to him.)
The scene which most directly ties the Sheriff to Hell, comes at the film’s
climax where he finally captures the convicts, who’ve already been pardoned.
Stepping toward them he bellows, “You have eluded Satan, you have eluded me
for the last time.” And when Everett tells him, “It ain’t the law,” he
replies, “The law? The law is a human institution.”
Homer
Stokes, the reform candidate for Governor, and Imperial Wizard of the local KKK
(after Delmar perceives the toad to be Pete, he says they need to find a wizard
to turn him back), is also linked to that fiery place of myths. It’s no
coincidence his last name is Stokes. The Klan rally is a golden glow from the
flaming cross and surrounding torches. Stokes sings from below his red hood:
“Oh, Death, won't you spare me over to another year...” Later, at his
demise, he tells a crowd of his supporters, while pointing to Tommy, “...And I
have it from the highest authority that that negra sold his soul to the
Devil!”
During this same sequence, Stokes also suggests the three white convicts
aren’t white. He says this after having seen them rescue Tommy from the
Klan’s clutches shortly before. That scene, at the rally, plays perfectly into
the Coens’ racial mockery scheme. The three convicts, having just left the
prison where Pete had been chained, cover their faces with grease, creating
veritable “black faces.” They then assume the wardrobe of the Klan’s Color
Guard while Stokes mocks the theory of evolution. Upon their discovery Stokes
perceives them as being black. He announces: “The Color Guard is colored!”
When the convicts go to radio station WEZY to record “I Am a Man of Constant
Sorrow,” they first tell the station’s blind manager (there are two other
blind characters, with the Oracle and Big Dan's lost eye), that they’re
colored while Tommy is white. After the manager expresses disapproval, they
reverse and admit they’re white while Tommy is colored. Since the manager is
blind, he’s oblivious, and later remarks to a man looking to sign the Soggy
Bottom Boys to a contract (before the “competition”), that they were,
“...Negras, I believe.”
The best, and slyest use of racial foolery, is reserved for Everett’s
children. Unlike Homer’s Penelope, who was the model of devotion, the Coens’
Penny quickly divorced Everett upon his conviction. We get an even greater
glimpse into her lack of faith upon seeing their children for the first time. If
you pay attention to the first three daughters Everett confronts, the girl
standing screen left is certainly of mixed race. Everett was most likely not the
father. Obviously, he never noticed it, or at least refused to acknowledge it,
and the same goes for the picture’s audience.
As the convicts are leaving WEZY, after recording their song, we meet Governor
“Pappy” O’Daniel, a man using public office to promote his flour company.
When the Governor’s son suggests that he do some politicking and press the
flesh, he tells him he doesn’t need to because, via the radio, he’s mass
communicating now. This is a direct dramatization of the way technology was
changing the culture at the time. Sardonically, the Governor’s theme song is
“You Are My Sunshine,” while his opponent, Stokes, uses “Keep On The Sunny
Side,” illustrating how there ain’t a dime’s worth of difference between
them.
As the Sheriff is preparing to hang the convicts later on, they tell him that
their pardon went out live on the radio. Technology, in the form of a musical
recording, in conjunction with the radio, had spared them. The Sheriff, in
accordance with his symbolic ignorance, chuckles and admits, ”Is that right?
Well, we ain’t got a radio.”
While Everett encourages his accomplices to dream and create myths, by asking
them what they’ll do when they get their share of the hidden cash (a story
which he’s made up in the first place), he is the one who sets things straight
at the end. Having grabbed onto a floating coffin in the flooded valley, Pete
and Delmar immediately begin arriving at supernatural explanations for their
rescue. Everett complains, “Well, it never fails. Once again, you two hayseeds
are showin’ how much you want for intellect. There’s a perfectly scientific
explanation for what just happened.” When they still protest, questioning why
he prayed to God before the flood saved them, he replies, “Well, any human
being’ll cast about in a moment of stress. No, the fact is, they’re flooding
this valley, so they can hydroelectric up the whole durn state. Yes, sir, the
South is gonna change. Everything’s gonna be put on a paying basis. Out with
the old spiritual mumbo jumbo, the superstitions, and the backward ways. We’re
gonna see a brave new world where they run everybody a wire and hook us all up
to a big grid. Yes, sir, a veritable Age of Reason. Like the one they had in
France. Not a moment too soon.” Everett then notices a cow standing on the
roof of a cotton mill, just like the Oracle predicted, reminding us that there
will always be certain things we’ll never know the answers to. And certainly,
Everett’s prediction regarding human nature, for the South, was vastly too
optimistic.
The final shot of the film ties everything together. We track along with Everett
and Penny, as they walk in front of a billboard advertising electricity’s
arrival, playing image off of its reality, as all plans must encounter their own
obstacles. They argue about whether she’ll accept the wrong engagement ring
and her foolish superstitions. We wind up on the railroad tracks, finding the
Oracle once again. He’s still rowing his way down the tracks, though away from
us. The camera booms upward on this image, reminding us at once how the railroad
connected the nation and began the technological modernization of the South, as
well as of the labor, being black slavery, which created the South. The image
then desaturates of its color and returns to black & white, like it began,
calling direct attention to this new digital color timing by reverting to the
aesthetic quality of the original motion picture technology, proving evolution
at work. The film’s narrative is also an evolution of sorts. “The Odyssey”
began as a series of folk stories and myths that were then combined into its
present text and transcribed to the written word, and attributed to an author
named Homer. Since then, it has been translated into various languages and
evolved another step upon the invention of the printing press. Subsequently,
there have been numerous cinematic translations, evolving the narrative to a
higher technological form of storytelling, finally arriving at the present in
the form of “O Brother Where Art Thou?”