O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a 2000 satirical comedy-drama musical film written, produced, co-edited, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. It stars George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson, with Charles Durning, Michael Badalucco, John Goodman and Holly Hunter in supporting roles.
It follows three escaped convicts searching for hidden treasure while a sheriff relentlessly pursues them. Its story is a modern satire which, while incorporating social features of the American South, is loosely based on Homer's epic Greek poem the Odyssey. Some examples of this include Sirens, a Cyclops, and the main character's name, "Ulysses", which is the Roman name for "Odysseus". The title of the film is a reference to the 1941 Preston Sturges film Sullivan's Travels, in which the protagonist is a director who wants to film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a fictitious book about the Great Depression.
Much of the music used in the film is period folk music. The movie was one of the first to extensively use digital color correction to give the film an autumnal sepia-tinted look. It was released by Buena Vista Pictures in North America, while Universal Pictures, through United International Pictures, released it in other countries. The film was met with a positive critical reception; the Coens were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and Deakins for Best Cinematography, while the soundtrack won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002. The country and folk musicians who were dubbed into the film include John Hartford, Alison Krauss, Dan Tyminski, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Ralph Stanley, Chris Sharp, and Patty Loveless. They joined to perform the music from the film on the Down from the Mountain concert tour. One of the performances was filmed and released as a documentary.
Plot
In the summer of 1937, three convicts – Pete, Delmar, and Everett – escape from a Mississippi chain gang to retrieve a buried treasure hidden by Everett before the area is flooded to make a lake. The three are assisted by a blind man driving a handcar on a railroad, who prophetically tells them they will find a different fortune than the one they seek. The trio then travels to Pete's cousin, Wash, who breaks off their shackles, feeds them, and allows them to sleep in his barn. While they are sleeping, Wash reports them to Sheriff Cooley, who torches the barn with his men. Wash's son helps the trio escape. Pete and Delmar get baptized in a river the next day, but Everett refuses to join them.
The group then picks up Tommy Johnson, a young black man who claims that he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the ability to play the guitar. In need of money, the four stop at a radio station, where they record a rendition of "Man of Constant Sorrow" as the "Soggy Bottom Boys". That night, the trio parts ways with Tommy after their car is discovered by the police. They then briefly fall in with outlaw George "Baby Face" Nelson, who has been robbing banks and killing cows, but after becoming depressed, George gives the trio his cash and walks off. Unbeknownst to the trio, their radio recording becomes a major hit.
Near a river, the group hears singing and finds three women washing clothes. The women give them corn whiskey and they lose consciousness. Upon waking, Delmar finds Pete's clothes lying next to him, empty except for a toad. Delmar is convinced the women were sirens who transformed Pete into a frog, and so takes the frog with them. Later, one-eyed Bible salesman Big Dan invites them for a picnic lunch, then mugs the men and kills the toad.
On their way to Everett's hometown, Everett and Delmar glimpse Pete working on a chain gang. They arrive in town in the midst of a campaign rally for Homer Stokes, the challenger in the upcoming gubernatorial election. Everett confronts his wife Penny, who told their daughters that he was hit by a train. He gets into a fight with Vernon, her new suitor and Stokes' campaign manager. While recovering at a movie theater, Everett and Delmar encounter a group of prisoners including Pete, who warns them that an ambush has been set up at the treasure site.
That night, they sneak into Pete's holding cell and free him. Pete confesses that he gave up the treasure's location to the police under torture, but Everett then confesses that he made up the treasure to convince the men he was chained with to escape with him, so that he could stop his wife from getting remarried. Pete, enraged, fights with Everett until the trio stumble into a Ku Klux Klan rally, presided over by Homer Stokes as its Grand Wizard, and find that the Klan has captured Tommy to lynch him. The trio disguise themselves as Klansmen and attempt to rescue Tommy, but they are unmasked by Big Dan. Chaos ensues as the trio rush Tommy away and cut the supports of a large burning cross, which falls on Big Dan.
Everett persuades Pete, Delmar, and Tommy to help him win his wife back. Disguised as hillbilly musicians, they sneak into a Stokes campaign gala dinner that she is attending and perform "Man of Constant Sorrow", unaware that the Soggy Bottom Boys are famous. The crowd is electrified, but Stokes recognizes them from the KKK rally and interrupts the performance. When he demands the group be arrested and reveals his white supremacist views, the crowd runs him out of town on a rail. Pappy O'Daniel, the incumbent governor, seizes the opportunity to endorse the Soggy Bottom Boys, grant them full pardons, and hire them as his "brain trust". Penny agrees to remarry Everett as long as he finds her original ring. The group then encounters an exuberant George Nelson as he is paraded through town by a mob on his way to be executed.
The next morning, the group arrives at Everett's cabin in the valley, which Everett had previously claimed was the location of the treasure. They are ambushed by Sheriff Cooley and his deputies, who have been lying in wait. Dismissing their claims that they had received pardons, Cooley orders their hanging. As Everett prays to God, the valley is flooded, killing the officers and saving the group, who survive by floating on top of their own coffins. Tommy finds a ring in the flotsam and they return to town, but when Everett presents the ring to Penny, she claims it is not hers and firmly insists that she will not marry Everett without the original ring. As Everett belligerently pursues her, the blind handcar driver passes by on the railroad tracks.
Cast George Clooney as Ulysses Everett McGill. He corresponds to Odysseus (Ulysses) in the Odyssey. His singing voice is dubbed by Dan Tyminski. John Turturro as Pete. Along with Delmar, Pete represents Odysseus's soldiers who travel with him from Troy to Ithaca, seeking to return home. His singing is dubbed by Harley Allen and his yodeling by Pat Enright. Tim Blake Nelson as Delmar O'Donnell. Nelson does his own singing on "In the Jailhouse Now", but otherwise his singing is dubbed by Pat Enright. Chris Thomas King as Tommy Johnson, a skilled blues musician. He shares his name and story with Tommy Johnson, a blues musician who is said to have sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads (also attributed to Robert Johnson). John Goodman as Daniel "Big Dan" Teague, a one-eyed mugger and Ku Klux Klan member who masquerades as a Bible salesman. He corresponds to the cyclops Polyphemus in the Odyssey. Holly Hunter as Penny Wharvey-McGill, Everett's ex-wife. She corresponds to Penelope in the Odyssey. Charles Durning as Menelaus "Pappy" O'Daniel, the grumpy governor of Mississippi. The character is based on Texas governor W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel. He shares a name with Menelaus, an Odyssey character, but corresponds with Zeus from the narrative. Daniel von Bargen as Sheriff Cooley, a ruthless rural sheriff who pursues the trio for the duration of the film. He corresponds to both Poseidon in the Odyssey and also possibly the devil. He has been compared to Boss Godfrey in Cool Hand Luke. Wayne Duvall as Homer Stokes, a candidate for governor and the leader of a Ku Klux Klan chapter. His singing is dubbed by Ralph Stanley. Ray McKinnon as Vernon T. Waldrip. He corresponds to the suitors of Penelope in the Odyssey. Frank Collison as Washington Bartholomew "Wash" Hogwallop, Pete's cousin. Michael Badalucco as George Nelson, an American bank robber popularly known as "Baby Face". Stephen Root as Mr. Lund, a blind radio station manager. He corresponds to Homer. Lee Weaver as the Blind Seer, who accurately predicts the outcome of the trio's adventure. He corresponds to Tiresias in the Odyssey. His singing voice is dubbed by Robert Hamlett. Mia Tate, Musetta Vander, and Christy Taylor as the three sirens. Their singing voices are dubbed by Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, and Gillian Welch.
Gillian Welch and Dan Tyminski also appear as a record store customer and a mandolinist, respectively. Del Pentecost, JR Horne, and Brian Reddy appear as members of Pappy O'Daniel's staff. Ed Gale appears as Homer Stokes's ceremonial "little man". John McConnell cameos as the Woolworth's manager. Royce D. Applegate cameos as a member of Sheriff Cooley's posse. Three members of the Fairfield Four (Isaac Freeman, Wilson Waters Jr, and Robert Hamlett) cameo as gravediggers. The Cox Family and The Whites appear as fictionalized versions of themselves.
Production The idea of O Brother, Where Art Thou? arose spontaneously. Work on the script began in December 1997, long before the start of production, and it was at least half-written by May 1998. Despite the fact that Ethan Coen described the Odyssey as "one of my favorite storyline schemes", neither of the brothers had read the epic, and they were only familiar with its content through adaptations and numerous references to the Odyssey in popular culture. According to the brothers, Tim Blake Nelson (who has a degree in classics from Brown University) was the only person on the set who had read the Odyssey.
The title of the film is a reference to the 1941 Preston Sturges film Sullivan's Travels, in which the protagonist (a director) wants to direct a film about the Great Depression called O Brother, Where Art Thou? that will be a "commentary on modern conditions, stark realism, and the problems that confront the average man". Lacking any experience in this area, the director sets out on a journey to experience the human suffering of the average man but is sabotaged by his anxious studio. The film has some similarity in tone to Sturges's film, including scenes with prison gangs and a black church choir. The prisoners at the picture show scene is also a direct homage to a nearly identical scene in Sturges's film.
Joel Coen revealed in a 2000 interview that he traveled to Phoenix to offer the lead role to Clooney. Clooney agreed to do the role immediately, without reading the script. He stated that he liked even the Coens' least successful films. Clooney did not immediately understand his character and sent the script to his uncle Jack, who lived in Kentucky, asking him to read the entire script into a tape recorder. Unknown to Clooney, in his recording, Jack, a devout Baptist, omitted all instances of the words "damn" and "hell" from the Coens' script, which only became known to Clooney after the directors pointed this out to him during shooting.
This was the fourth film of the brothers in which John Turturro has starred. Other actors in O Brother, Where Art Thou? who had worked previously with the Coens include John Goodman (three films), Holly Hunter (two), Charles Durning (two) and Michael Badalucco (one).