“O Brother, Where Art Thou?”: Coen brothers’ Southern fable brightens a Northern California night
By Cynthia W. Gentry, © 2001 by Cynthia W. Gentry, published on Dailygossip.com, January 2001.
First off, let me just say that I may not be the best person to review a George Clooney movie. The man could read the phone book onscreen for two hours, and I’d still leave the theater grinning like a simpleton. (It occurs to me that I may have made the same claim about Ralph Fiennes or Liam Neeson, but this is my review, so we’ll just need to process our issues, won’t we.)
However, I believe I offset my impartiality regarding all things Clooney with my loathing of all things Coen. I don’t have a problem with Joel and Ethan personally, mind you. I’m sure they’re very nice young men, but I’m not a fan of their movies. People assure me that “Raising Arizona” was the funniest movie ever made; my funny bone remained resolutely untickled. I detested “Barton Fink” with every fiber of my being, and while I appreciated “Fargo,” watching it was not an experience I want to repeat. I’d seen mixed reviews of “O Brother,” and even heard that some friends left the theater after 20 minutes.
So imagine my surprise when I found myself guffawing with laughter throughout “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” Now, it could have been that there were mitigating circumstances. Despite the ministrations of my wonderful beau, the dynamic and doting DaveH, my New Year hadn’t gotten off to a great start. Not only did I usher it in with the Bay Area’s omnipresent cold, but I received proof positive that the phrase “What goes around, comes around” is full of you-know-what. (A week later, the universe made it up to me, sort of: I exchanged a fetching velvet tank to Nordstrom.com for a different size, and the retailer sent me not only a new top but a free silk skirt. Things are looking up, and yes, I do plan to alert them to their error, because I’m hanging onto my belief in karma tighter than NBC’s conviction that “Survivor II” will be a hit.)
I was ready for a laugh, in other words, and after splitting an ever-so-tasty bottle of Varner Chardonnay with the winsome and effervescent DawnI, I was primed for some fun. And fun is what “O Brother” delivers. As most of you know by now, “O Brother” purports to be based Homer’s The Odyssey, a book the Coens recently admitted they’d never read. No matter. The Coens’ give us a vain Ulysses, a bible-selling Cyclops (Coen stalwart John Goodman), some sirens and an impatient Penelope (Holly Hunter). They also give us a joyride through the iconography of the Depression-era South, complete with semi-corrupt politicians (such as the talented Charles Durning playing Pappy O’Daniel, who was actually governor of Texas, not Mississippi, from 1938-42) who can also dance a fine jig, and scruffy urchins who drive getaway cars.
Our Ulysses in this story is Clooney’s Ulysses Everett McGill, the pomade-addicted, hairnet-wearing leader of the sorriest band of escaped convicts you ever saw–Pete (John Turturro) and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson)—who’ve busted off a chain gang in search of a treasure hidden in Ulysses’ family homestead. The fast-talking Ulysses, who seems to have spent his time in prison (where he was sent for, not surprisingly, practicing law without a license) reading Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, imagines himself as the brains of this outfit, but that’s not saying much.
Clooney may not be Lawrence Olivier, but I don’t think he much cares. While marketed for his matinee-idol good looks, in this movie Clooney shows himself to be one of our best comedic actors. The secret of being a great comedian is being able and willing to make a fool out of yourself, which seems far beyond the reach and vanity of most of today’s pretty-boy actors. Clooney not only has incredible good looks but an incredible sense of fun. This, no doubt, is probably what makes him so sexy. (Guys, take note.) And he seems to having a blast here. After the heroics of “Three Kings” and the waterlogged misery of “The Perfect Storm,” no wonder Clooney accepted this part without reading the script. Thank God he took the risk.
Mixing the grotesque with the gorgeous, “O Brother” cast a wide net over American culture, referencing everything from gangster legends to prison movies to the legend of blues legend Robert Johnson’s death. Imagine a 1940s screwball comedy transplanted to our times and leavened with a dose of millennial cynicism, and you’ll get the idea. The Coens’ play fast and loose with the truth (George “Babyface” Nelson, who makes a memorable appearance as a manic-depressive, was killed in Illinois, not Mississippi, in 1934, three years before the movie is set), but it’s all in the name of fun. Oliver Stone this ain’t, heavens be praised.
Even the movie’s title reveals layers of meaning: in Preston Sturges’ 1942 film “Sullivan’s Travels,” a pampered Hollywood director (Joel McCrea) who is tired of making fluff sets out to make a “serious” film called “O Brother Where Art Thou?” and decides to research it by experiencing “the real world” as a hobo. Just as Sturges’ plays with his characters preconceived notions about reality, so do the Coen brothers riff on our stereotypes of the South—so much so that at times, you might actually wish for subtitles.
“O Brother” is surprisingly good-spirited for a Coen movie, poking fun at its characters with gentle good humor as well as biting satire where it’s deserved. Some viewers might have a knee-jerk reaction to a scene that portrays a Klu Klux Klan movie as a demented Busby Berkeley musical, but why not expose these racists as the silly idiots they are? Besides, unlike real life, the bad guys do get their due. You can’t help but like a movie where a hypocritical scoundrel actually does get run out of town on a rail. (Oh, a girl can dream.)
Filmed in sepia tones by the Coen’s frequent collaborator, Roger Deakins, who was also responsible for “The Shawshank Redemption,” “Dead Man Walking” and “The Hurricane,” “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” is a strangely beautiful movie. Deakins evokes the South so effectively that you can actually feel the heat coming off the screen in some scenes (and I don’t just mean the one that featured Mr. Clooney in a pristine white shirt, during which DawnI forced me to take deep breath from an empty popcorn tub). The soundtrack, featuring the work of T. Bone Burnett and many others, almost acts as a character in its own right.
Yes, I know this film might not be to everyone’s tastes. Who knows, maybe I’ll hate it on a second viewing and be forced to run a retraction. But every once in a while, the stars align, and you see a particular film when you most need to. I’ll always be grateful to the Coen brothers (not to mention DawnI, Varner Vineyards and George Clooney’s bone structure) for salvaging my spirit on a night when I was beginning to lose my faith in humanity. Granted, the Ashcroft confirmation hearings aren’t over, but I feel a heck of a lot more hopeful.