Wednesday, October 2, 2019
O Brother, Where Art Thou? - From Greek Classic to American Original E
O Brother, Where Art Thou? - From Greek Classic to American Original In the winter of 2001, American audiences initially paid little attention to Joel and Ethan Coen's Depression era, jail-break, musical "buddy" comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou? The film's reputation lingered, however, and over the next seven months O Brother eventually grossed a significant $45.5 million (imdb.com). Loosely adapted from Homerââ¬â¢s The Odyssey, the film focuses on Ulysses Everett McGillââ¬â¢s (George Clooneyââ¬â¢s) journey from the jailhouse back to both his home in Ithaca, Mississippi, and to his wife Penny (Holly Hunter). Along with his two sidekicks, Delmar and Pete (Tim Blake Nelson and John Turturro), Ulysses encounters not only characters from the classic myth including the Sirens and the Cyclops, but also slices of American folk legend. Episodic in its narrative structure, the film unfolds like Homerââ¬â¢s saga with very few, if any, segues between the vignettes. The film deserves an admiring second look for the Coen brothers employ their old-ti me country music soundtrack in a manner analogous to Homerââ¬â¢s lyre, reconstruct gender roles and heroism for the American twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and create a moving tribute to the American South during the Great Depression. The title of the film derives from Preston Sturgesââ¬â¢s 1941 American film comedy Sullivanââ¬â¢s Travels, in which a movie-director character attempts to prove himself a ââ¬Å"seriousâ⬠artist by deserting comedy and making a dramatic film entitled O Brother, Where Art Thou? The Coen brothers perhaps created their O Brother as a realized vision of their directorial counterpart in Sullivanââ¬â¢s Travels. Simultaneously they reinforce the idea that comedy certainly can be art, and thus... ...ary.com/americana/babyface/6.htm>. Jones, Peter V. Introduction. The Odyssey. By Homer. Trans. E. V. Rieu. London: Penguin, 1991. xi-l. Lomax, Alan. The Folk Songs of North America. Garden City: Doubleday, 1960. O Brother, Where Art Thou? Dir. Joel Coen. Screenplay by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen. Perf. George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, Holly Hunter, John Goodman. Touchstone, 2000. O Brother, Where Art Thou?ââ¬âThe Official Web Site. 2000. Buena Vista Online Entertainment. 30 Oct. 2001 . ââ¬Å"O Brother, Where Art Thou?â⬠The Internet Movie Database. 15 Jan. 2002. . Oermann, Robert K. ââ¬Å"ââ¬ËOld-Time Music Is Very Much Aliveââ¬â¢ But you wonââ¬â¢t hear it on ââ¬Ëcountryââ¬â¢ radio.â⬠O Brother, Where Art Thou?: Music From a Film by Joel & Ethan Coen. CD. Universal Music, 2000. Ã
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