O\' Brother

O Brother , of complete title O Brother, Where Art Thou? French (: O Brother, where are you?) is a Road movie and an American comedy of Joel Coen and Ethan Coen left in 2000.

Synopsis

Three prisoners escape from prison to go in search of a treasure… This film is a revisitation of the Odyssée of Homère. One finds there certain characters (Ulysses, distant from his wife and who seeks to join her hearth; the Cyclops, evoked by the one-eyed salesman of bibles; Poséidon, evoked by the Cooley sheriff; Circé, the son of Wash, the cousin of Pete, evoked by the pig; Pénélope the woman of Ulysses; Tirésias, old black, the soothsayer, and Ménélas, the politician) and certain situations, as the meeting with the sirens.

Around film

  • the character of Tommy Johnson really existed. So in film the main characters meet Tommy Johnson with a crossroads it is not a chance. Tommy Johnson was the first bluesman to be spoken about the “Pact with the Devil”. He told that he had met the devil with a crossroads. This one learned how to him to play the blues in exchange of its heart. This legend will be taken again later by Robert Johnson.

  • the piece which Tommy Johnson with the corner of fire plays is Hard Time Killing Floor Blues of Skip James, another emblematic figure of the blues of the year 20-30.

Comments

Inspired by the Odyssey of Homère, the film has as an ambition to amuse the spectator. Often very near to the musical comedy (scene of the sirens, the Baptists or the ceremony of KKK), O' Brother is reduced of any blackness and sarcastic remark, which however made the success of the Coen brothers. This one was transformed into simple irony, pushing blow the side joke much further. Coen are not afraid of the caricature. On the contrary, they always add a layer of it.

The three escaped prisoners are quasi remained: “Ulysses” Everett first of all, the playboy beautiful-speaker of the group which, dreaming philosopher, does not cease reasoning in the vacuum, unceasingly animated of an optimism to any test and obsessed by its hair, its first concern with each alarm clock and by the gomina of which it cannot occur. This obsession destroys the side pseudo-intellectual of the character.

Pete is a kind of rough abêtie, with the primary reactions and the diction of idiot in total contrast with that, looked after, of Everett and which dreams to open a restaurant and to be a Master of hotel out of smoking there. Delmar, kind of naive simpleton, supplements the trio.

In the same way, delectable appearance of the George gangster “Baby Face” Nelson always in anger or the two political opponents, candidates at the post of governor: one, old style, representative of great interests and surrounded by incompetents, the other being presented in the form of a friend of the “people of modest means”, conducting a modern campaign but secret chief of the Ku Klux Klan.

The references to the Odyssey are of course numerous, even if one is far from a real adaptation of the work of Homère. The principal ones are found in the characters of “Ulysses” Everett and his wife… Penny (Pénélope), of the one-eyed giant Big daN Teague - in other words the Cyclops -, salesman of Bibles, robber and member of the K.K.K., or of the three “sirens”.

Besides the film uses processes suitable for the Greek tragedy as well in the topics as in the form: prophecy, chorus clarifying the ellipses…

A film of the Coen brothers involves is always looked after by the image, the colors being particularly worked. In the same way here where the film appears curiously faded. In fact the colors are désaturées selectively, by suppression of colors and numerical recolorisation. But with this usual pictorial dimension for them, they add of them here a news, musical, and this as of the opening of film: whereas the screen is still black, one hears a bottom of blues, mixed with his characteristic with masses breaking with the stones. It is known where one is: major South. The image appears, us revealing indeed convicts, all blacks, singing and achieving their hard task.

The music, Gospel and Hillbilly being added to the blues and the country, any more will not cease, cementing truly film, giving him all its unit beyond the disparate scenes. The point of organ is perhaps the recording of a disc by the three accomplices, accompanied by Tommy, a black guitarist who “sold his heart with the devil”. Baptized “The Soggy Bottom Servant boys”, that is to say in French “the soaked Bottoms”.

Data sheet

Distribution

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