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 Homer’s The Odyssey, the film focuses on Ulysses Everett McGill’s (George Clooney’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 Homer’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-time country music soundtrack in a manner analogous to Homer’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 Sturges’s 1941 American film comedy Sullivan’s Travels, in which a movie-director character attempts to prove himself a “serious” 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 Sullivan’s Travels.  Simultaneously they reinforce the idea that comedy certainly can be art, and thus O Brother acts as the most recent addition to their repertoire, as they have repeatedly taken the art of comedy to new levels.  One example of Joel and Ethan Coen’s collective comedic sensibility is the way in which they duped Fargo audiences by asserting the film was based on true events when it was not.  Their joke on the audience in O Brother is that they claim never to have read The Odyssey.  Regardless of whether they have actually read the epic poem or simply the Cliff’s Notes version, by combining their working knowledge of the tale with a strong musical accompaniment, they have managed to stay truer to the original’s form than they might have had they attempted to slavishly mimic Homer’s epic style and story.

According to Dudley Andrew’s definitions of adaptations, O Brother is a “borrowing,” meaning “the artist employs, more or less extensively, the material, idea, or form of an earlier, generally successful, text” (30).  In a borrowing, Andrew explains, “the main concern is the generality of the original … its existence as a continuing form or archetype in culture” (30).  By ignoring vast sections of the original text, yet incorporating some of the most memorable characters and incidents, the Coen brothers achieve this effect, especially with the addition of the powerful soundtrack.  Additionally, in the grand tradition of canonical literary works one is supposed to have read in college, people often obtain a hazy knowledge of the classics through oral accounts from person to person.  I imagine this use of the oral tradition would not entirely displease Homer.

Peter V. Jones, in his introduction to The Odyssey, explains that oral poetry in Homer’s day was “chanted to a lyre, which helped sustain the rhythm and metre” (xxx).  Oral poetry also contained repetitive words or phrases, if not scenes, “which [could] be adapted to whatever context the poet desire[d]” (xxx).  The Coen brothers comply with this second facet of oral poetry by using recurring themes, utterances, and characters, including the on-going search for Ulysses’s favored Dapper Dan brand of hair pomade, the repeated use of the word “bona fide,” and the return of the blind prophet at the conclusion of the film, just to name a few.  More striking, however, is the film’s extensive use of music in a manner analogous to Homer’s lyre.  Setting a tone akin to The Odyssey’s, before any dialogue or characters are introduced, the filmmakers display the introductory lines from the original tale while chain-gang workers sing “Po Lazarus” to the rhythmic accompaniment of their pickaxes and sledgehammers as they smash rocks.  Following this segment, the opening credits roll featuring snippets of action involving the three main characters, although the song “Big Rock Candy Mountain” by Harry “Mac” McClintock tends to dominate the audience’s attention.

The use of “Po Lazarus,” which “is always sung as a work song, by a gang of men swinging picks, axes, or hammers and joining their leader after he gives the first phrase” lays the perfect groundwork for the reinvention of an original work of art (Lomax 556).  Alan Lomax, in his book The Folk Songs of North America, states, “As with most Negro ballads, every performance produces a fresh version, the stanzas occurring in the same order only by chance.  This is ballad in its primal stage, communally recreated with each performance” (556).  Thus the use of “Po Lazarus” as an introduction creates a link with epic poetry in general, The Odyssey in particular, and with American culture as well.

Incorporating the song “Big Rock Candy Mountain” (sometimes called “Big Rock Candy Mountains”) as a follow-up creates yet another link to epic poetry in that although McClintock “claims to be the author," the inspiration for the song may not have been entirely original, but rather passed down across cultures (410).  Lomax explains:  “In his letters to Charles V of Spain, Pizarro reported the discovery of a wonderful town in Peru called Juaja in which no one was permitted to labour, where men lived to be six hundred years old and finally died of laughter” (411). Tales about Juaja spread throughout Spanish America, including the Chilean Romance de Ciudad Deliciosa, which described a city with walls of cheese, beams of taffy, doorposts of caramel, and roofs shingled with honey-coated fritters (411).  Lomax also reports that a Mexican folk ballad describes churches made of sugar, while a Scandinavian tale recalls a land with rivers of beer, hens with eggs as large as houses, and skies that rain cakes (411, 77).  Opening the film through the filter of these particular songs clearly creates an atmosphere of intense storytelling through the use of borrowing across both cultures and art forms.

Throughout the film, music becomes a major character, if not the film’s narrator, sustaining the rhythm of the often unconnected pieces of the film.  In fact, Robert K. Oermann, in the soundtrack’s liner notes, says, “Before a single frame of film was shot, these musicians and others created a ‘canvas’ upon which the colorful saga would be painted.”  Joel Coen elaborates on the creative process by noting, “Music became a very prominent feature very early on in the [script]writing … It began to take over the script as we went on, until the film became almost a musical” (Oermann). This is not unlike an epic poem’s partnership with its accompanying lyre.

Jones points out that since much of the subject matter used in oral poetry has been handed down for hundreds of years, the end products “do not faithfully reflect the cultural and social conditions of any particular time, but rather an amalgam of such conditions” (xxxi).  Such is the case in O Brother, which could be compared to a photo album of snapshots taken in the rural South during the Depression.  These snapshots incorporate not only the aforementioned music, but also American folklore and pleasing images that may accomplish nothing more than evoking the photography of artists from the era, like Dorothea Lange or Walker Evans.  In fact, the official O Brother web site features black and white stills from the film displayed in a virtual photo album (studio.go.com).  With these re-creations, the filmmakers put forth beauty for beauty’s sake without feeling compelled to advance the narrative.

In respect to American musical folklore, several major figures and American archetypes emerge in the film; the first is Tommy Johnson (played by New Orleans musician Chris Thomas King), a boy-next-door version of legendary blues artist Robert Johnson.  Encountering Tommy at the crossroads, Ulysses and the gang offer him a ride and as he hops into the car, Tommy explains that he has just sold his soul to the devil in order to become a great musician.  As legend has it, Robert Johnson became a great blues artist in such a short amount of time that, when asked about his abilities, he claimed to have sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads.  The addition of Johnson offers a chance for further musical interludes between the story segments (like the lyre) while also acknowledging one of the great American musicians of the period.

Further blurring the lines between music, musicians, actors, and narrative, Chris Thomas King actually plays guitar and sings in the film, although he plays neither Robert Johnson’s nor his own tunes, but rather ones written by Nehemiah “Skip” James.  Ulysses (George Clooney), although the lead man for the Soggy Bottom Boys, does not actually sing, yet Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) does perform the vocals for “In the Jailhouse Now.”  Additionally, just to name a few more of the many musicians featured in the film, Gillian Welch, a contributor to the soundtrack, makes a cameo as a Soggy Bottom Boys fan, but does not sing on film, which the Fairfield Four perform “Lonesome Valley” on-screen as gravediggers.

The second major American figure to emerge in O Brother is bank robber George “Baby Face” Nelson, although the reasons for his inclusion remain unclear.  Factually, next to nothing in the Coens’ portrayal of Baby Face is accurate, aside from his dislike for his nickname.  Nelson robbed banks primarily in the Midwest (rather than the South), worked with several people, and died, not by public hanging, as the film might have one believe, but rather in a gunfight with the FBI in 1934 (“Baby Face Nelson”), three years before O Brother takes place.  Still, the character adds to the amalgamated portrait of America during the Depression.

All of this is not to say that the film fails completely to correspond to The Odyssey.  The Coen brothers made sure to include Teiresias, the blind prophet with whom Odysseus consults while in Hades, although in O Brother, the prophet is a blind railroad man with no name.  Both prophets admit that the hero’s respective journeys will be dangerous, however, their visions differ slightly when it comes to livestock.  While Teiresias warns Odysseus to leave the cattle that belong to the Sun-god on the isle of Thrinacie untouched, the blind prophet in O Brother simply says, “You shall see things wonderful to tell.  You shall see a cow on the roof of a cotton house.”

Some have also argued that Scylla and Charybdis make their way into O Brother as Ulysses, Delmar, and Pete attempt to escape from the police at Pete’s cousin’s farm.  While it is a bit more difficult to discern these monsters than some of the other characters from The Odyssey, the police officers and their weapons may represent the sex-headed monster Scylla, while the fire represents the water-sucking and spewing Charybdis.  Whether an intentional reference or not, Pete’s cousin’s son heroically saves the trio by navigating them through two fatal obstacles as he also prepares to r-u-n-n-o-f-t.

The most obvious Homeric characters portrayed in the film are the Sirens and the Cyclops.  Ulysses’ reaction to the Sirens proves particularly interesting as, unlike Odysseus, he is completely unaware that these creatures might be harmful—even as one of them drugs him with a "triple-X" substance.  Whereas Odysseus made his crew wear bees wax earplugs and instructed them to tie him to the ship's mast so that only he could listen, yet still escape unscathed, Ulysses eagerly follows Pete into the trap.  Nevertheless, Ulysses emerges unharmed although he loses one member of his crew for the time being. 

It has additionally been speculated that the Sirens sequence incorporates elements of the Circe myth.  Circe, who also lures men with her beautiful singing voice, offers Odysseus’s men an enchanted drink of honeyed-wine, which turns them into swine with human brains.  In O Brother, Delmar believes Pete has been turned into a toad by the Sirens, for Pete’s clothing remains at the river and is now inhabited by a small, green, croaking creature.  The audience eventually learns that the police found Pete while the other two men were passed out.  Regardless of whether the "Sirens scene" was borrowed solely from one book of The Odyssey or two, the result is the same:  an emasculated Ulysses remains asleep, failing to either tame the creatures, or to shed clothing with them, as did his friend Pete.

Further emasculated in the Cyclops scene, which directly follows the Sirens sequence, Ulysses this time falls prey to a monstrous, one-eyed, KKK-supporting Bible salesman who not only beats the daylights out of both him and Delmar, but also steals all of their money.  Knocked out in both scenarios, Ulysses by this point seems to be a much different sort of hero than his counterpart Odysseus, who never loses his virility in hard situations.

The American Ulysses fares better in the lotus-eater scene where he, unlike his companions, resists temptation.  The lotus-eaters, represented in the film by Christians partaking of a river baptism ceremony, lure the gang with song and promises of redemption rather than honeyed-fruit.  Delmar and Pete follow the Christians, yet do not abandon Ulysses, unlike the Homeric lotus-eaters who desire to linger after consuming the flowery lotus fruit.  This makes Ulysses’s resistance to temptation perhaps less traditionally heroic because the audience does not perceive Delmar and Pete as having been weakened by the experience, although it maintains Ulysses’s position of privileging reason over hocus-pocus.

Characterizing Ulysses as less mythically heroic physically and sexually arguably produces a more likable, certainly more human hero—a hero with whom a normal person can identify and can root for as an underdog.  With Homer’s Odysseus, as is the case with most “heroes” in classic mythology, doubt about whether or not he will win rarely exists.  Winning is guaranteed for heroes unless the story is designated a tragedy, in which case death becomes the guarantee.  Nevertheless, although emasculated, Ulysses, Delmar, and Pete are no less heroes in the film than is Odysseus in Homer’s epic because they not only save each others’ lives repeatedly, but the also display sounder morals than do the overfed and wealthy politicians in the film, one of whom is named Homer and involves himself with the KKK—no doubt another Coen joke.

Shortly after the Sirens and Cyclops sequences, the Coen brothers introduce the musical Wharvey gals and Penny, Ulysses’ wife and the counterpart to Penelope in Homer’s tale.  Penny rules in a matriarchal setting, unlike Penelope’s dwelling which has become infested with overzealous suitors ready to take Odysseus’s place.  Also, Penny is planning to remarry and does not appear distraught over her spouse’s absence.  Instead, she has told their children, all girls—the musical Wharvey gals—that a train hit their daddy.  Even after Ulysses wins Penny back, she immediately sends him away on another journey to find her old ring.  Although the Coen brothers mimic the ending of Homer’s tale by having Ulysses instantly leave again as did Odysseus, who visits his father directly after reconciling with Penelope, Penny this time instigates the departure, demanding her ring and sealing the marriage requirement by counting to three.  Homer’s Penelope, on the other hand, waited for Odysseus to return for two decades and possessed no desire to remarry although she feared her husband to be dead.  By contrasting the emasculated American Ulysses and strong-willed, independent Penny with Homer’s Odysseus and Penelope, the Coen brothers make a contemporary statement regarding ruling one’s kingdom and gender roles in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

In making their American adaptation, the filmmakers eliminated numerous characters from the original tale.  Although sorting through each and every one of them would prove not only tedious, but also pointless, noticeably absent is Calypso, with whom Odysseus spent seven years.  Since their sojourn together took up such a large part of the original twenty-year journey, her presence would likely be anticipated in any adaptation.  However, Jones suggests that Calypso was written into Homer’s tale simply as a means of filling time, thus allowing Telemachus, Odysseus’s son, years in which to become an adult (xxxii).  Compressing the two decades of travel time accrued by Homer’s Odysseus, and (perhaps) removing Telemachus altogether, erases the need for Calypso’s character.

More importantly, Ulysses’ fidelity to Penny remains intact partially as a result of Calypso’s elimination, as he is without prolonged temptation from any goddesses and he suffers from a blackout before anything sexual occurs with the Sirens.  In this manner, the American Ulysses arguably retains a higher level of heroism from a modern standpoint, although again differing from Odysseus, whose sexual prowess made him more mythic and untouchable.  This dichotomy once more challenges contemporary ideas of heroes, and how they (and masculinity) differ in America in the new millennium.

By merging a classic story with traditional Southern music and American folklore, the Coen brothers have created their own epic American hero myth following in the tradition of Homer’s classic tale, while also challenging accepted norms of movie-making and gendered representations of heroes.  With all of these ingredients combined into one movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou? becomes not only a meeting of the Three Stooges and Homer’s Odyssey, to paraphrase director Joel Coen, but indeed a love song for the culture of the American South, where underdogs and goofballs possess just as many, if not more, “heroic” qualities than any politician, tough guy, or king.  That the filmmakers took their idea one step further, supporting their American adaptation with a dynamic musical soundtrack, plants the notion that the lyre accompaniment to an epic tale perhaps has never sounded so wonderful.

 

Works Cited

Andrew, Dudley.  “Adaptation.”  Film Adaptation.  Ed. James Naremore.  New Brunswick:  Rutgers UP, 2000.  28-37.

“Baby Face Nelson:  Childlike Mug, Psychopathic Soul.”  The Crime Library.  2001

Courtroom Television Network.  20 Oct. 2001.  <www.crimelibrary.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?—The Official Web Site.  2000.  Buena Vista Online Entertainment.  30 Oct. 2001  <http://studio.go.com/movies/obrother/>.

“O Brother, Where Art Thou?”  The Internet Movie Database.  15 Jan. 2002. <www.imdb.com/Title?0190590>.

Oermann, Robert K.  “‘Old-Time Music Is Very Much Alive’ But you won’t hear it on ‘country’ radio.”  O Brother, Where Art Thou?:  Music From a Film by Joel & Ethan Coen.  CD.  Universal Music, 2000.