O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Many times when watching a good (or great) movie, there comes a point where the viewer thinks, âMan I really wouldnât mind watching this again!â. Thus is the case with this 2000 release from the esteemed Coen Brothers, a much more entertaining and better paced entry than their Oscar winning No Country For Old Men and based (loosely) on Homerâs The Odyssey, written almost 3000 years ago but updated to take place in the depression-era deep South in the 1930s. Certainly the Coens have long past proven that they can make a movie involving âredneckâ culture and turn it into something fantastic, and here is a perfect example. The plot involves three escaped convicts (led by George Clooney) who travel across the state of Mississippi in search of a buried treasure which Clooney tells them he obtained from an armored truck heist, and the beauty of the film comes from the fact that their journey turns into just as much of a spiritual one as it is physical. Indeed, beauty is the key word of the day thanks to the cinematography of Roger Deakins, using sepia tone combined with a state of the art digital process to give the proceedings a rich filmic quality, making things appear to be authentic and sucking the viewer into the story. Clooney for his part delivers an energetic cut loose performance as Ulysses Everett McGill, always coming up with a clever story or explanation for every event in the narrative, and showing plenty of that charisma that heâs become so well known for, and heâs ably supported by John Turturro as Pete and especially the little-known Tim Blake Nelson as Delmar, bringing the ignorant country boy stereotype to the brink and beyond, as soon we do come to think of them as three-dimensional human beings instead of merely clichĂ©s. The rich dialogue of the Coensâ script brings home the southern homilies and pontificating to the forefront, for even if several of the characters may be ignorant, they sure are a lot of fun to watch. Also in the cast are John Goodman as a shady one-eyed salesman (representing the Cyclops); Holly Hunter as Clooneyâs ex-wife and mother to a large brood of daughters; Charles Durning as the blowhard Governor seeking reelection; and Daniel Von Bargen as a cold-blooded sheriff who may or may not be the Devil. At times the viewer is jostled into gentle laughter with the down home attitude of the enterprise (like the so-called âreformâ candidate for Governor claiming to be the best friend of the âlittle manâ, complete with midget sidekick for emphasis), and even genuinely transfixed, as in the hypnotic sequence featuring the three sirens our heroes encounter which lingers in our mind throughout the rest of the film. Perhaps the only true flaw here is the filmmakers overextending their reach at times and trying to make the story seem more than what it is, in particular with the handling of the Turturro character in what would appear to be a poetic exit for him from the film only to jam him back into the story ten minutes later. However, the film does feature an amicable, enjoyable soundtrack (that was a smash hit upon release) amazingly consisting mostly of traditional standards from the era that the story takes place. Hilarious at times and heartwarming at others, in the end this is proof that the Coens are the top guys to look to for original, unique cinematic visionsâŠ
9/10