Lotus Eaters Are the Congregation in O Brother Wehre Art Thou
O Brother, Where Art Thou, (2000) written and directed past the Coen Brothers, is, at its heart, a piece of work of comparative mythology. The film overtly claims inspiration from Homer'southward Odyssey, opening with a championship bill of fare with the epic verse form's invocation of the muse. The plot and characters are all loosely drawn from the aboriginal Greek ballsy, but past setting the retelling in Mississippi during the Great Depression, the film places the mythology of the original text against the backdrop of a Christian mythos and Southern US folk traditions. The resultant braid is an exquisitely woven journey, primary a fiercely comical one, merely at times but as spellbinding, powerful, and frightening.
The film stars George Clooney as the sly, fast talking, Ulysses Everett McGill, an escaped convict, get-go seen chained together with his less intelligent "crew," Pete Hogwallop (John Turturro) and Delmar O'Donnell (Tim Blake Nelson), equally they make their manner across the state in pursuit of a treasure. Like their mythological antecedents, they run into many trials and tribulations on their way.
The trio'due south prophet comes in the class of an old, blind black homo pushing a handcar. He is their Cassandra and their Tiresias, and foretells risk, misfortune, and ultimate triumph in an unexpected form, every bit well equally giving the escapees a specific image of a moo-cow perched on a cotton barn. Though he is drawn from the blind prophet present in Greek tradition, he takes on qualities of Christian fable, the unnamed traveler, the poor human being's prophet, and his linguistic communication is biblical in wording with mentions of trials of the heart and conservancy. His race is drawn from a standing (and unfortunately nonetheless present) clan of wise sometime men of color with the mystic in the American folk tradition, especially in Southern narratives.
The prophet is an archetypical effigy that serves as an obvious bridging betoken between 3 traditions, but the mastery of the film is in cartoon on complimentary, rather than congruous elements. While hiding in the woods, the men come up across a congregation dressed in white robes, heading to the nearby lake to be baptized. The choral musical number, 'Down to the River to Pray' was arranged past modern Country Folk singer Alison Krauss, who leads the rendition for the film. It is deeply religiously Christian, and is sung in gospel choirs.
The effect the functioning and the scene has on the audience and on the characters in the film is hypnotic in it'southward beauty, and the trio find themselves at the h2o'southward edge. While crafty and rationalminded, Everett brushes off the idea of born-over again salvation as agony in hard times, Delmar, and afterward him Pete race down to the priest to be baptized. From a Christian standpoint, this is a positive scene, simply in the narrative retelling of the Odyssey, this congregation stands in for the Lotus Eaters, a grouping of Islanders who takes in travelers and feeds them a drugged lotus leaf that makes them forget all their troubles, and thus their quest. By placing the Southern Evangelist rebirth scene in this low-cal, the picture forces a comparison of values, but also a rereading of both cultural "texts."
The movie later parallels this scene with iii every bit hypnotic singing women, also dressed in white who are referred to explicitly as the sirens. Mythological bird-women whose vocalism was meant to lure sailors to death, in the motion picture they take on their mail-Christian appearance: beautiful in trunk equally much as in vocalization. After the come across ends badly for one of the travelers, along with "siren" they are referred to every bit "the Whore of Babylon."
In the original Odyssey, Odysseus is pursued throughout his journeying by the ocean god Poseidon who he enrages through his actions. Poseidon himself does not take a strong moral connotation. The mythology is such that a hero tin can exist the enemy of nigh whatsoever Olympian and in favor with some other. With Ulysses Everett McGill and his crew being escaped convicts, his natural pursuant was a man of the police. Sheriff Cooley, thus, fills this role in the recasting of the epic. But the office of a law man in the story of a jail break has many dissimilar cultural implications. Daniel von Bargen's appearance and performance in the office were inspired by Dominate Godfrey in Absurd Hand Luke, but the fright and awe that surround him is an older cultural idea.
Here, the Christian and Southern Mythology combine to add an boosted layer to his character. Early on in the picture show, the trio stumble on Tommy Johnson (Chris Thomas Male monarch) named and based on the real man who also legendarily sold his soul at a crossroads in rural Mississippi for his skill on the guitar. When asked what the devil looks like, Everett describes the traditional "red and scaly with a bifurcated tail, and he carries a hay fork," and Tommy corrects him, describing Sheriff Cooley perfectly saying "He'due south white, every bit white as you folks, with empty eyes and a big hollow voice. He loves to travel around with a mean one-time hound." Every time the sheriff appears, even at night, he is wearing mirror sunglasses, and most of the fourth dimension, their reflection contains a burn down. Thus he becomes three characters in 1 - the police force human, Poseidon, and the Devil. This triplicated role also comes into play in the presentation of the underworld. Odysseus pays a visit to the Greek underworld, which, above all, is depicted by its inhabitants equally dark and boring, merely with the Hellish Christian overlay, it becomes peppery, with moments of torture, and haunting forewarnings.
The allusions run throughout the moving-picture show, many of which are only half-serious nods to one mythology or another. When betrayed past a family member, Pete calls him "Judas Iscariot Hogswollop. The biblical flood is both referred to and, in a way enacted. Forth with Tommy Johnson, the crew runs into George "Infant-Face" Nelson, and gets a front end row seat to low era political corruption. There are dozens of quick references to the Odyssey and to Homer, including a Cyclops, a bullheaded bard, and the naming of Ulysses Everett's wife Penny, curt of Penelope. Merely it's the moments when the different cultural origins of the movie run together that makes this lighthearted tribute also a work of comparative mythic analysis.
When I decided to write most O Brother, Where Art Thou, I knew I would have to choose what nigh the moving picture I was going to dedicate a post to. In talking about the utilise of myth and culture in the moving picture, I am leaving out discussion of a soundtrack that won incredible amounts of recognition and awards, used found tracks from archives, pulled several artists out of retirement, and awarded a Grammy to a man who had led a chain gang in a song in 1959. I am overlooking the then novel technique of digital colour correction that was used to give the film a sepia tint, and what good and horrible things Hollywood has since done with the technique pioneered in this motion-picture show. Hopefully, in time, someone volition have a chance to revisit this film. It is, after all, a modernistic epic.
Source: https://hopkinscinemaddicts.typepad.com/hopkinscinemaddicts/2013/01/o-brother-where-art-thou-film-as-comparative-mythology.html
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