Screwball Madness

It is a logical extension of the Coen brothers universe that O Brother, Where Art Thou? shares its title with a mythical (and, by the sound of it, fatuous) project proposed by the film director in Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels. And never makes the slightest mention of this. And takes its plot from The Odyssey, "by Homer." And sets The Odyssey in Depression-era Mississippi.

There are people who will approach this latest Coen excursion with dread (oh dear, is this another Hudsucker Proxy in the works?), yet O Brother, Where Art Thou? turns out to be very much the kind of movie Preston Sturges might have made. This weird and hilarious film clops along, indulging in vintage Coenisms yet remaining bizarrely true to The Odyssey, in its own way. It's about three escaped convicts: the loquacious Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney), dim-witted Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson), and Pete (John Turturro), who seems a bit touched in the head. They slip a chain gang and light out for a stash of buried treasure.

This gives the Coens the chance for an episodic trek across the mythical south, with hints of Robert Johnson, Huey Long, and the Grand Ole Opry floating through the story. The runaways watch a horde of white-clad Baptists wander through the trees on their way to baptismal waters. They encounter three sirens, who lull them into a magical sleep (and possibly turn Pete into a frog). They stumble across a Ku Klux Klan rally that suspiciously resembles the finale of Gunga Din.

There is incredible music through all of this, some of it folk songs culled by Alan Lomax in his journeys to the old south. Music also figures in the escapees' story, as they must pass themselves off as "The Soggy Bottom Boys" in order to continue their flight. There's also the music of the Coens' dialogue, which rolls off various tongues in ways that haven't been heard much since Preston Sturges blew himself out. Clooney does nicely with the lion's share of the grandiloquence, although the beauty of the language is such that an anonymous character -- a flunkie of governor Pappy O'Daniel (Charles Durning), whose re-election efforts figure in the action -- can suddenly make you laugh out loud with a reference to the opposing candidate's campaign tactics: "The midget and the broom and all." (You'll have to see the movie to get it.)

O Brother has room for a lot, and we haven't even mentioned the peppery supporting roles for Holly Hunter, John Goodman, and Michael Badalucco (as a famous gangster with a particular hatred of livestock). Roger Deakins' cinematography has a strange glowing look, as though a vaguely radioactive substance had been painted across the crops that line the dirt roads. What does all this virtuosity add up to? That is often the question with the Coens' enterprises, and O Brother has divided critics since its bow at Cannes 2000. All I can say is this particular excursion into screwball madness is often heavenly, and frankly leaves critical explication somewhat unnecessary. Go see it and laugh.