O Brother, Where Art Thou? Blu-ray delivers stunningly beautiful video and superb audio in this exceptional Blu-ray release
Homer's epic poem "The Odyssey", set in the deep south during the 1930's. In it, three escaped convicts search for hidden treasure while a relentless lawman pursues them.
When Joel and Ethan Coen accepted their Oscar for adapting Cormac McCarthy's No Country
for Old Men to the screen, Ethan noted that they'd succeeded by only adapting the best: Cormac
McCarthy and Homer. The latter referred to O Brother, Where Are Thou?, which prominently
features a credit to the legendary Greek poet and storyteller. It's noteworthy, then, that among the
inspirations mentioned by both brothers in the "Making Of" featurette on the film's DVD and
Blu-ray -- a list that includes the Three Stooges, Ma and Pa Kettle and Lawrence of Arabia --
Homer does not appear. The film does include obvious references to the Odyssey, but it's also
brimming with references to musical lore, allusions to American history and politics, and
trademark Coen word play (would anyone else turn the phrase "bona fide" into a running joke?).
Then, of course, there are the usual Coen allusions to other movies, starting with the title,
which is from Sullivan's Travels.
If Homer were still alive, he'd be one of those authors complaining that Hollywood ruined his
book (while suing for royalties). But I've had my doubts about the Homer credit ever since I first
saw it when the film was released. It felt like one of those strategically placed booby traps that
the Coens love to deploy against anyone tempted to become (to quote one of their titles) a serious
man, studying their films like some dry academic subject. The ultimate example was the mock
commentary by "Kenneth Loring" on the DVD and Blu-ray of Blood Simple, but there are many
others, including the elaborate (and false) assertion that Fargo is based on a true story. (It was as
if they were daring scholars to research it.)
Let's forget the source material. O Brother is a comic road movie, one of the best ever made. It
may be stuffed with references both obscure and obvious, because, well, that's what Joel and
Ethan Coen do. But if you never get even one allusion, the film is still hilarious. Like every Coen
Bros. film, it creates its own little world with its own bizarre internal logic, and it's a great place
to spend a few hours.
The film recounts the picaresque adventures of three escapees from a chain gang in Mississippi
of the 1930s: Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney), Delmar O'Donnell (Tim Blake Nelson)
and Pete Hogwallop (John Turturro). Everett is the self-apppointed leader -- though Pete
routinely challenges him for the position -- because the escape was his idea. He claims to have
buried a "treasure" from the armored car robbery that sent him to prison, and the clock is ticking,
because the Tennessee Valley Authority is about to dam up a river and flood the locale where the
treasure is buried. If they don't reach it in four days, the treasure will be at the bottom of a newly
formed lake.
Hot on their trail is an implacable lawman, Sheriff Cooley (Daniel von Bargen), who wears
mirrored sunglasses even at night and is always accompanied by a bloodhound that shows more
expression than he does. The sheriff is fond of setting things on fire, and in a film rife with
Christian rhetoric and imagery (some satirical, some sincere and some both), there are strong
suggestions that Cooley is either the devil or, at the very least, an earthly metaphor for the fallen
angel. (And that's something else you won't find in Homer.) On a more practical level, the three
escapees are constantly at risk from people they encounter who attempt to betray them to Cooley
for a reward. Even family members can't be trusted, because times are hard and people are
desparate for any source of income.
The Depression-era South through which Sheriff Cooley pursues Everett, Delmar and Pete is
neither realistic nor historically accurate. It's a place of legends, myths, whoppers and tall tales,
and much of the film's pleasure comes from hearing the stories told by the parade of eccentrics
with whom the convicts cross paths. One of the first persons they encounter is an elderly black
man (Lee Weaver) on a manually powered rail car. He gives them a ride and tells their futures,
including that they won't find the "fortune" they're seeking (which should be a tipoff right there).
The man happens to be blind, which has led many commentators to identify him with Tiresias,
the blind seer described by Homer. But in the Odyssey, Ulysses had to undertake a perilous
journey to the underworld to consult Tiresias, whereas the blind man in O Brother wheels right
up out of nowhere to the three fugitives, as if he'd been sent to deliver a message. Is he Tiresias,
or just one of those figures possessed of "the gift" that recur throughout Southern folklore and
have been used by writers as diverse as Mark Twain and August Wilson? Does it really matter?
Throughout O Brother the suggestion recurs that the real "treasure" for which the three men are
searching is their own salvation. It's there in the almost ghostly scene where Delmar and Pete are
baptized and saved, renouncing evil and confessing their past sins. Everett, the sceptic and man
of reason, resists, but late in the film when his circumstances are dire, he falls to his knees and
begs God for help -- and, depending on one's interpretation, God answers. The notion of O
Brother as a quest for salvation gets a boost when the fugitives pick up a young guitarist named
Tommy Johnson (Chris Thomas King) at a deserted crossroad. He says he sold his soul to the
devil in exchange for musical ability, thereby repeating a famous American legend, and his
description of the devil is the very image of Sheriff Cooley. (Later, when the travelers are
seduced by siren-like women washing clothes in the river, it's so that they can be turned over to
the sheriff for the reward -- lust leading to damnation.)
Accompanied by their new traveling companion, Everett, Delmar and Pete cut a recording at a
local radio station under the name The Soggy Bottom Boys, because the station owner (Stephen
Root) will pay cash for a performance he likes. The song they record is "A Man of Constant Sorrow", a Job-like title if
ever there was one. Little do they know that, when the station owner -- who, like the
fortune teller they encountered earlier, is blind (blindness again!) -- buys their work, it will
eventually change their lives.
As their travels progress, the three fugitives keep narrowly missing the embattled Governor
Pappy O'Daniel (Charles Durning), who is criss-crossing the state, because he's trailing in his
reelection bid against a reform candidate, Homer Stokes (Wayne Duvall). Stokes's campaign
rhetoric and iconography make masterful use of a new broom to sweep clean and a little person
(Ed Gale) symbolizing the Little Man that Stokes will fight for. The election acquires a personal
dimension for Everett when he discovers that the wife, Penny (Holly Hunter), who divorced him
when he went to prison, is about to marry Stokes's campaign manager, Vernon T. Waldrip (Ray
McKinnon). According to Penny, Waldrip is "bona fide", which Everett is not. To make matters
worse, she's told their daughters that Everett is dead.
The resolution to all this involves . . . well, what doesn't it involve? A political rally, a country
music concert, a flood, a wedding ring, a Klan gathering that looks a lot like a Broadway production
number -- and I haven't even mentioned the famous bank robber named George "Don't Call Him
'Baby Face'" Nelson (Michael Badalucco) or the loquacious Bible salesman with an eye patch
called Big Dan Teague (John Goodman). And let's not forget the Dapper Dan hair pomade.
Everett is useless without it.
It's a world unto itself.
Aside from its intrinsic merits, O Brother, Where Art Thou? is notable for being the first
American film to be finished entirely on a digital intermediate. The Coens and their
cinematographer, Roger Deakins, felt that digital tools had progressed sufficiently to do the job,
and Kodak was building the first DI suite at its Cinesite facility. In addition, Deakins had
concluded that photochemical processing would not provide him sufficient control to achieve the
"dustbowl" look the Coens wanted, especially since their shooting schedule called for principal
photography during the summer, when the outdoor locations would be lushly green.
In April 2010, Deakins noted on his website that "I recently supervised a new transfer of
'O
Brother Where Art Thou', which looks far superior to the original release to my eye." Deakins
provided no further information, but the transfer to which he referred is presumably the version
on this Blu-ray, which is 1080p and encoded with the VC-1 codec.
The Blu-ray image is gorgeously detailed with excellent black levels and precise contrasts that
bring out minute picture elements without blowing out the whites. Consistent with the intended
storybook, old-postcard look (as signaled by, among other things, the opening fade-in from, and
closing fade-out to, black and white), the image is soft, but softness is not automatically a flaw in
a film image. It can comfortably coexist with finely resolved detail, and that is the case here. I
viewed the image on a 72" screen from about ten feet away, and there was no mistaking the
quality of the image.
The color pallette is generally desaturated, except for very specific effects, such as yellow-orange
flames or the red of the KKK Grand Wizard's uniform. The specific tints in individual scenes --
amber here, brown there -- have already caused controversy, either because they don't match up
with what some viewers say they recall from the theater or because they vary from the DVD.
Even if we leave aside the likelihood that the film's cinematographer supervised this transfer,
using digital tools substantially advanced from those available to him during the film's
production, and found it "superior to the original release to my eye", I don't consider either of
these comparisons valid. Memory is notoriously unreliable (my own included), and it's been over
ten years since the film was in theaters. As for the DVD, I will never understand the desire of
some viewers to pinion Blu-ray to an earlier format with a fraction of Blu-ray's resolution and a
much shallower color space. If a low-resolution, limited-pallette format is going to set the outer
boundaries of how one judges a film's reproduction on video, then why bother with Blu-ray at all?
Watch your DVDs, save money and be content.
Only in the rarest of instances will any of us have access to an authoritative source -- an answer
print, original digital files, or perhaps an exhibition print struck from an interpositive -- against
which a Blu-ray can be evaluated. Lacking such an objective basis for comparison, outcries based
on memory, intuition, DVDs produced with outdated technology, rumors or general
hostility toward studios are not a relevant basis for evaluating a Blu-ray. One should watch the
disc and evaluate the quality of the image presented, noting such viewable things as black levels,
color saturation, grain patterns, compression artifacts (if any), print damage (if any), etc. The
Blu-ray image of O Brother has nothing in the "con" column and everything in the "pro" column.
Highest marks.
The audio quality of O Brother, Where Art Thou? is particularly crucial, because the soundtrack
was even more successful than the film, winning multiple awards, selling millions of copies and
inspiring concert tours and follow-up albums. Fortunately, the DTS lossless 5.1 track delivers
everything that a fan could hope for, conveying the songs with presence, force and musicality,
whether they are accompanying the action or being performed by the characters. "A Man of
Constant Sorrow", which is heard twice in the film, has never sounded better. As for the non-musical elements
of the track, the Coens have always been precise and imaginative in their use of
sound, but they are sparing in the placement of elements in the surrounds. They prefer to keep the
viewer's attention facing forward. There are moments when the soundfield expands to envelop
the viewer (an example would be the revivalist meeting, sometimes referred to as "The Lotus
Eaters", where a large group in white robes pass Everett, Delmar and Pete in the forest on their
way to a mass baptism), but such effects are brief and rarely used.
The dialogue remains clear, even though it's frequently delivered in thick, overdone accents that
are the Mississippi equivalent of the extreme Minnesota accents in Fargo.
The Making of O Brother, Where Art Thou? (SD; 1.33:1; 8:39): This is
essentially an
EPK containing interviews with Joel and Ethan Coen, Roger Deakins and the principal
cast members. It's informative but too brief.
Storyboard to Scene Comparisons (SD; 1.33:1): Two sequences are covered: The Flood
(6:53), and The Klan (6:19). For each, the viewer can alternate between a sequence from
the film and the relevant storyboards, or place the two next to each other.
Music Video: "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" (SD; 2.35:1, non-enhanced; 3:28):
The video is composed entirely of scenes from the film.
Theatrical Trailer (SD; 2.35:1, non-enhanced; 2:32): As with most Coen films, the
trailer barely scratches the surface of the film's oddness.
Additional Trailers: At startup the disc plays trailers in hi-def for Real
Steel (2.35:1) and
ABC TV on video (1.78:1). These can be skipped with the "top menu" button and are not
otherwise available once the disc loads.
The only real criticism of this disc is the lack of meaningful extras. The presentation of the film
itself is above reproach. I have enjoyed almost every film the Coens have made, which makes me
an easy sell, but O Brother, Where Art Thou? is notable for its appeal even to viewers who aren't
normally Coen fans. Highly recommended.
Disney will bring the Coen Brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou? to Blu-ray. Set during Great Depression, this musical reworking of Homer's The Odyssey stars George Clooney (Syriana), John Turturro (Rounders), and Tim Blake Nelson (The Incredible Hulk) as three ...
O Brother, Where Art Thou? Blu-ray, Forum Discussions
All countries
