What Kind of Hound Was in O Brother Where Art Thou

♫ I am a man of constant sorrow,
I've seen trouble all my days...♫

"Yous seek a great fortune, you three who are now in bondage. Yous will detect a fortune, though it will non be the 1 yous seek. Simply first... first you must travel a long and hard road, a road fraught with peril. Mm-hmm. You shall meet thangs, wonderful to tell..."

—The Blind Railman

O Blood brother, Where Art Thou? is a 2000 comedy motion-picture show written and directed past The Coen Brothers, (very) loosely based on Homer's The Odyssey.

The story follows 3 escaped prisoners in Depression-era Mississippi — Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney), Delmar O'Donnell (Tim Blake Nelson), and Pete Hogwallop (John Turturro). After fleeing the chain gang, they embark on a rollicking adventure in an attempt to attain a huge stash of coin that Ulysses buried in his backyard. They have only a short time to do this, though, as the lawn in question is in an area slated to be flooded past the Tennessee Valley Authorization to build a reservoir.

On their journeying they see, among others, a bullheaded prophet, sirens, a Cyclops, and a gifted blackness guitarist who "sold his soul to the devil". In their attempts to evade the authorities and reach the money, they current of air up recording a striking vocal, robbing a bank with George "Baby Face" Nelson, encountering the KKK, and inadvertently getting mixed up in the state gubernatorial ballot. And on top of all that, Ulysses must grapple with the prospect of reuniting with his lover and their children...

It was noted for the tremendous success of its soundtrack, about of which was recorded by Alison Krauss & Union Station and other country-bluegrass acts (Dan Tyminski provided Everett's singing voice).

Bonus points if yous recognize the championship from Preston Sturges' 1941 moving picture Sullivan's Travels.

---

O Brother, Where Fine art G? provides examples of:

• Added Alliterative Appeal: "Songs of salvation to salve the soul."
• Amanuensis Scully: Everett, who despite being pursued by Satan, meeting a prophet, being seduced by sirens, and beingness apparently saved from execution by divine intervention, still insists that there is a reasonable caption for everything. At least information technology's Lampshaded. And past the end, he doesn't really seem sure of himself any more after seeing the cow on the roof of a shed, which the prophet told them that they would see back at the beginning.
• Ambiguous Disorder: George Nelson shows symptoms of bipolar disorder. He's in an extreme manic episode when the protagonists run across him, and lapses into a deep depression later someone calls him "Babyface." Then when he's captured and facing the electric chair, as Delmar puts it, "Looks similar George is back on top!"
• Anachronism Stew: The Confederate flag did not go associated with the KKK and racists in full general until the civil rights movement in the 1960s. In the 1920s and 30s, they still used the American flag.
• And Your Lilliputian Canis familiaris, As well!: George Nelson takes a break from shooting at the cops during his getaway drive to shoot some cows.

  George: Cows. I hate cows more coppers!

• Pointer Take hold of: It looks like Big Dan Teague is going to get skewered by the pole of a falling Confederate flag... but then he stops the pointy tip inches from his face up by catching it with both hands. Nevertheless, a flaming cross does him over simply after.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • Some of Homer Stokes' accusations nearly the heroes near the end of the movie: "These boys is not white! Hell, they ain't even old-timey."
  • I of the people attending George Nelson'south march toward the electric chair is most upset about his having shot a cow with a tommy-gun.
• At the Crossroads: The 3 come across Tommy here after he sold his soul to the devil ("I wasn't usin' it for nothin'") to become a famous musician; this is based on the real life Tommy Johnson who was the originator of the story. Yes, he did it before Robert Johnson.
• Beat Them at Their Ain Game: Pappy'south son offers i of his brighter options to beat Stokes in that they could get a dwarf fifty-fifty stumpier than his. Pappy angrily shoots information technology down, pointing out that Follow the Leader at this point would just make them look like fifty-fifty bigger laughingstocks and pathetically drastic for any points, bold that they could even find a stumpier dwarf.
• Belief Makes You Stupid: Everett repeatedly chides people for their religious religion. Examples:
  • When Everett witnesses a riverside baptism service, he comments: "Well, I guess difficult times affluent out the chumps; everybody'south lookin' for answers."
  • After Everett's travel companions get baptized themselves, Everett remarks; "Baptism! You two are dumber than a bag of hammers."
  • Toward the terminate of the picture show, when facing his own death, Everett falls on his knees and repents of his sins earlier God. Afterward he is delivered from death (thank you to a sudden and massive overflowing of water), Everett discounts his conversion by noting that "any man will cast about in a moment of stress." When his companions proclaim that the flood was an human action of God, Everett comments, "Once more, you hayseeds are showin' your want for intellect." (Notation: Everett's watery salvation functions as a clever twist on Decease by Irony. Deliverance by Irony, perhaps? Miraculous Baptism?)
• Berserk Button:
  • Don't call George Nelson "Babyface" ("He's a alive wire, ain't he?"). Truth in Television with the real George Nelson.
    • Possibly an inverted trope, as he'due south already an established madman, and calling him "Babyface" actually shatters his ego, lowering his self-esteem.
  • Also, Pete doesn't take kindly to people stealing from his kin.
  • Don't bother offering Everett Fop. He'southward a Dapper Dan human being!
• Bugged Amphibians: Delmar is at one indicate convinced that Pete was transformed into a frog.
• Bitch in Sheep'southward Wearable: Homer Stokes seems like a prissy enough guy and possibly a better governor than Pappy O'Daniel. So we run across him leading a Ku Klux Klan rally...
• Black-and-Gray Morality:
  • The protagonists exist on the gray side. Three escaped convicts and a musician who sold his soul to the Devil ("I wasn't using it"). Everett is a consummate liar who tricked the others into thinking that there was treasure then they would help him escape prison in time to stop his married woman from remarrying. Pete is loyal to his friends and family, though he is a bit fierce. Delmar and Tommy are genuinely squeamish fellows, but Delmar did in fact rob a Piggly Wiggly and prevarication about information technology, while Tommy ran off on his ain when there was trouble.
  • Pappy O'Daniel and Penny are slightly further down, only still grayness. Pappy is rude, selfish, and opportunistic. Withal, according to him, he tried everything he could to assistance the people that now back up Homer Stokes. He also has no problem with the Soggy Bottom Boys including a black guitarist, fifty-fifty smiling when he notes "folks don't seem to heed they'due south integrated." Penny told her daughters that their father was hitting by a train. But, given that Everett is a conman and a captive, she is correct that remarrying the wealthy and "bona fide" Waldrip is probably best for her daughters.
  • The antagonists are firmly on the black side of things. The Sheriff does a great deal of damage in his pursuit of the protagonists, threatening to hang Pete if he doesn't surrender his friends' destination. He also tries to hang them fifty-fifty after they were pardoned, and includes Tommy in the hanging simply for associating with them. Too, he might be Satan. Big Dan Teague is a conman worse than Everett: he assaults Everett and Delmar for their money, and afterwards participates in a lynch mob. Homer Stokes presents himself as the "servant of the little man", but information technology turns out that he'southward a Grand Dragon of the KKK, leading the lynch mob to kill Tommy. And, finally, how on globe did Waldrip know that Tommy had sold his soul to the devil?
• Blatant Lies: "That own't your daddy. Your daddy was hit by a railroad train."
• Blind Seer: Lampshaded by Everett, who insists that the human has a Disability Superpower.
• Bookends: The picture show opens with a chain gang together working nigh a railroad track and singing. Shortly later on escaping the chain gang, the protagonists meet the bullheaded prophet on a push-car. The flick closes with Everett and Penny's daughters tied together by twine walking over a railroad track and singing. And the blind prophet can be seen passing by on the tracks.
• Break Away Popular Hitting:
  • The soundtrack had its own sequels.
  • In-movie also, since the Soggy Bottom Boys' singing is so good that it helps resolve the plot.
• Brick Joke:
  • Afterward mocking Delmar and Pete for being baptized early in the movie, skeptic Everett admits his failings and begs for mercy in a Not-So-Final Confession at the gallows. He is then forcibly immersed past the floodwaters, and everyone is saved. Literally.
  • Early in the pic Everett, Delmar and Pete see a bullheaded prophet who claims, "You will come across thangs, wonderful to tell. You shall see a cow on the roof of a cotton house." At the stop of the movie, they practice indeed see a cow on a cotton house roof.
• Censorship past Spelling: Sort of. One character wants to prevent his son from knowing that his female parent left the family, so he just says "Mrs. Hogwallop up and R-U-N-Due north-O-F-T." Subverted afterward on, in that the kid knew exactly what he was talking about, anyhow.
• Chained Estrus: The iii convicts are chained together for awhile at the beginning.
• Chekhov's Gun: Everett'due south pomade, especially its distinctive smell, which lets the Sheriff track them down.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Delmar "We Thought You Was a Toad" O'Donnell.
• Color Wash: The hue and saturation of the film was messed with until everything was an intensely colorful brown, imitating the look of sepia-toned photos. Without this, the Mississippi (and South Carolina, for some scenes) summer landscape would have been a brilliant green, which the creators said was also bright for the Depression era Grit Bowl-blazon feel they were going for.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • After they become escape and don't quite make information technology onto the train, Everett and Pete both think they should be the one in charge.

  Pete: Well, I retrieve it should exist yours truly!
  Everett: Well, I remember it should exist yours truly, likewise!
  Shell They turn and look at Delmar.
  Delmar: Okay, I'm with you fellers.

  • When Everett admits he fabricated the treasure up to convince his chainmates — i.e., Pete and Delmar — to help him escape, Pete realizes that fifty years volition be added to each of their sentences for fleeing the chain gang, and that he won't get out of prison until he'southward 84 years old. Delmar happily chimes in, "Well, I'll only be 82!"
  • Also, when Pete responds to Delmar's whispered "We thought you was a toad" line with a confused Flat "What", Delmar repeats the whisper more than slowly and emphatically.
• Comic Trio: Everett is The Leader, Delmar is The Fool, and Pete is the Simply Sane Man (compared to the other ii, at least).
• Community-Threatening Construction: Ulysses Everett McGill needs to recall a treasure buried in the backyard of his one-time house. All the same, the surface area is scheduled to be flooded by Tennessee Valley Authorization's damming activity. In this instance, Ulysses doesn't ever try to prevent the construction (in fact, he sees it as the Dawn of an Era) — it just serves as an inexorable deadline for Ulysses and his partners to reach the homestead.
• Contrived Coincidence: Of class the guy the KKK decides to lynch is the one our heroes know and are on friendly terms with. Not too contrived, though, if you know your history. Being an unemployed black man was a crime only slightly worse than being an employed black man in the Due south.
• Corrupt Hick: The insanely corrupt Big Dan Teague. Who is channeling the cyclops Polyphemus.
• Crush the Keepsake: Large Dan attacks Ulysses and Delmar to see what information technology is they're carrying. When he sees it's only a toad (they thought Pete had been turned into i), he crushes it in front of them.
• Cult Soundtrack: The soundtrack album is regarded as 1 of the most important Country and Bluegrass albums of the decade and sold over 7 one thousand thousand copies. It also won the Grammy Laurels for Album of the Year in 2002, making it 1 of only three soundtracks to ever win that accolade.
• Dawn of an Era: Everett's view of the building of a hydroelectric dam, which saves his and his friend'southward lives:

  Everett: No, the fact is, they're flooding this valley so they can hydroelectric up the whole durn state. Aye, sir, the Southward is gonna change. Everything's gonna be put on electricity and run on a paying basis. Out with the former spiritual mumbo jumbo, the superstitions, and the backward ways. We're gonna see a brave new world where they run everybody a wire and hook united states all up to a filigree. Aye, sir, a veritable age of reason. Like the 1 they had in France." *He sees the moo-cow that the blind soothsayer prophesized* "Non a moment too soon..."

• Deal with the Devil: Tommy Johnson traded his soul to the devil at the crossroads for his guitar skills.
• Decease by Childbirth: Pappy mentions that Junior's mother died giving birth to him.
• Deep South: Much of the moving picture takes place in Dust Bowl-era Mississippi.
• Deliberately Monochrome: Of the sepia variety, run into Real Is Brownish below.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: The most notable beingness the scene where Pappy is considering using the Soggy Bottom Boys to assist his entrada and snub Homer Stokes, his son points out that the band's integrated and they're a Deep S state. Later a moment to scout the cheering oversupply, Pappy decides to go ahead with it past noting information technology seems the public doesn't care about the integration.
• Deus ex Machina: The flooding happens at exactly the right fourth dimension to save them all from being hanged. Possibly a literal example, only it'south foreshadowed enough that it doesn't intermission the plot even if the viewer doesn't translate it as spiritual.
• Did Not Die That Way: He didn't die at all, Everett finds out his married woman has told his daughters that he got hit by a railroad train, rather than tell them he was sent to jail.
• Disney Death: Pete was believed to take transformed into a Toad past the launderer sirens, and then they take him in a box. The toad was then killed by Big Dan Teague by beingness crushed, and his friends were physically incapable of stopping his death because they were browbeaten to encarmine pulps. Information technology was later revealed that the toad was actually not Pete, nor was he even transformed into a toad. Turns out those "launderer sirens" really delivered him to Sheriff Cooley's men for the reward, and is now a prisoner back at the farm.
• The Ditz: Delmar.
• Empty Piles of Article of clothing: This (and a toad) causes Delmar to assume Pete'due south been turned into a toad.
• Eyepatch of Power: Big Dan Teague.
• Expy: A number of characters serve as references to characters out of the Odyssey or Greek mythology more generally: Ulysses Everett McGill is of form Odysseus (Ulysses beingness the Roman version of the name Odysseus) who is trying to become home to his married woman Penelope (Penny), Pete and Delmar are the notoriously fractious and uncontrollable crew of Odysseus, the three women bathing and singing in the river are the Sirens, Big Dan Teague is the cyclops Polyphemous, and the blind human in the beginning is the bullheaded prophet Tiresias. There's fifty-fifty a human named Menelaus! Just he's not an expy (come across Historical Domain Grapheme below).
• Fake Band: The Soggy Bottom Boys.
• Fan Disservice: The Sirens, in addition to existence more often than not beautiful, all wear wet dresses so you tin can see their lingerie. Yet, combined with the creepy song they continue singing, and the fact that one of them is forcing a drug down Everett'due south throat, you can't assist simply feel there's something off about the whole thing. That's because they're seducing them to betray them to the Sheriff.
• Fat, Sweaty Southerner in a White Suit: Several. Well-nigh notably, Governor Pappy O'Daniel (for the mildly corrupt version) and Big Dan Teague (for the insanely decadent version).
• False Affably Evil: Big Dan Teague, who engages the boys in friendly conversation before beating them up and robbing them. He's also a fellow member of the KKK.
• Showtime Father Wins: Everett'southward ex-wife has told his daughters he's dead due to his lack of steady employment and criminal behavior, and Everett must find his way and win them dorsum before she marries a successful only stodgy political advisor.
• Flat "What": A silent one from Pete when Delmar tells him he thought he turned into a toad.
• Friend to All Living Things: Delmar, or butterflies at the least.
• Freudian Trio: Everett (Superego, uses logic and reason); Pete (Id, relies more often than not on instinct and opposes Everett); Delmar (Ego, acts as a peacekeeper between the two).
• Funny Background Event:
  • Everett, Delmar, and Pete are all chained together, and try to escape by boarding a moving railroad train. In the foreground nosotros run across Everett (on the train) introducing himself to some hobos. In the background, Pete trips earlier he can climb in...
  • Too, Pete'due south gloriously goofy dancing during Delmar's rendition of "In the Jailhouse At present."
  • Background singing — in Man of Constant Sorrow, Everett finishes singing a depressing stanza that ends in the line "peradventure I'll die upon this railroad train..." and Delmar and Pete chinkle in with a cheery "Possibly he'll die upon this railroad train!"
• Genre-Busting: It's a musical/one-act/social commentary/retelling of The Odyssey... that'southward set in The Great Depression.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Vernon gives Ulysses a good old-timey ass-whoopin' in the Woolworth's. Vernon apparently has some training in the pugilistic arts, whereas Ulysses... non so much.
• Historical Domain Character: Several appear in the moving picture, though the details of their lives are skewed for the sake of the story. They include bank robber George "Babyface" Nelson, Blues musician Tommy Johnson, and politician W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel. The latter arguably undergoes the most changes, having his first name changed to Menelaus every bit a nod to The Odyssey and being governor of Mississippi rather than Texas, while the former died three years before the film'due south setting and was The Napoleon in real life ("George Nelson" was besides an alias, for what information technology's worth).
• Historical In-Joke: A great bargain of the humor in this pic is derived from these.
• Hobos: "Whatever of you fellas smithies? Or, if not smithies per se, were you otherwise trained in the metallurgic arts earlier straitened circumstances forced you into a life of aimless wanderin'?"
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • Everett, clearly touched by his encounter with the bullheaded seer, goes on at length most how the blind are perhaps attuned to the futurity and hold the gift of prophecy, to business relationship for their lack of vision. When Pete points out that the hereafter he foretold was one where they wouldn't get the treasure they sought, Everett shoots back in frustration, "Well, what the hell does he know?! He'southward an ignorant old man!"
  • Simply equally he is about to be executed, Everett prays to God to let him see his daughters at least i more than time. When the dam breaks and saves him, he starts going on about reason. The other two immediately call him out on information technology.
• Implacable Human being: The Sheriff. Zilch will finish him from bringing downwards the main trio. Not even a pardon from the governor himself.
• Inspector Javert: The Sheriff characterizes himself this manner at the very end, claiming that the boys take only been pardoned by the law of man.
• Informed Attribute: This applies to the Governor, while Homer Stokes runs on a reform platform, calling O'Daniel a tool of the interests. The audition, who doesn't run into that much of the Governor, never sees him do much beside swear at and assault his aides with his hat.
• Insane Troll Logic: Committed by Everett, chosen out past Pete.

  Pete: Yous stole from my kin!
  Everett: Who was fixin' to betray u.s..
  Pete: You didn't know that at the time!
  Everett: So I borrowed it 'til I did know!
  Pete: That don't make no sense!
  Everett: Pete, information technology's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the homo heart.

• Ironic Nursery Melody: The siren-seduction scene, to "Didn't Exit Nobody Merely The Babe" Also a rare example of erotic horror.
• Jerkass: Pappy O'Daniel, oh so much. Even though he's the one who pardons our main characters, meaning they no longer have to be outlaws, it's solely for his ain reelection campaign.
• Wiggle with a Heart of Gold: Everett. He'southward greedy, deceitful, sneaky, and arrogant but truly does care for his friends and loves his daughters dearly. When all hope seems lost and he starts praying; Everett prays for everyone else's safety and happiness, only asking that his own life exist spared then that his daughters can have a father to await after them.
• Boot the Dog: Large Dan beats up Everett and Delmar, steals their money, and crushes their frog whom Delmar thinks is Pete in front end of them.
• Kids Driving Cars: Everett, Pete, and Delmar manage to escape from a burning befouled when Boy Hogwallop bursts through the barn door in his dad's car and offers them a lift. Since Boy is quite small, he uses a brick to counterbalance downward the accelerator. Later, Everett steals the motorcar, leaving Boy to curse him, Pete and Delmar every bit he walks back to his dad's subcontract.
• The Klan: Appears every bit enemies virtually the end of the movie, as Everett, Pete, and Delmar must rescue their friend Tommy from the Klan.
• The Lancer: Pete.
• Big and in Charge: Governor Pappy O'Daniel. "We're mass communicatin'!"
• Large Ham:
  • Homer Stokes. Information technology'due south particularly noticeable in the scene where he leads a KKK rally. Of course, it makes sense, given that he's running for governor and a talent for public oratory would help him a lot.
  • George "Babyface" Nelson. "I'M FEELING Ten Feet TALL!"
• Louis Nil: The Sheriff who is chasing afterward them is implied, and even theorized to be by the characters, to be this. His Scary Shiny Glasses reflect fire a lot.
• Lyrical Dissonance: The Soggy Lesser Boys' extremely cheerful, upbeat rendition of "Man of Constant Sorrow".
• Magic Realism: There are more than than a few downright mystical occurrences in the picture, such as the prophet, the sirens, the stiff implication that the Warden is Satan, and God saving the protagonists at the climax.
• Meaningful Name: In a story based off The Odyssey, the main character's name is Ulysses.
  • As well the Governor, whose name is Menalaus, although that's a piffling more The Iliad.
• Misspelling Out Loud: "Mrs. Hogwallop upwardly and R-U-N-N-O-F-T."
• Mistaken for Transformed: Played for Laughs when the escaped convicts wake upwardly after drinking with some strange women by the river, find Pete gone and a toad in his abandoned clothes, and jump to the conclusion that he was Baleful Polymorphed. They keep the toad for a while before finding out that the women actually sold Pete to the police.

  Delmar: Them si-reens did this to Pete! They loved him up and turned him into a h-horny toad!

• Musical World Hypotheses: Diegetic all the manner through, making its classification as a musical to begin with dubious to some.
• Mythical Motifs: While the picture show doesn't follow The Odyssey to the letter, information technology does borrow some notable plot elements from it, such as the Cyclops, the sirens, and ane of the main characters trying to get home to his wife so she won't marry someone else.
• Mythology Gag: Big Dan the cyclops looks like he's going to lose his eye to a flung Amalgamated flag spear, much like Polyphemus, simply he manages to catch it between his hands at the last moment. Then the gang cuts downwardly the fiery cross, which falls on acme of him, nigh certainly called-for his eye out and preserving a piece of the narrative.
• Never Trust a Title: No, the three main characters are not brothers, nor are they trying to find their long-lost brother. The championship is actually a reference to an old movie.
• No Animals Were Harmed: The cow that was run over by the cops in pursuit of Baby Face Nelson was CGI, which resulted in the rare addendum to the warning, "No animals were harmed in the making of this motion-picture show. Any scenes showing animals in jeopardy were imitation."
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: There really was a Low-era Governor named Pappy O'Daniel, simply his given proper name was Wilbert Lee O'Daniel; in the film the governor's real start name is Menelaus (another Homer reference). Also the real O'Daniel was governor of Texas, not Mississippi.
• Not His Sled: The expected fate of John Goodman's "cyclops" is deliberately referenced and then avoided. So happens slightly differently anyway.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Teague'southward reaction when he realizes that the fiery cross was coming downwards directly at him.
  • Homer Stokes' reaction when he realizes that the town, after his attempt at getting the Soggy Bottom Boys arrested failed, is now going to run him out of town on a rail as revenge for interrupting the functioning.
  • Finally, the slow, dawning realization in the climax that the Warden fully intends to lynch them on the spot, despite the fact that they were given a pardon, and, besides, murder Tommy, but for existence there.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Toward the terminate of the picture, the fugitive "Soggy Bottom Boys" perform "In the Jailhouse Now" and "Man of Constant Sorrow" while disguised with fake beards. Lampshaded afterwards, when their performance wins over the crowd and Everett deliberately yanks his beard off for a moment to show Penny who he is.
• The Pardon: Granted but ignored.
• Pedal-to-the-Metal Shot: Parodied. The boy who helps our heroes escape a called-for befouled in a Ford Model A has fruit crates strapped to his shoes. What'south more, the automobile can't go very fast anyway, so breaks down presently after their escape.
• Politically Correct History: Zig-zagged. The white heroes refer to Tommy as a "boy," but otherwise treat him as an equal. The radio station director insists that he won't play "colored songs," but once the "Soggy Bottom Boys" become popular he'due south ecstatic about them and signs them. Pappy O'Daniel doesn't seem to care that "they'due south integrated" afterward seeing how a crowd adores them and boots out his gubernatorial opponent for interrupting them. The KKK is shown in all its theatrically racist glory, simply is also portrayed every bit a fringe organization that is not looked upon favorably past the common townsfolk. This portrayal has some ground in reality, as past the 1930s the second Klan's membership had dwindled compared to its heyday in the mid-1920s ^note Specifically, the murder of Madge Oberholtzer in 1925 caused members to leave in droves; membership continued to refuse until the Civil Rights Motion started gaining momentum in the 1950s, simply they have never come up close to the level seen in the twenties. It should exist noted, notwithstanding, that Homer Stokes feels perfectly comfortable announcing to a roomful of people that he belongs to an organisation, wink-wink-nudge-nudge, that engages in cross-called-for and lynching, and expects the audience to sympathize with him when he attacks people for stopping a lynching. Information technology'due south not hard to estimate that the only reason he'south booed is because the people he's accusing happen to exist a very popular music ring, not considering of full general principle.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Homer Stokes, candidate for governor by mean solar day, Klansman past dark.
• Popculture Osmosis: The Coens have claimed that they've never actually read The Odyssey, but know the story through its various adaptations.
• Produce Pelting: What the audition does when Homer Stokes ends up interrupting the Soggy Bottom Boys performance to get them arrested, that as well every bit ride him out of boondocks on a rail.
• Existent Is Brown: Pursued with a vengeance, given that a substantial portion of the film'south mail service-production budget went into extensive color-correction. The Coens wanted every frame of the film to reflect the muddy, withered dustbowl look, and in some cases took unabridged fields of green flora and turned them yellowish.
• Reduced to Ratburgers: Pete and Delmar cook a gopher and offering information technology to Everett. He doesn't seem very enticed by the notion — not because of their selection of food, but because splitting such a small creature three ways wouldn't be much of a repast. Delmar heads him off with news that they really caught and cooked quite a few gophers, and then Everett can accept the whole thing.
• Retirony: Of a sort. Pete was two weeks from being released from prison house anyway. Now that he'south escaped, he'll take to serve another 50 years and won't get out until 1987.
• Route Trip Plot: The convicts are trying to get from their escape from the chain gang to Everett's hole-and-corner stash, encountering many obstacles and interesting characters along the way.
• Rock Me, Asmodeus!: "And I have it from the highest 'thority, that that negra... sold his soul to the Devil!!!" ^annotation The townsfolk don't purchase into it, though.
• Running Gag:

  "Damn, nosotros're in a tight spot!"

  • Everett's obsession with his Dapper Dan pomade besides counts, likewise as his reflexive worrying virtually his hair whenever something wakes him in the middle of his sleep.
  • The constant reference to Everett supposedly beingness hit by a train in one case he reunited with some of his daughters.
• Satanic Classic: Sheriff Cooley fits Tommy Johnson'southward description of the Devil exactly: "He's white, as white as you folks, with empty eyes and a large hollow voice. He likes to travel effectually with a mean sometime hound." Still, upon seeing him at the stop of the movie, Tommy doesn't seem to notice.
• Saved by the Bury: After the valley floods, the protagonists cling to one of the coffins the sheriff was planning to bury them in.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: The Sheriff/Warden/Devil wears these.
• Seinfeldian Chat:
  • This charming case:

    "He'south gonna paddle our little behind."
    "Ain't gonna paddle information technology — gonna kick it. Real hard."
    "No, I believe he's gonna paddle it."
    "I don't believe that's a proper description."
    "Well, that's how I'd characterize it."
    "I believe it'south more than of a kickin' sitchiation."

  • The word of a "grease spot on the L&Northward" and a "bona-fide" suitor ranks right upwards there also.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness:
  • Everett. For example, from the Funny Background Consequence described higher up:

    Everett: Say, whatsoever of you fellas happen to exist smithies? If not smithies per se, mayhap you lot trained in the metallurgical arts before straitened circumstances led you to a life of aimless wandering?

  • Besides Big Dan Teague:

    Big Dan Teague: And thank you for that conversational hiatus. I mostly refrain from oral communication while engaged in gustatory modality. There are those who effort both at the same time; I find it fibroid and vulgar.

• Shout-Out:
  • The pic's title is itself a Shout-Out to Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels.
  • The entire plot contains various shout outs to the Greek epic poem The Odyssey by Homer. The main protagonist is named Ulysses in both stories, has to get home to forbid his wife from marrying someone else, and they meet singing women who seduce them (the Sirens) and a one-eyed giant man (the cyclops). The reform candidate is named Homer Stokes, referencing the author Homer. The bullheaded railroad human predicting events references Tiresias, while the blind radio station director references Homer again, who was too said to exist bullheaded.
  • Tommy'southward Deal with the Devil is a reference to a like bargain supposedly fabricated past real-life bluesman Robert Johnson. (Or possibly Tommy Johnson, depending on whom you ask.) And the song that Chris Thomas Male monarch performs during the campfire scene is "Difficult Fourth dimension Killing Floor Blues," originally by Johnson'southward contemporary Skip James.
  • Not to mention that a man named Ulysses meets a guitarist at a Crossroads.
  • The KKK scene is based off of the scene in The Wizard of Oz where the Scarecrow, Lion and Can Homo try to sneak into the witch's castle. The guards are chanting the mode the KKK does and even doing a similar dance, and the iii heroes steal disguises from the guards/KKK.
  • The Soggy Bottom Boys are a reference to the Light Crust Doughboys, who were featured on the real-life Pappy O'Daniel'due south radio show, and/or the Foggy Mountain Boys (founded by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs).
  • There's a bury floating on a flooded river at the cease, which is most certainly a Shout-Out to William Faulkner'due south As I Lay Dying. And they apply it as a raft.
  • Sheriff Cooley looks and dresses very similarly to Dominate Godfrey in Cool Hand Luke, right downwardly to his Scary Shiny Glasses.
  • George Clooney's performance as Everett owes more than a little to Clark Gable.
  • A throwaway gag may be a shout-out to Porky Pig:

    Everett: Well, we are negroes, sir. All except for our ac-c-c-c... our air-conditioning-c-c-c... uh, the man who plays the guitar.

  • "Is you is, or is you own't, my constituency?" ^notation ...my babe
• Sold His Soul for a Donut: The main characters encounter a young musician who claims to have sold his soul to be able to play the guitar actually well. Delmar, who recently had a religious experience, is disappointed past the idea of selling a soul for so picayune.
• Something Nosotros Forgot: The trio get in at the cabin in the valley to retrieve Penny's band, forgetting that Sheriff Cooley had earlier learned of the location by torturing Pete and is now lying in wait for them.
• Sophisticated equally Hell: Many of the characters in a patchily educated way, but generally Everett. "I'm the goddamn paterfamilias!"
• Source Music: All the music in the pic is diegetic.
• Stout Forcefulness: Big Dan Teague.
• Stern Chase: The Warden's search for the iii convicts.
• The Stool Pigeon: Pete ends up condign a Lacerated Larry after the "Sireens" basically turned him over to the sheriff's men for a bounty (which initially led them to believe that Pete was actually turned into a frog due to information technology being in his apparel).
• Surrounded by Idiots: Pappy O'Daniel'southward cronies and son are sycophantic yes-men who are a fleck wearisome on the uptake, and Pappy is painfully aware of this. This is near likely the reason he tries to convince Vernon T. Waldrip to leave Stokes' campaign and bring together his.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: "Who is that man?" "Not my husband." Also doubles every bit a Shout-Out to the source fabric.
• Symbolic Baptism: Played for Laughs when the escaped convicts Pete and Delmar stumble onto a group baptism in a river and jump at the risk to start over with a clean slate... which mostly ways doing exactly what they were before. They're likewise a bit confused to hear that it doesn't actually do anything for their criminal records.

  Delmar: Merely they was witnesses that seen u.s.a. redeemed.
  Everett: Even if it did put you square with the Lord, the state of Mississippi'southward a footling more difficult-nosed.

  • Everett is then even more symbolically baptized when he gives his Not-So-Final Confession, on his knees praying for salvation... when the damming of the river floods the valley and sweeps away non just sins, merely sinners, and houses.
• Those Two Guys: Pappy's ii advisors, see the Seinfeldian Conversation above.
• Trail of Bread Crumbs: How the sheriff keeps finding Everett. Everett's a Dapper Dan human, going through obscene amounts of the stuff whenever he can get a hold of it. The sheriff'south bloodhound can track him hands.
• Travel Montage: We get a serial of scenes showing the trio making their way beyond Mississippi, stealing a automobile, stealing a pie (Delmar pays for it), telling scary stories around the campfire (claw-handed man)...
• True Companions: Everett, Pete, Delmar, and Tommy.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight:
  • The banking concern customers at the robbery seem to be rather non-plussed by all the shooting.
  • Everett himself is rather not-plussed by Big Dan chirapsia the hell out of Delmar with a tree co-operative until Large Dan starts attacking him.
• Upper-Class Twit: Pappy O'Daniel's son.
• The Vamp: The three sirens.
• Villainous Glutton: Large Dan Teague, equally befits his correspondence with the cyclops Polyphemus.
• Villainous Breakdown: "Babyface" Nelson and Homer Stokes.
  • Nelson gets better...sort of.
  • "MY NAME IS GEORGE NELSON, AND I'M FEELIN' X Anxiety Alpine!"
• Villain with Good Publicity: Homer Stokes, oh so much.
• Wardens Are Evil: The Sheriff. While at the beginning he is in the right to chase down Everett, Pete, and Delmar (because of them existence fugitives), he goes for overkill tactics like burning down a barn with them inside. He insists that he answers to a higher law than man's (so he will just keep coming no matter what), and the moment he makes it articulate that he will run across them all hang even if they are now pardoned (and he volition impale Tommy for no reason other than him being there with the fugitives), he crosses the Moral Event Horizon hard. That he is a Satanic Archetype doesn't aid any.
• Warm Place, Warm Lighting: The flick uses an extreme yellowish filter throughout that makes what were green fields look yellow. While it gives the movie a cornball sepia feel, it also accentuates the fact that the story takes identify in sweltering rural Mississippi in the middle of summer.
• Nuptials Ring Removal: Every bit the guys encounter the singing sirens, Everett, in the background, pulls his wedding ring off right before the girls come over and offset getting cozy with them.
• Whole Plot Reference: Loosely, to The Odyssey.
• Working on the Chain Gang: The story begins with Everett, Pete, and Delmar escaping from this while chained to each other. Pete, at one signal, is recaptured and put back to work on the chain gang and has to be broken out of prison again.

---

harroldvaing1977.blogspot.com

Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/OBrotherWhereArtThou

Share this post