189 - O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
The lads escape a chain gang and become men of constant sorrow as they embark on Joel and Ethan Coen’s 2000 Southern Odyssey: O Brother, Where Art Thou? Topics include the charms of George Clooney, the superlative soundtrack, and how to adapt the Odyssey without turning into a horny toad.
Media Referenced in this Episode:
O Brother, Where Art Thou? Dir. Joel Coen. 2000.
Why it’s crazy that ‘Oh Brother Where Art Thou’ was pulled off - Tim Blake Nelson
TWOAPW theme by Brendan Dalton: Patreon // brendan-dalton.com // brendandalton.bandcamp.com
Interstitial: “Spree!!!” // Written by A.J. Ditty // Feat. A.J. Ditty as “Spree-Man”
Comments (48)
Now do Blood Simple
Lines/scenes like "we thought you was a toad" are the reason I'm listening to this
Talking about George Clooney doing so much here, I can't help but feel enamored thinking about the videos of him recording for The Fantastic Mr Fox in fields with Wes Anderson and Jason Schwartzman
Wait, did we get to "his niece is supposedly a good singer" and give no mention to his aunt ROSEMARY CLOONEY‽‽‽
Omg Simon's Rock reference! People never know about SR lol
My great grandfather had one of the first cars in his county, and tried to teach my great aunt how to drive at 11. She promptly hit a chicken, apologized to the unconcerned farmer, and never drove again the rest of her 100 year life
There's something about the Great Depression that serves as a great setting for modern retellings of Greek mythology.
listen... if divorced kermit isn't a sex thing to you then idk what to tell you
Idk I think spree are fine
Speaking of Homeric adaptations, have you guys ever read Christopher Logue's 'War Music'? My personal favorite take on The Illiad. Opening it at random, an excerpt: Mowgag well slain, Hewn through his teeth, his jaw slashed off, And Nyro’s head beside him in the grass. When Nyro’s mother heard of this She shaved her head; she tore her frock; she went outside Ripping her fingernails through her cheeks: Then down her neck; her chest; her breasts; And bleeding to her waist ran round the shops, Sobbing: “God, kill Troy. Console me with its death. Revenge is all I have. My boy was kind. He had his life to live. I will not have the chance to dance in Hector’s blood, But let me hear some have before I die.”
I love the intro and Brian’s version of man of constant sorrow! I literally just got done watching the movie because I wanted to watch it before I listen to this. I thought it was pretty weird, but also entertaining, so thanks for the recommendation, the music is fabulous, and now I just want to say everything in whatever the heck accent they all had!
It’s a little weird how much the soundtrack was discussed without ever mentioning the actual name of the genre — it’s bluegrass. You described it well (a mix of old time folk with blues and jazz), but you didn’t actually say it. Not a complaint, we’re a weird niche bunch, I get it. Among bluegrass musicians my age (millennial), this was the main entry point. If you go to a jam, everyone who’s in their 30’s-40’s basically got started with the soundtrack. It’s why there’s so much Mike Compton in my playing — he was the mandolin player on that album, so I still at some level feel like that’s what mandolin is supposed to sound like. Great episode as always! I’m on vacation and it was such a treat to get this now. Thanks!
according to the Edelman bio, James Joyce never read the Odyssey either, knowing the story from a Victorian children's book adaptation titled, likewise, Ulysses. apparently this is common among adapters
Do Tall Tale at some point with Phoebe. I think her reaction to American folk heroes would be fun.
The soundtrack for this film was constantly on repeat throughout my childhood. When I asked my mom why, she told me , "Oh, I've never seen the film, I just liked the album." And you know what? She was right
I am a man of constant ENJOYMENT of this fine podcast
Oh shit, Chris Thomas King has a cameo in the tragically short-lived Neo-Noir series Quarry!
The entire time listening to the discussion about how this movie potentially problematic adapts black culture and music to create "magic" and "myth" just has me screaming "please go watch Sinners"
His NIECE?! Was AJ trolling me, a person he has never met, specifically?! George Clooney's Aunt was Rosemary freaking Clooney. You know, like from White Christmas? She was one of the great vocalists of the 20th century.
I screamed.
Are Spree candies pitching or catching in AJ's Omegaverse folder?
Not only is Imperial Cyclops a rank in the KKK its specifically the flag barer like Goodman's character
"There is nothing sexual about divorce." Do MILFs and DILFs mean NOTHING to you??
This movie makes me proud to be from the South. Sometimes it's hard to be proud of that.
Also the movie ending with electricity and modernity coming in to sweep away all this mythic stuff reminds me of the planned series end of CARNIVALE (RIP) which plots the Great Depression as an actual battle between God and Satan and various magical forces, as the first successful trinity nuclear test which banishes magic from the world
So could this movie be renamed... Adventures in The Odyssey?
he* WHUT??? *ulysses
I believe the soundtrack of this led to the 2010s era stomp clap hey bands, like the Lumineers or Mumford and sons.
Sing, muse, of the bit-slinging AJ, a man who looks like a divorced Kermit and who enters (and then is ejected from) all sexual situations with a horse-related come on. Does this satisfy Bryan and Josh?
I love this movie and every time i watch it i get pissed about the role (or lack there of) of black characters for pretty much the same reasons yall go over. Tbh can’t think of a Coen Bros movie where they do a good job with race or characters who are POC (omg John Turturro in The Big Lebowski? Tragic). I wonder if the “disguise —> blackface” element was the Coen bros trying to make a joke about/mock sincere (??) usage of blackface… feels weird! I never noticed until listening to this ep how strange it is that the radio station fella drops the n word, but the klansman says “negro”. Maybe using the slur both times or even switching the placement would have made the klan scene ~too serious~ My dad and I (we’re black) still quote “the colored guard is colored!!!” at each other to this day tho lol When Clooney is allowed to be funny he reminds me of Cary Grant!
The thing about Intolerable Cruelty is that if you know any Cary Grant lore you realize Clooney is doing a huge riff on Grant in that right down to Grant’s actual on set obsession with brushing his teeth. Had Hudsucker been a hit they could’ve gotten the IC they wanted to make which was a full on 1930s set black and white screwball
My great-grandfather accidentally helped Baby Face Nelson escape from a bank robbery in Ohio 🤣
Watching Kindergarten Cop would honestly help me calm down...
Clooney... Oh you mean husband of the famous international human rights lawyer?
ohhhhh, amal clooney's husband?? knew that name sounded familiar
AJ's horse mourners nearly made me spit out my coffee when I heard the gunshots
I would like to see an ep about “Seabiscuit” that is technically a movie review - but actually a vehicle for several dozen AJ Horse Corners.
One reason it might not have worked to have Tommy join the gang for the whole adventure is Everett is effectively conning Pete and Delmar. There is no treasure. Bringing Tommy along would have meant Everett was continuing the lie, and spreading it, which makes him a much less sympathetic protagonist. A really interesting double feature would be O Brother and Sinners. Just on general Coen stuff, the trailer for Honey Don’t dropped last week and reminded me I’d skipped seeing Drive Away Dolls. PSA it’s a good movie, especially for those of us committed to not taking things seriously.
2 weeks ago my coworker and I had been talking about Sky King, next day yall dropped an episode on him. Yesterday that same coworker is telling me about his ancestor Roscoe who recorded a version of "man of broken sorrow" in 1961, bringing up this movie as he did so. Then yall drop this! Get out of my head!
Sounds like they're in your co-worker's head
Can AJ please convince the gang to do the Spirit horse movie? We all need this
Tiresias would be an amazing name for someone transitioning.
tiresias the gender fluid druid is prime d&d character setup
A fantastic episode about a movie I love that involved me having to learn about a new candy that looks like absolute shite. Keep up the good work.
Man, I think that my junior high classics class utilizing it and my church actually screening it gave me a misperception of this movie.
The thing about Tommy/Robert Johnson is fascinating on its own because they are 2 entirely unrelated musicians from the same time with the same myth about them. This is probably from some confusion back then, but Robert Johnson is almost certainly the originator. He is also way more famous and definitely the basis of Tommy in the film, but I've never seen an answer as to why they used the name Tommy in the film
On a surface level, it probably has to do with Sony owning Robert Johnson's recordings and likeness and being very protective of them. But the deeper thing the Coens are getting at is oral tradition. The Homeric epics were passed down for centuries before being written down, so we have no idea what Homer's original versions were, and the modern published versions are stitched together from different manuscripts, which record different versions of parts of the poems. They also seem to have subsumed entire other works into their structure. When you get into the history of Blues music, the situation is the same both with the music (the lyrics are all stuff handed from song to song, lines appearing and disappearing depending on who's singing it) and the stories we got about the artists themselves when (white) folklorists started going into the south to record everything. Tommy and Robert Johnson got confused, and I think there were a number of artists who either claimed to be related to Robert Johnson or who actually performed under his name after he died, as it wasn't widely known when he died. Alan Lomax famously missed finding Robert Johnson by a matter of months, arriving where he'd been living shortly after he'd died.
Like AJ, I am basically listening to this podcast in a fugue state on 1h of sleep in about 48h and over a gram of pure caffeine