O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a 2000 satirical comedy-drama musical film written, produced, co-edited, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. It stars George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson, with Charles Durning, Michael Badalucco, John Goodman and Holly Hunter in supporting roles.
It follows three escaped convicts searching for hidden treasure while a sheriff relentlessly pursues them. Its story is a modern satire which, while incorporating social features of the American South, is loosely based on Homer's epic Greek poem the Odyssey. Some examples of this include Sirens, a Cyclops, and the main character's name, "Ulysses", which is the Roman name for "Odysseus". The title of the film is a reference to the 1941 Preston Sturges film Sullivan's Travels, in which the protagonist is a director who wants to film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a fictitious book about the Great Depression.
Much of the music used in the film is period folk music. The movie was one of the first to extensively use digital color correction to give the film an autumnal sepia-tinted look. It was released by Buena Vista Pictures in North America, while Universal Pictures, through United International Pictures, released it in other countries. The film was met with a positive critical reception; the Coens were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and Deakins for Best Cinematography, while the soundtrack won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002. The country and folk musicians who were dubbed into the film include John Hartford, Alison Krauss, Dan Tyminski, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Ralph Stanley, Chris Sharp, and Patty Loveless. They joined to perform the music from the film on the Down from the Mountain concert tour. One of the performances was filmed and released as a documentary.
Contents
Plot
In the summer of 1937, three convicts – Pete, Delmar, and Everett – escape from a Mississippi chain gang to retrieve a buried treasure hidden by Everett before the area is flooded to make a lake. The three are assisted by a blind man driving a handcar on a railroad, who prophetically tells them they will find a different fortune than the one they seek. The trio then travels to Pete's cousin, Wash, who breaks off their shackles, feeds them, and allows them to sleep in his barn. While they are sleeping, Wash reports them to Sheriff Cooley, who torches the barn with his men. Wash's son helps the trio escape. Pete and Delmar get baptized in a river the next day, but Everett refuses to join them.
The group then picks up Tommy Johnson, a young black man who claims that he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the ability to play the guitar. In need of money, the four stop at a radio station, where they record a rendition of "Man of Constant Sorrow" as the "Soggy Bottom Boys". That night, the trio parts ways with Tommy after their car is discovered by the police. They then briefly fall in with outlaw George "Baby Face" Nelson, who has been robbing banks and killing cows, but after becoming depressed, George gives the trio his cash and walks off. Unbeknownst to the trio, their radio recording becomes a major hit.
Near a river, the group hears singing and finds three women washing clothes. The women give them corn whiskey and they lose consciousness. Upon waking, Delmar finds Pete's clothes lying next to him, empty except for a toad. Delmar is convinced the women were sirens who transformed Pete into a frog, and so takes the frog with them. Later, one-eyed Bible salesman Big Dan invites them for a picnic lunch, then mugs the men and kills the toad.
On their way to Everett's hometown, Everett and Delmar glimpse Pete working on a chain gang. They arrive in town in the midst of a campaign rally for Homer Stokes, the challenger in the upcoming gubernatorial election. Everett confronts his wife Penny, who told their daughters that he was hit by a train. He gets into a fight with Vernon, her new suitor and Stokes' campaign manager. While recovering at a movie theater, Everett and Delmar encounter a group of prisoners including Pete, who warns them that an ambush has been set up at the treasure site.
That night, they sneak into Pete's holding cell and free him. Pete confesses that he gave up the treasure's location to the police under torture, but Everett then confesses that he made up the treasure to convince the men he was chained with to escape with him, so that he could stop his wife from getting remarried. Pete, enraged, fights with Everett until the trio stumble into a Ku Klux Klan rally, presided over by Homer Stokes as its Grand Wizard, and find that the Klan has captured Tommy to lynch him. The trio disguise themselves as Klansmen and attempt to rescue Tommy, but they are unmasked by Big Dan. Chaos ensues as the trio rush Tommy away and cut the supports of a large burning cross, which falls on Big Dan.
Cast
George Clooney as Ulysses Everett McGill. He corresponds to Odysseus (Ulysses) in the Odyssey. His singing voice is dubbed by Dan Tyminski.
John Turturro as Pete. Along with Delmar, Pete represents Odysseus's soldiers who travel with him from Troy to Ithaca, seeking to return home. His singing is dubbed by Harley Allen.
Tim Blake Nelson as Delmar O'Donnell. Nelson does his own singing on "In the Jailhouse Now", but otherwise his singing is dubbed by Pat Enright.
Chris Thomas King as Tommy Johnson, a skilled blues musician. He shares his name and story with Tommy Johnson, a blues musician who is said to have sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads (also attributed to Robert Johnson).
John Goodman as Daniel "Big Dan" Teague, a one-eyed mugger and Ku Klux Klan member who masquerades as a Bible salesman. He corresponds to the cyclops Polyphemus in the Odyssey.
Holly Hunter as Penny Wharvey-McGill, Everett's ex-wife. She corresponds to Penelope in the Odyssey.
Charles Durning as Menelaus "Pappy" O'Daniel, the grumpy governor of Mississippi. The character is based on Texas governor W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel. He shares a name with Menelaus, an Odyssey character, but corresponds with Zeus from the narrative.
Daniel von Bargen as Sheriff Cooley, a ruthless rural sheriff who pursues the trio for the duration of the film. He corresponds to both Poseidon in the Odyssey and also possibly the devil. He has been compared to Boss Godfrey in Cool Hand Luke.
Wayne Duvall as Homer Stokes, a candidate for governor and the leader of a Ku Klux Klan chapter. His singing is dubbed by Ralph Stanley.
Ray McKinnon as Vernon T. Waldrip. He corresponds to the suitors of Penelope in the Odyssey.
Production
The idea of O Brother, Where Art Thou? arose spontaneously. Work on the script began in December 1997, long before the start of production, and it was at least half-written by May 1998. Despite the fact that Ethan Coen described the Odyssey as "one of my favorite storyline schemes", neither of the brothers had read the epic, and they were only familiar with its content through adaptations and numerous references to the Odyssey in popular culture. According to the brothers, Tim Blake Nelson (who has a degree in classics from Brown University) was the only person on the set who had read the Odyssey.
The title of the film is a reference to the 1941 Preston Sturges film Sullivan's Travels, in which the protagonist (a director) wants to direct a film about the Great Depression called O Brother, Where Art Thou? that will be a "commentary on modern conditions, stark realism, and the problems that confront the average man". Lacking any experience in this area, the director sets out on a journey to experience the human suffering of the average man but is sabotaged by his anxious studio. The film has some similarity in tone to Sturges's film, including scenes with prison gangs and a black church choir. The prisoners at the picture show scene is also a direct homage to a nearly identical scene in Sturges's film.
Joel Coen revealed in a 2000 interview that he traveled to Phoenix to offer the lead role to Clooney. Clooney agreed to do the role immediately, without reading the script. He stated that he liked even the Coens' least successful films. Clooney did not immediately understand his character and sent the script to his uncle Jack, who lived in Kentucky, asking him to read the entire script into a tape recorder. Unknown to Clooney, in his recording, Jack, a devout Baptist, omitted all instances of the words "damn" and "hell" from the Coens' script, which only became known to Clooney after the directors pointed this out to him during shooting.
This was the fourth film of the brothers in which John Turturro has starred. Other actors in O Brother, Where Art Thou? who had worked previously with the Coens include John Goodman (three films), Holly Hunter (two), Charles Durning (two) and Michael Badalucco (one).
The Coens used digital color correction to give the film a sepia-tinted look. Joel stated this was because the actual set was "greener than Ireland". Cinematographer Roger Deakins said, "Ethan and Joel favored a dry, dusty Delta look with golden sunsets. They wanted it to look like an old hand-tinted picture, with the intensity of colors dictated by the scene and natural skin tones that were all shades of the rainbow." Initially the crew tried to perform the color correction using a physical process, but after several tries with various chemical processes proved unsatisfactory the process was performed digitally.
Music
The music was originally conceived as a major component of the film, not merely as a background or a support. Producer and musician T Bone Burnett worked with the Coens while the script was still in its working phases and the soundtrack was recorded before filming commenced.
Much of the music used in the film is period-specific folk music. The selection also includes religious music such Primitive Baptist and traditional African American gospel, most notably the Fairfield Four, an a cappella quartet with a career extending back to 1921. The quartet appears in the soundtrack and as gravediggers towards the film's end. Selected songs in the film reflect the possible spectrum of musical styles typical of the old culture of the American South: gospel, delta blues, country, swing, and bluegrass.
The use of dirges and other macabre songs is a theme that often recurs in Appalachian music ("O Death", "Lonesome Valley", "Angel Band", "I Am Weary") in contrast to bright and cheerful songs ("Keep On the Sunny Side", "In the Highways") in other parts of the film.
The voices of the Soggy Bottom Boys were provided by Dan Tyminski (lead vocal on "Man of Constant Sorrow"), Nashville songwriter Harley Allen, and the Nashville Bluegrass Band's Pat Enright. The three won a CMA Award for Single of the Year and a Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals, both for the song "Man of Constant Sorrow". Tim Blake Nelson sang the lead vocal on "In the Jailhouse Now". During a cast reunion at the 2020 Nashville Film Festival, George Clooney recalled being called into the recording studio and singing despite his lack of talent. It was assumed that he could sing because he was the nephew of Rosemary Clooney. Despite the relation, he could not.
"Man of Constant Sorrow" has five variations: two are used in the film, one in the music video, and two in the soundtrack album. Two of the variations feature the verses being sung back-to-back, and the other three variations feature additional music between each verse. Though the song received little significant radio airplay, it reached #35 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in 2002. The version of "I'll Fly Away" heard in the film is performed not by Krauss and Welch (as it is on the CD and concert tour), but by the Kossoy Sisters with Erik Darling accompanying on long-neck five-string banjo, recorded in 1956 for the album Bowling Green on Tradition Records.
Release and reception
The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 13, 2000, the United Kingdom on September 15, 2000, and the United States on December 22, 2000. It grossed $71,868,327 worldwide on a $26 million budget.
Critical response
The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 78% of reviews critics are positive based on 158 reviews with an average rating of 7.3/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Though not as good as Coen brothers' classics, the delightfully loopy O Brother, Where Art Thou? is still a lot of fun." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average, gave it a score of 69 out of 100 based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert gave two and a half out of four stars to the film, saying all the scenes in the film were "wonderful in their different ways, and yet I left the movie uncertain and unsatisfied".
In 2021, members of Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) and Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) voted the film's screenplay 99th in WGA's 101 Greatest Screenplays of the 21st Century (so far). In 2025, it ranked number 76 on The New York Times's list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century" and number 66 on the "Readers' Choice" edition of the list.
Accolades
The film was selected to be part of the main competition of the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.
Soggy Bottom Boys
The Soggy Bottom Boys are the fictional musical group that the main characters form as part of the plot; their songs also serve as accompaniment for the film. It has been suggested that the name is in homage to the Foggy Mountain Boys, a bluegrass band led by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. In the film, the actors lip-synched the songs credited to the band, except for Tim Blake Nelson's own voice on "In the Jailhouse Now".
The band's hit single is Dick Burnett's "Man of Constant Sorrow", a song that had enjoyed much success prior to the movie's release. After the film's release, the fictitious band became so popular that the country and folk musicians whose performances are heard on the film embarked on a concert tour called Down from the Mountain, which was filmed for TV and DVD. They included Ralph Stanley, John Hartford, Alison Krauss and Union Station, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Chris Sharp, Stun Seymour, Dan Tyminski and others.
