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O BROTHER, WHERE ARE THOU?
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From its opening titles -- O Muse, sing in me! -- O BROTHER, WHERE ARE THOU?, the newest Coen brothers stylized historical-American epic, announces its homage to the Odyssey (by Homer, the credits tell us, just in case we wondered which Odyssey was being referenced). Moments later, from among the golden-hued corn stalks adjacent to a railroad on which a chain gang breaks rocks, singing in the hot sun, emerges Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney) and his two fellow escapees, Pete (John Turturro) and Delmar (newcomer Tim Blake Nelson, who more than holds his own with Turturro and Clooney). Stealthily (sic) they make their break through the golden corn stalks to freedom. Why the urgency? Because, we discover a little later, McGill has a treasure -- one million point two dollars -- that will be drowned in four days when a lake is to be created by the newly formed Tennessee Valley Authority.
Moments later they are accosted by a blind prophet and poet (standing in for both Homer and Teiresias) who foretells long journeying in pursuit of tray-shure and that they will not find it but another, greater tray-shure, but not before they have seen a cow atop a milk barn.
Everett, loquacious pomade loyalist ("Not Fop!" he says when presented with a competitive product, "I'm a Dapper Dan man!"), becomes their leader mostly by virtue of verbal alacrity and nonstop optimism that Clooney spouts easily, displaying a comic flair that often goes over the top. When they cut a record at WEZY (passing themselves off as the Soggy Bottom Boys for the blind station owner), singing into a black-can microphone, Clooney's eyes roll as if either the mike will bite him or the dog pack posse will break in at any moment. But exaggerated facial contortions, common in Coen Brothers films ever since RAISING ARIZONA, are standard among the escapee trio and among those they meet -- the Cyclops Big Dan Teague (John Goodman, whose bluff heartiness can smoothly morph into grim death, as in BARTON FINK), manic-depressive bank robber George (not 'Baby Face') Nelson (Michael Badalucco), and Governor Menelaus 'Pappy' O'Daniel (Charles Durning).
In movies à clef (like CLUELESS with Emma and BEDAZZLED with Faust, two of our favorites), part of the fun consists in catching the Easter Eggs -- references to the text from which the story is drawn. Bearing only a gauzy connection to Homer's story, these are pretty obscure. "We're in a tight spot!" exclaims Everett as they are caught between Scylla and Charybdis (Homer's monster and the whirlpool, here a burning barn and sheriff Daniel von Bargen's shotgun posse). We have Lotus Eaters and Sirens (*everybody* will identify that one), Circe changing Odysseus's men into swine (well, a horny toad), but no Kalypso, no Telemachus (instead, seven daughters?) and a faithless frigid Penelope (Coen alumna Holly Hunter delivering essentially the same performance she gave in RAISING ARIZONA).
But these are quibbles. The filmmaking is both beautiful and clever -- at one point a burning newspaper's front-page headline about the TVA crackles away to reveal an inside story about the Soggy Bottom Boys. O BROTHER, WHERE ARE THOU? is an inventive, affectionate picaresque, shot through mists of yellow lens filters, of times past -- both Depression-era Mississippi and Homer -- that have never looked better.