Coens Sing a Song of the South in ‘O Brother’

The Coen brothers did not make their reputation by taking things too seriously, and in that sense “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” is of a piece with what’s come before. An eccentric, picaresque Southern period comedy, “Bonnie & Clyde” as told by Monty Python, “O Brother” is rife with the kinds of genial madness only writer-director Joel and writer-producer Ethan can come up with.

The Coens, however, have treated one element with respect this time around, and that’s made quite a difference. Fans of traditional American music, country, blues and bluegrass, they’ve worked with composer T Bone Burnett to select nearly 20 prime examples and seen them superbly recorded by top-of-the-line contemporary musicians such as Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch (who has a cameo as a record buyer) and Ralph Stanley.

As a result “O Brother’s” music is more than pleasant background; it is a living presence, and with apologies to an excellent cast, just about the star of the picture. By enlivening things to an unprecedented extent, the songs turn “O Brother” into perhaps the warmest production in the Coens’ repertoire.

“O Brother’s” inspiration and story line are a typically eclectic Coen brothers mix. The film’s title and its opening 1930s chain-gang setting are a tip of the hat to Preston Sturges’ classic Hollywood comedy “Sullivan’s Travels,” but what “O Brother” is really riffing off is something different. With whimsical glee, it cross-pollinates two vivid and distinct mythologies, contrasting the ancient Greeks with the cliched movie South.

“Based Upon ‘The Odyssey’ by Homer” reads an opening title card, and, like another deadpan card the Coens considered but rejected (“Portions Also Based on ‘Moby-Dick’), it is as true as it is amusing.

Here’s a hero named Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney) who sets out on a long and difficult journey, encountering along the way a bad-tempered Cyclops named Big Dan Teague (John Goodman), a trio of honey-tongued sirens (sung but not acted by Harris, Krauss and Welch), even a wife named Penny. It’s enough to make you want to rent the old Kirk Douglas-starring “Ulysses” to compare and contrast plot points and adaptation styles.

Just as much fun to notice are the endless chestnuts about the Old South that dot the landscape, mocking our thirst for standard plot elements. Ignorant farmers, mass riverside baptisms, burning crosses, crooked politicians and more, they’ve all made it into the Coens’ rambling plot.

“O Brother” also delights in working up connections between the music and the mythology. So, spoofing the legends surrounding blues giant Robert Johnson, there’s a singer named Tommy Johnson (Chris Thomas King) who talks of meeting the devil by a crossroads. And Charles Durning’s irascible singing governor Pappy O’Daniel, host of the “Pass the Biscuits Pappy O’Daniel Flour Hour,” brings to mind Jimmy Davis, the real-life singing governor of Louisiana and the author of the “You Are My Sunshine” song that is Durning’s theme.

The story all these references get worked around begins with a trio of manacled convicts fleeing a Mississippi chain gang. With a fondness for Dapper Dan hair pomade and a misguided belief in his own powers of persuasion, Clooney’s McGill may be dumb, but his fellow escapees Pete (John Turturro) and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) are dumber and dumbest, respectively.

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All three have departed the chain gang in search of a $1.2-million stolen treasure McGill has secreted in a cabin that is in imminent danger of being flooded by a dam. Trying to get the money and avoid the law, our boys take time out to cut a record as Jordan Rivers and the Soggy Bottom Boys and cross paths with everyone from manic-depressive bank robber George “Don’t Call Me Baby Face” Nelson (Michael Badalucco) to Homer Stokes, the Reform candidate for governor (Wayne Duvall), an enemy of O’Daniel who is such a friend of the little man he has his own little man accompany him on campaign swings.

Helped by computers able to desaturate color, cinematographer Roger Deakins has given “O Brother” an old-fashioned patina that matches its music. “It’s a fool who looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart,” one character says, and while it may be equally foolhardy to look for logic in a Coen brothers film, this one makes it most pleasant to try.

* MPAA rating: PG-13, for some violence and language. Times guidelines: a scene of cows being machine-gunned.

‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’

George Clooney: Ulysses Everett McGill

John Turturro: Pete

Tim Blake Nelson: Delmar

Charles Durning: Pappy O’Daniel

Michael Badalucco: George Nelson

Touchstone Pictures and Universal Pictures present, in association with Studio Canal, a Working Title production released by Touchstone Pictures. Director Joel Coen. Producer Ethan Coen. Executive producers Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner. Screenplay Ethan Coen & Joel Coen. Cinematographer Roger Deakins. Editors Roderick Jaynes, Tricia Cooke. Costumes Mary Zophres. Music T Bone Burnett. Production design Dennis Gassner. Art director Richard Johnson. Set decorator Nancy Haigh. Running time: 1 hour, 43 minutes.

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