Another thread talks about this, but other than Estrella’s comments, I just don’t get it. Sure, I see the same thinly veiled references as most people do. But what I also see are a bunch of people saying “I’m not going to spoil it, so you’ll have to figure it out”. Well, this is the thread to spoil it in.
What do you people see as parallels between the two? Any comments on my statements below?
What I see?
John Goodman - cyclops.
Revival could be the lotus eaters.
Ulysses McGill - Odysseus
Blind man at beginning - The blind minstril Homer.
Figuring out the sirens is a no brainer.
Penny and her suiter, again a no brainer.
Is there an Athena Character?
What about the island of the nymph Calypso?
Odysseus son, Telemachus? I don’t think I see Baby Face Nelson as Telemachus thing.
Princess Nausicaa of the Phaeacians? I suppose since she’s first seen washing her wedding dress, there could be a cross reference with the sirens in the movie. Any comments?
The cyclops kills Pete (as a frog)… is that a reference to cyclops eating Odysseus’ men? What about the frog? It seems a stretch to compare that to Circe turning the men into swine.
Keeper of the winds? Again, not sure if I see the reference of Soggy Bottom Boys singing as a reference to the bag of winds Odysseus receives.
Laestrygonians, the giants who bombarded Odysseus with boulders and gobbled down his shipmates.
Circe who turned Odysseus men into swine.
Land of the dead? Is this the KKK rally? He doesn’t exactly see any old friends there who can help him.
Scylla who eats 6 men at each passing.
I suppose Odysseus changing into an old man disguise could be right before Ulysses sings, and he’s wearing the old man beard, etc.
Melantheus - the other begger that Odysseus beats up. Did I read where that there is a character in the movie with this name? Oh wait, that’s … Governor Menelaus is there a character Menelaus in The Odyssey?
Methinks you’re stretching the point a bit too far. Considering the Coen brothers admitted to never actually having read “The Odyssey”, I’d say they captured quite a few references to it in their film. It was hardly a remake a la “Psycho”.
As I stated, I have seen several instances where people claim that it is a remake. I’m saying, other than the six or seven examples I gave above, I don’t necessarily agree that it’s a remake.
For example, if you click on the link in my OP, you’ll see where Estrella says:
That’s out there, man. Way out there. Anyhoo, that’s why I’m looking for more references that are a little more down to Earth.
You sure about that? After all, the opening quote in the film is from The Odyssey. “Sing to me, Oh Muse…”
Actually, he does. They rescue the guitar player who’s about to be lynched. Later, they perform as “The Soggy Bottom Boys” at the rally for Penelope’s suitor, and, of course, they need the guitar player for this, and this is what enables Ulysses (the Roman name for Odysseus, BTW) to win back Penelope’s heart.
Its been a while since I’ve seen the film, so I can’t think of anything else, but I remember watching the film and thinking that it was the most faithful rendering on the screen of The Odyssey that I’ve ever seen.
The scene where they run into John Turturro in the movie theatre is Odysseus in the land of the dead.
Yes, the Coen brothers said they’d never read the Odyssey. They also said that Fargo was based on a true story. They also had someone say on the Blood Simple commentary that one scene of an actor in a car was filmed with both the car and the actor suspended upside-down, and that the dog in the movie was a special effect. Deadpan leg-pulling is the Coens’ favorite hobby.
Yeah, the Coen brothers were bullshitting when they said they never read the Odyssey. It’s clear from the movie; Ethan Coen also said so when answering some questions at the premiere of the O Brother concert film Down From the Mountain.
Y’all should read Cervaise’sreview of O Brother Where Art Thou?, not just because Cervaise’s reviews consistently kick my ass (and this one is my favorite), but because he has a few more instances of the Coens referencing or inverting the Odyssey. Everett’s seven daughters (a staple of myths and legends) rather than the one son of Homer’s tale, for example. And the maritime provenance of “McGill” and “Delmar.”
Also: In the Odyssey, the men travel endlessly on water before finding their salvation on the land. In O Brother, it’s (deliberately, I think) the other way around.
I was looking for the mythological references throughout (I’m a mthology geek, and can prove it), and was disappointed in finding so few correspondences with the Odyssey. Most of it is superficial.
John Goodman with an eyepatch = Cyclops, pretty obviously, but it doesn’t follow through from there. Nothing corresponds to the other items in that episode – no appeal to Poseidon, no blinding of the Cyclops, no escape from the Cave, no pun on “nobody”, no taunting of the Cyclops, no wandering for ten years because of the wrath of Poseidon at the blinding of his son. Heck, the Ernest B. Schoedsack/Merian C. Cooper 1940s film “Dr. Cyclops” had more correspondence with the myth of the Cyclops than this did.
I’ll admit that there may be some much more subtle references that I certainly missed, but I suspect that a great many of these are unintentional. I don’t think the Coens ever intended a very deep similarity with The Odyssey, and I can easily believe that, while they may have read it more closely than they let on, they didn’t let it dominate the film.
[classics major geek mode]Ummm… no she didn’t. At least I’m pretty sure she didn’t, I shan’t be able to check my handy-dandy copy of the Odyssey until tonight. But I definitely don’t recall and deed-asking by Nausicaa. Crap, this is the sort of thing that’s going to bother me all day… And where on earth is this Estrella person getting the idea that Penelope was fooling around with Antinous? Wasn’t he the one that was boinking all the servant girls? Argh![/classics major geek mode]
At any rate, Oh, Brother is really not a point-for-point retelling of the Odyssey, it just references it for the purposes of its own story. Like CalMeacham, I was actually expecting more similarities than I got. Great music though.
