...In the film "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" there are many elements of The Odyssey used to explore aspects of modern American culture. For instance, in the beginning there was a scene in which people were getting baptized. Two of the three main characters, Delmar and Pete, wanted to join in because it forgave all of their sins. This shows that during the Great Depression, a lot of people looked to religion to help them out of their hard times. This also resembles the scene in The Odyssey with the lotus eaters. Another example is the “cyclops.” The man portrayed as the cyclops in the movie, Big Dan Teague, is a member of the Ku Klux Klan, a symbol of racism. He is later killed by a burning cross, which shows that racism is disheartening. A scene in the film "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" involves baptisms. The filmmakers, the Coen brothers, used the scene in Homer’s The Odyssey with the lotus eaters to develop this scene in the movie. The scenes are very similar in that they lure the men in and provide them with something they like; in the movie they are redeemed of their sins and in The Odyssey they are provided with food. In "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" Delmar is the first to get baptized and he says, “Well I was lyin' - and I'm...
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...In the movie O Brother Where Art Thou we meet Ulysses Everett Mc Grill, who had escape from prison with Pete and Delmar. Pete, Delmar and Everett where chain together and Everett convince them to escape from prison in search of a treasure he had buried. Everett was the leader of the group and made the decision for them. As their journey began Everett intentions manifested slowly through the movie. What makes a hero, “Hero a person noted for courageous acts or nobility of character” Dictonary.com. Everett is not a hero, he is an opportunist. He was charismatic and uses it to his advantage to fool Pete and Delmar to follow him on his journey. Everett motive to escape from prison was for his own selfish reason to see his wife. Pete and Delmar...
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...“O Brother Where Art Thou?” is closely related to the story of Odessyus in a number of ways. Everett from “o Brother Where Art Thou?” is loosely based off of Odessyeus due to their similar character traits. Both characters want to return to the women they love but with many obstacles in their path. Odesseus, king of Ithaca, conqueror of Tryo, undertakes a twenty year journey to return to his home and reunite with his wife. Everett, a citizen of Mobile, Alabama and a criminal running from the law after escaping prison with his three brothers after being arrested for practicing law without a license. A similarity between these two plot’s outcomes is that in Odesseyeus’ story, he returns to Ithaca only to find his own people rogue and disrespecting...
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...“O Brother Where Art Thou” review by Nicholas Drake “O Brother Where Art Thou” is a film, that if you have not yet seen it, you should do so. It takes little to know time to recognize the influence of Homer’s The Odyssey in the film, as it is based off of the epic. Set in rural Mississippi in the 1940’s, we join the story where Ulysses McGill (George Clooney), Pete (John Turturro), and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) are escaping prison in a search for a “hidden treasure”. Along their journey, the three cross paths with bank robbers, con artists, a mass baptism, and they almost see their demise. The music used in the film, contributes tremendously to its tone. The use of oldies and bluegrass music makes for a better viewing experience because of the visuals used in the film. Farmlands, cotton fields, dirt roads, and Dapper Dan’s hair pomade along with the music used in the film help create the experience of what life was like in rural Mississippi during the 1940’s. Ulysses McGill, played by George Clooney, acts as an Odysseus like character. Though his performance is not knock-your-socks-off good, Clooney does do the role justice and carries the sarcastic comedy that occurs frequently in the film. Turturro and Nelson’s characters, Pete and Delmar serve as sidekicks to Clooney but contribute to the plot seamlessly. Other characters like Big Dan played by John Goodman and Babyface Nelson played by Michael Baddalucco serve as plot twisters in the film. While their roles do not contribute...
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...Movie Summary- The Hero’s Journey For this assignment I decided to rewatch a movie I know that follows the hero’s journey very well, and that is “O Brother, Where Art Thou” by Joel Coen, starring George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson and John Goodman. The call to adventure in this movie is when the three farm workers decided to escape their work farm, and a black man that is blind predicts that their quest to fortune will give them nothing but failure. The refusal of the call is when Pete (one of the workers) doubts of the man’s prediction. The supernatural aid in this film is obviously the blind man that predicts the future. The first threshold the prisoners have to pass is to escape the farm they were sent to to work. The men enter the belly of the whale when Pete’s cousin calls the police to arrest the men for the money he would get in reward and the prisoners have to advance past this step...
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...Everett from “O Brother Where Art Thou” and Odysseus from “The Odyssey” are alike because they share a similar journey. Everett and Odysseus just want to get home to their families. Although they come from different backgrounds, Everett as an escaped convict, and Odysseus as a war hero, they share the same enthusiasm to get home. For example, in “O Brother Where Art Thou” a quote states, “Everett and Penny walk arm in arm, the seven Wharvey gals behind,” this quote shows that Everett did finally get home to his family after all. In “The Odyssey”, another instance would be, “What I want and all my days I pine for is to go back to my house and see my day of homecoming,” this quote shows Odysseus longing for his home. Obviously both of these quotes show that these two characters would like to go home or have successfully gotten home. Everett and Odysseus encounter a one-eyed man/monster who has a desire to either hurt them or kill them. For example, in “The Odyssey,” a quote would be, “ Two he seized and dashed to the ground like whelps, and their brains ran out and stained the Earth,” this quote is appropriate for this topic because it says that the Cyclops basically wanted to kill...
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...Have you ever read a book and then watched the movie? When you are watching the movie you find some things similar, but most of it is different, right? I read the book The Odyssey and watched the movie O Brother Where Art Thou? I compared the similarities and the differences. When I was doing that, I found a lot of the same things in the movie as they were in the book. This was a movie and book that were different, but the same in different ways that were sometimes hidden in the storyline of O Brother Where Art Thou? I thought there were many similarities in the movie and in the book. One that really caught my attention was the prophecy. In the movie when the men were riding with the blind guy on the train track he said, “ You guys will seek a great fortune, but not the one you are looking for…” In the book Odysseus goes to the underworld and Tiresias of Thebes tells him, “ If you don’t show restraint and control you won’t make it home.” The prophecies are alike in many ways....
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...Final Film Critique: O Brother, Where Art Thou? Robert L. Forbes ENG 225 Film: From Watching to Seeing. Instructor Ebony Gibson April 29, 2013 Final Film Critique: O Brother, Where Art Thou? Everyone likes to laugh, and this film is no stranger to the call. O Brother, Where Art Thou is indeed a comical action/adventure and musical romp Directed by Joel Coen and Produced by Ethan Coen. The Cast consist of many favorites in film such as George Clooney, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson. The film O Brother, according to well-known film critic Roger Ebert (2000), “is based on Homer’s The Odyssey” (p.1), this is an epic Greek poem around 700 B.C. Although the setting is much different, the Homeric journey of three would be prisoners of the late 1930s are similar to The Odyssey and its theme of perseverance. The movie O Brother, Where Art Thou however has a comical twist accompanied by great Gospel/Bluegrass music, and scenes that play into an allegorical concept including references to repentance and salvation during the depression of that era. The storyline in this movie the collaborating efforts of the Coen brothers and cinematographer Roger Deakins bring together...
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...The Odyssey Haleigh Pavy O’ Brother where art thou is a great representation of the Odyssey. It shows great representation of the characters and mood and also of each other. It turns a fiction epic to a real life story. The Odyssey is a epic about how this king named Odysseus went over seas to the Trojan War. He was there for ten years, on his journey back he got cursed by a cyclops, he got all his men killed and he got stuck on circes island for seven years. Then after twenty years of being gone he finally returns home to suitors, impersonators, and he returns disguised as a beggar. O’ Brother where art thou is about how three escaped prisoners go off to find “treasure”. Everette who represents Odysseus really just wants to get home with...
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...watching O Brother Where Art Thou? Several factors lead to the impaction that a reader may face or feel including, but not limited to the obstacles they face, the characters’ goals, and the setting. To start off with, the characters’ actions is a reason that a literary journey can influence a reader. From The Odyssey, we can see that Odysseus’ main obstacle was the cyclops. What this means is that the cyclops impacted his journey because he had to defeat him. Additionally, from O Brother Where Art Thou? we can also see that they faced a major obstacle as well which was the law. To explain further this means that there were multiple times that their plan could have failed when...
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...The main character was able to show this important message in the book, because of the plot following his return home. He was captured, and lost many of his crew member’s lives, because he did not trust the gods like a man of that time was supposed to. This book also inspired the movie ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’, a movie where a man escapes from jail and is in need to return home before his wife gets remarried. Religion is one of the major themes from the book that showed up in this movie. The people around Everett (the man who represented Odysseus in the movie,) are very religious and sensitive to Everett’s lack of belief. The Coen brothers were able to use events inspired from the book to show how strong the idea of religion is in any given society, including the modern society shown in the movie and the ancient society represented in The Odyssey....
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...309231-314695 Prikaz filma O Brother , Where Art Thou? O Brother , Where Art Thou je film koji je temeljen na Homerovoj Odiseji i dok gledamo film možemo primjetiti dosta sličnosti. Samu priču glavnog lika Evereta možemo uporediti sa avanturama glavnog lika Odiseje , putovanja , razne avanture i povratak voljenoj ženi. Pored toga par scena i sporednih likova je dosta slično , kiklop je ovde prikazan kao lažni prodavač-lopov , sirene su prikazane kao zgodne djevojke na rijeci koje pjesmom zavedu i prouzrorukju nevolje Everetu , Delmaru i Pitu koji ga kroz film prate u nadi da će pronaći blago. Blago zbog kojeg je Everet navodno i završio u zatvoru nikada nije ni postojalo ali je morao nekako Delmara i Pita , koji su bili na istom zatvorskom lancu kao i on nagovoriti da zajedno sa njim pobjegnu iz zatvora da bi mogao spriječiti vjenčanje svoje žene za drugog muškarca. Film je smješten u 1930-tu godinu u periodu prelaska iz starog načina zivota na neki moderniji. Everet svojim ponašanjem , razmišljanjem i postupcima više podsjeća na današnjeg čovjeka nego na nekog ko je živio 1930-te. On ne vjeruje u neku višu silu , odluke donosi racionalno , pomalo se ismijava Delmaru i Pitu , pa tako na primjer kada im sveštenik ''spere'' grijehe u rijeci on govori kako im je Bog oprostio ali država Misisipi nije i da su jos uvijek krivi. Delmar i Pit su prikaz onoga kako su ljudi u to vrijeme vrijednovali stvari i šta je bio prioritet. Dok njih 3 razgovaraju o tome kako će ko potrošiti...
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...The Hero’s Journey was a concept created by Joseph Campbell. This concept was displayed in The Odyssey by Homer and in O, Brother, Where Art Thou? created by the Coen brothers. In O Brother Where Art Thou? and The Odyssey the many elements of the Hero’s Journey are evident in the two tales. Three elements are Meeting the Mentor; Allies, Tests, and Enemies; and Resurrection. The mentor between both of the tales are different, but they both hold the element of the Hero’s Journey. Meeting the Mentor is the 4th step in The Hero’s Journey, if you follow the original order. In O, Brother the mentor is the blind man they encounter at the beginning of the movie. The blind man is a mentor to Everett, the main character, because he gives him a prophecy to guide him. He says this prophecy while on the pump car when the trio gets onto it to escape. In The Odyssey the mentor is Athena. She appears a lot...
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...Moat men who have been away from family – want to return to them. When a person travels long distances they happen to come upon obstacles. Pride is the most important thing that keeps men going. In the book “The Odyssey” and the film “O Brother Where Art Thou?”, we can compare three basic subjects: characters, events, and the journey. Even though the characters in the book and film have some things in common; they are very different. In “The Odyssey” by Homer, Odysseus lied to his men for the sake of keeping them safe. While in “O Brother Where Art Thou?” Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, Everett lied to Pete and Delmar so he could stop his wife from remarrying. Hence forth, Odysseus gives more of an honorable standing in the sense of loyalty to friends and family equally. While Everett seems more focused on his family. As the plots of the compared unfold, there are events that are alike. Odysseus dressed as an elderly beggar man to fool the suitors – so he could see his wife. Everett on the other hand, dresses as an elderly hobo – who is a part of a singing group to fool Homer and the suitor; so he could see his wife. Both of the men used elderly disguises to fool people in...
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...Webster Dictionary defines an odyssey as a series of experiences that give knowledge or understanding to someone. Both O' Brother Where Art Thou?and Homer's Odyssey have characters who go on epic journeys in a search for their home. With help from their friends, both characters make the perilous journey home, but not without costs. Both heroes must face many villains and challenges along the way. Although Everett and Odysseus have their differences, both are just men who want to return to their families. Everett and Odysseus are trying to get back to their homes before their wives can remarry. Everett convinces Pete and Delmar to escape the chain gang with him in search for treasure, in order to get his wife Penny back. Even though there...
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