REEL REFLECTIONS

REVIEW: "OH BROTHER,
WHERE ART THOU?"

David Greiser

I am sometimes asked if I have unfulfilled dreams, having now lived at least half of my earthly life. I respond by saying that my unfulfilled dreams are three: to play first base for the Philadelphia Phillies, to become a stand-up comedian, and to write a regular film review column for a magazine. Thanks to DreamSeeker Magazine, the third of my unfulfilled dreams is about to be realized!

Film is a medium which reveals, better than any other, the world view(s) and longings of the emergent postmodern culture. Postmodernism has been characterized as an emerging view of reality colored by at least six perspectives: 1. an appropriate humility about what we can know; 2. a healthy skepticism about truth claims; 3. a thirst for spirituality; 4. an openness to faith; 5. a congenial tolerance for differences; 6. a limited relativism.

In the coming months, as I write this column, I hope to reflect on some postmodern themes portrayed in recent movies. I don’t want to do technical film criticism so much as cultural analysis through the “lens” of film. How do contemporary films envision a larger worldview? What is the shape of that worldview? How do movies reveal our longing for meaning, for purpose, and for God?

A postmodern worldview (if such there be) is said to be characterized as narratives in search of a metanarrative. Many films of recent vintage illustrate this perspective, perhaps none better than the madcap travelogue, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”

Based loosely indeed on The Odyssey of Homer (and sporting a character with the same name as that story’s hero), “Brother” spins the tall tale of three cons escaping from a chain gang in the Depression-era South. Two of the cons are lovable numbskulls. The third, Ulysses Everett McGill (played by George Clooney) fancies himself “a man of reason” with a gift of gab, and the brains of the outfit.

Buoyed by Ulysses’ false promise of a buried treasure, the trio steal cars, record a bluegrass record that becomes a surprise hit, are seduced by Sirens at a river (remember The Odyssey?), find religion at a baptism service in a creek, get beaten up by a Bible salesman (!), and are banned from Woolworth’s Five and Dime (“The whole chain, or just the local branch?” one asks.)

The film’s soundtrack is a joyful tour through American bluegrass music history. There are wonderful renditions of the Carter Family’s “I’ll Fly Away”; the Stanley Brothers’ “Angel Band” and “O Death”; as the movie’s theme, “Man of Constant Sorrow.” So well matched are the stories to the songs that one might well conclude the movie’s plot was developed around the songs.

If the structure of the film has a postmodern spirit—random stories in search of a larger narrative—the tone is more postmodern yet. Racism, religion, Southern small-town politics, and serious moral issues are treated with an ironic and irreverent wit that simultaneously skirts the edge of offensiveness while suggesting a social commentary.

In the film’s most effective scene, a Ku Klux Klan rally makes its participants and their attitudes look frightening and ridiculous at the same time. The cross burning, hateful rhetoric, and threatened sacrifice of a black man are carried out by a regiment of Klansmen marching in formation and chanting a tune obviously reminiscent of a parallel scene from “The Wizard of Oz.”

But while stereotypical Southern characters and attitudes come in for a ribbing, it is the self-proclaimed “man of reason” Ulysses who is ridiculed most. He chides his cohorts as “dumber’n a bag o’ hammers” for getting saved at an outdoor baptism, only later to seek redemption himself when it appears he is about to be lynched.

The treatment of Christianity and spirituality in the film is interesting. There are the usual Hollywood share of hucksters and evangelical salesmen, but the creek-side baptism is filmed with an ethereal beauty, suggesting a pure faith beneath its flawed institutions and practitioners. The entire film is bookended by the appearance of a blind “seer” on a railroad handcar who predicts the events of the story and then sings its outcome.

“O Brother” was written and produced by Joel and Ethan Coen, who were responsible for several other significant serio-comic films. These include “Fargo,” “The Big Lebowski,” and “Raising Arizona.”

They once claimed that “Fargo” was based on a true story—but later denied it. In a similar spirit, they initially stated that “O Brother” was based on The Odyssey, then admitted they had never actually read Homer’s epic.

No matter. They have imbibed the spirit of that great work, as well as key aspects of postmodern thought. “O Brother” does what good films should do: it entertains, comments on life and culture, and reveals its creators’ vision of the world all at the same time.

—David Greiser, Souderton, Pennsylvania is a pastor, Souderton Mennonite Church; a some-time preaching teacher, and a lover of films, baseball, philosophy, the city of Philadelphia, good spare ribs, and silence.