2001 Talk About Movies
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Contents © 2001
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?

Directed by Joel Cohen. Starring: George Clooney, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson. 2000, Color, 106 minutes.

Matthew: A great deal of the music is about a journey. At the very beginning the journey is in search for an earthly paradise...

Ernie: ...a hobo's paradise of easy living and no responsibilities.

Matthew: Right, and that's what Everett and the other two think they're heading for. Everett thinks he's going back to the easy life of his marriage, and Pete and Delmar think they're going for earthly wealth.

Ernie: During his married life, Everett tried to make an easy life without putting in the work. He was in jail for practicing law without a license, and he planned to practice dentistry with a counterfeit license.

Matthew: But the oracle tells them, "you'll find treasure, but it will not be the treasure you seek." And by the end of the film, Everett hasn't gotten his wife back, and Pete and Delmar haven't gotten the treasure. What they have gotten is salvation from the devil.

Ernie: But even when he's been saved by the flood, Everett wants to believe that human progress, represented by the damming of the river, has saved him. Then he sees the cow on the cotton house, as the oracle had foretold, and he realizes that he's been saved by Providence.