O Brother, Where art Thou?

This film whilst drawing inspiration from Homer's The Odyssey did not srart out that way.. It was only as the character of Ulysses Evert McGill developed to trying to find his way home that it was drawn on, albeit loosely.  The Coen brothers admitted to only having read the comic book version of Homer's Odyssey which explains alot about the film!
The film was also influenced by the Preston Sturges movie Sullivan's Travels, this shows in the depression era setting and in the relevance to the time in Sullivan's Travels that the main character spends on a prison farm.  The influence also shows in the title.
The film was shot on location in Mississippi where the foliage was green and lush, in contrast to the feel that the brothers wanted for the film.  So they experimented with bleaching techniques and diluting colour neg with black and white print to try and achieve the look they wanted.  But this did not work.  The film Pleasantville proved to be a great turning point  in the making of O Brother.  It was made and the film was digitally re-worked to give some of the film black and white sections.  The suggestion was put to the brothers to try digitally reworking O Brother and they really like the results.  The manipulation was kept to a minimum though with just the green's and the overall saturation being played with.


British journalist Peter Bradshaw wrote in The Guardian....." O brother has brio, wit and style and the whole pictureis air-cushioned with appealing comedy and its own unassuming nature.......it is made with marvellous clarity and fluency and Joel and Ethan Coen attain a comic simplicity that other film-makers can only dream of" (The Guardian 15/9/2000)