Is the Sheriff Dans Dad O Brother Where Art Thou

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After a half-century of waiting, we finally go to run across that Great Low epic!

Written and directed by The Coen Brothers, three Low-era Mississippi prison house fugitives get on a rollicking adventure in an attempt to attain the money buried past one of them in his dorsum k. They have only a brusque time to exercise this, though, as the backyard in question is in an area slated to be flooded by the damming activities of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

The story is (very) loosely based on Homer's The Odyssey, post-obit Ulysses Everett McGill, Delmar O'Donnell and Pete as they meet, amongst others, a blind prophet, sirens, the Cyclops and a gifted guitar histrion who "sold his soul to the devil". Also during their journeying, they record a hit vocal, rob a bank with George "Infant Face" Nelson, encounter the KKK, and inadvertently get mixed up in the state gubernatorial election. Information technology was noted for the tremendous success of its soundtrack, most of which was recorded past Alison Krauss & Union Station (Dan Tyminski provided Everett's singing voice) and other land-bluegrass acts.

Bonus points if you recognize the title from the 1941 Preston Sturges' film Sullivans Travels .

Tropes used in O Brother, Where Fine art M? include:

• Amanuensis Scully: Despite being pursued by Satan, meeting a prophet, beingness seduced by sirens, and being apparently saved from execution past divine intervention, Everett still insists that there is a reasonable explanation for everything. At least information technology's Lampshaded.
  • And by the finish, he doesn't really seem sure of himself any more.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: "These boys is not white! Hell, they ain't even erstwhile-timey."
• At the Crossroads: The three see Tommy here subsequently he sold his soul to the devil to become a famous musician, in reference to the Robert Johnson Urban Legend. At this point, they also meet Big Dan Teague. Think about it.
  • It's actually based on Tommy Johnson, who originated the story. Robert Johnson stole this story (and is more famous), but thats non a bad matter to say about bluesmen at all.
• Calamitous Polymorph: Not actually, just information technology's what Delmar believes the sirens do to Pete.
• Berserk Push button: George "Babyface" Nelson. Truth in Television with the real George Nelson.
  • Also, Pete doesn't have kindly to people stealing from his kin.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Sort of. Delmar is the merely member of the group to turn and attack Big Dan head-on when Dan shows his True Colors. Unfortunately, he still gets his donkey kicked.
• Blatant Lies: "That ain't your daddy. Your daddy was hit by a train."
• Blind Seer: Lampshaded by Everett, who insists the human being has a Disability Superpower.
• Book Ends: The film opens with a concatenation gang together working near a railroad track and singing. The picture show closes with Everett and Penny'southward daughters tied together by twine walking over a railroad track and singing.
• Breakaway Popular Hitting: The soundtrack had its own sequels.
  • In-flick also, since the Soggy Bottom Boys' singing is so good information technology helps resolve the plot.
• Brick Joke: The blind prophet at the first of the picture mentions the trio will come across a cow on the roof of a cotton house. Guess what they encounter after the land is flooded almost the end of the film.
  • There'due south also a very subtle example that probably went over the head of well-nigh viewers. John Goodman's grapheme is clearly modeled on the cyclops of Homer'south The Odyssey, with his eye patch and his violent confrontation with the heroes. Goodman's character is later on revealed to exist a member of the Klan. Though unmentioned in the film, one of the Klan'due south rankings is "Grand Cyclops."
• Burn, Baby, Burn
• The Cast Boaster: Real-life dejection singer Chris Thomas Rex plays Tommy, and at one bespeak gets to sing (in his ain voice) a rendition of Skip James' "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues."
• Censorship by Spelling: "Mrs. Hogwallop upwardly and R-U-N-N-O-F-T." Becomes somewhat of a Running Gag.
• Chained Heat
• Chekhov'southward Gun: Everett's pomade, particularly its distinctive smell, which lets the Sheriff rail them down.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Delmar "Nosotros Thought Y'all Was a Toad" O'Donnell.
• Color Wash: They messed with the hue and saturation until everything was an intensely colorful brown, imitating the await of sepia-toned photos.
• Corrupt Hick: The insanely corrupt Big Dan Teague. Who is channeling the cyclops Polyphemus.
• Cult Soundtrack: The soundtrack anthology is regarded equally ane of the well-nigh important Country and Bluegrass albums of the decade and sold over 7 million copies. It also won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002, making it one of merely three soundtracks to e'er win that award.
• Deal with the Devil: Tommy Johnson traded his soul to the devil at the crossroads for his guitar skills. This is the same claim fabricated by the real blues musician Robert Johnson.
• Deep S
• Defictionalization: The Soggy Lesser Boys.
• Deliberately Monochrome: Of the sepia variety, meet Real Is Brown below.
• Deus Ex Machina: The flooding happens at exactly the right fourth dimension to salve them all from existence hanged. Possibly a literal example.
• Disney Death: Pete was believed to take transformed into a Toad past the launderer sirens, and then they take him in a box. The toad was and then killed by Large Dan Teague past being crushed, and his friends were physically incapable of stopping his expiry because they were beaten to bloody pulps. Information technology was subsequently revealed that the toad was actually not Pete, nor was he fifty-fifty transformed by a toad: Turns out those "launderer sirens" actually delivered him to Sheriff Cooley'south men for the reward, and is now a prisoner back at the farm.
• The Ditz: Delmar.
• Empty Piles of Wearable: This (and a toad) crusade the other ii to assume Pete'southward been turned into a toad.
• Enthralling Siren: The 3 washerwomen are the siren stand up-ins.
• Everything's Better with Cows: One is gunned down during an estampede ("Cows! I hate cows worse than coppers!"), another is involved in the Brick Joke.
• Eyepatch of Power: Big Dan Teague.
• Fairy Tale Motifs: Well, more similar Mythology Motifs, but any.
• Fake Band: The Soggy Bottom Boys.
• Fat Sweaty Southerner in a White Suit: Several. Most notably, Governor Pappy O'Daniel (for the mildly corrupt version) and Big Dan Teague (for the insanely decadent version).
• First Male parent Wins
• Friend to All Living Things: Delmar, or butterflies at the least.
• Funny Groundwork Consequence: Everett, Delmar, and Pete are all chained together, and try to escape by boarding a moving train. In the foreground we meet Everett (on the railroad train) introducing himself to some hobos. In the background, Pete trips earlier he can climb in...
  • Too, Pete's gloriously goofy dancing during Delmar's rendition of "In the Jailhouse Now."
  • Groundwork singing - in Man of Constant Sorrow, Everett finishes singing a depressing stanza that ends in the line "perhaps I'll dice upon this railroad train..." and Delmar and Pete chime in with a cheery "Perhaps he'll die upon this railroad train!"
• Genre Busting: It's a musical/comedy/social commentary/retelling of The Odyssey... that'south ready in The Nifty Low.
• Go Out with a Smile: George Nelson. Nosotros don't see him killed simply his last scene is him having been caught past a mob and being lead to his execution. He'due south more then happy with it even so, the mob was even nice plenty to give him some violinists as a funeral march.
• Historical In-Joke
• Hey, It's That Guy!: Stephen Root every bit Mr. Lund, the blind radio DJ RJ(?). This is probably an Thespian Allusion, besides.
  • Commadant Spangler (or Mr. Kruger) plays Sheriff Cooley.
• Hobos
• Hypocritical Humor: Just before he's executed, Everett prays to God to allow him run across his daughters at to the lowest degree 1 more fourth dimension. When the dam breaks and saves him, he starts going on about reason. The other ii immediately phone call him out on information technology.
• Implacable Man: the Sheriff.
• Detestable Genius: Everett.
  • Well, he's smarter than Delmar or Pete...
• Inspector Javert: The Sheriff tries to characterize himself this way at the very stop, challenge that the boys have only been pardoned by the police force of man.
  • Not exactly tries, considering he'southward... well...
• Ironic Nursery Tune: The siren-seduction scene, to "Didn't Exit Nobody Simply The Baby" Also a rare example of erotic Nightmare Fuel.
• The Lancer: Pete.
• Big and In Charge: Governor Pappy O'Daniel.
• Louis Cipher: The Sheriff who is chasing after them. His Scary Shiny Glasses reflect fire a lot.
• Magic Realism: There are more than a few downright mystical occurrences in the film, such as the prophet, the sirens, and the strong implication that the Warden is Satan.
  • The mode the movie is framed - information technology starts with a scene of a generic concatenation gang with no main characters in it, singing as they break rocks, and so cuts to blackness before the actual picture begins - gives rise to the theory that the unabridged story is being presented equally a myth, a subject of concatenation gang songs, equally opposed to "real" events. The pointedly non-realistic bent of many of the movie'south events (the KKK marching in a chorus line?) would seem to bespeak this.
• Meaningful Name: In a story based off The Odyssey, the primary grapheme's name is Ulysses.
• Musical World Hypotheses: Diegetic all the way through, making its classification every bit a musical to brainstorm with dubious to some.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: There actually was a Depression-era Governor named Pappy O'Daniel, but his given name was Wilbert Lee O'Daniel; in the film the governor's existent starting time proper noun is Menelaus (another Homer reference). Also the existent O'Daniel was governor of Texas, not Mississippi.
• Not His Sled: The expected fate of John Goodman's "cyclops" is deliberately referenced then avoided. And then happens slightly differently anyway.
• Oh Crap: John Goodman's reaction when he realizes that the fiery cross was coming downwards directly at him.
  • Besides, Homer Stokes' reaction when he realizes that the town, later his attempt at getting the Soggy Bottom Boys arrested failed, is now going to run him out of town on a rail as revenge for interrupting the functioning.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Toward the end of the movie, the fugitive "Soggy Bottom Boys" perform while disguised with false beards. Lampshaded subsequently, when their functioning wins over the crowd and Everett deliberately yanks his beard off for a moment.
• Politically-Correct History: Zig-zagged. The white heroes refer to Tommy as a "boy," merely otherwise treat him as an equal. The radio station manager insists that he won't play "colored songs," but in one case the "Soggy Bottom Boys" become popular, Pappy O'Daniel doesn't seem to care that "they's integrated." The KKK is shown in all its giddy racist celebrity, but also portrayed as a fringe organization that is not looked upon favorably by the common townsfolk.
  • Perhaps information technology was cheers to the Power of Bluegrass that was able to sway their minds?
    • More than likely that the townsfolk were more upset past Stokes interrupting the Soggy Bottom Boys' functioning by trying to accept them arrested and didn't care what else he said.
• Politically-Wrong Villain Homer Stokes, candidate for governor by mean solar day, Klansman by night.
  • Annotation that in 1932 Mississippi, being a Klansman would have been politically correct. It would have been almost impossible for Stokes to be a serious candidate for governor without beingness one.
• Pop Civilization Osmosis: The Coens accept claimed that they've never actually read The Odyssey, but know the story through its various adaptations.
• Produce Pelting: What the audience does when Homer Stokes ends up interrupting the Soggy Lesser Boys performance to get them arrested, that too as ride him out of town on a rail.
• Existent Is Brown: Pursued with a vengeance, given that a substantial portion of the film's mail-product budget went into all-encompassing color-correction. The Coens wanted every frame of the movie to reflect the dingy, withered dustbowl look, and in some cases took entire fields of green flora and turned them yellowish.
• Rock Me, Asmodeus: "And I have it from the highest 'thority, that that negra...sold his soul to the Devil!!!" (the townsfolk don't purchase into it, though)
• Running Gag: Briefly.

"Damn, we're in a tight spot!"

• • Everett's obsession with his Dapper Dan hair gel pomade besides counts.
• Satan: Sheriff Cooley is heavily implied explicitly theorized to be this.
• Scary Shiny Spectacles: The Sheriff/Warden/ Devil wears these.
• Seinfeldian Conversation: This charming example:

"He'southward gonna paddle our picayune backside." "Ain't gonna paddle it - gonna kicking information technology. Real hard." "No, I believe he's gonna paddle it." "I don't believe that'south a proper description." "Well, that's how I'd characterize it." "I believe it's more of a kickin' sitchiation."

• • The give-and-take of a "grease spot on the 50&N" and a "bona-fide" suitor ranks correct up there too.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Everett. As well Big Dan Teague. For instance, from the Funny Background Event described higher up:

"Say, any of you fellas happen to be smithies? If non smithies per se, perhaps you lot trained in the metallurgical arts before straitened circumstances led yous to a life of aimless wandering?"

• Shout-Out: Tommy'southward Deal with the Devil is a reference to a similar deal supposedly fabricated by existent-life bluesman Robert Johnson.
  • And Tommy Johnson, also a existent dejection musician, who spread the same rumor about himself, to enhance his fame.
  • The title of the movie is itself a Shout-Out, to Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels.
  • The KKK scene is based off of the scene in the Wizard of Oz where the Scarecrow, Lion and Can human being try to sneak into the witches castle. The guards are chanting the way the KKK does and even doing a similar dance, and the iii heroes steal disguises from the guards/kkk.
  • The Soggy Bottom Boys are a reference to the Light Crust Doughboys, who were featured on the existent-life Pappy O'Daniel'southward radio prove.
  • There's a bury floating on a flooded river at the end, which is most certainly a shout out to William Faulkner's Every bit I Lay Dying.
  • A man named Ulysses meets a blues singer at a crossroads. Coincidence?
• Sophisticated As Hell: Many of the characters in a patchily-educated style, merely mostly Everett. "I'k the goddamn paterfamilias!"
• Stout Strength: Big Dan Teague.
• Stern Chase: The Warden'due south search for the three convicts.
• Surrounded by Idiots - Pappy O'Daniel'due south cronies and son are sycophantic yep-men who are a bit dull on the uptake, and Pappy is painfully aware of this. This is virtually likely the reason he tries to convince Vernon T. Waldrip to leave Stokes' campaign and bring together his.
• Suspiciously Specific Deprival: "Who is that human?" "Non my husband." Also doubles as a Shout-Out to the source cloth.
• The Vamp: The three sirens
• Those Two Guys: Pappy'south two advisors, come across the Seinfeldian Conversation higher up.
• Villainous Glutton: Large Dan Teague, as befits his correspondence with the cyclops Polyphemus.
• T-Word Euphemism: Sort of. I character wants to foreclose his son from knowing that his female parent left the family, so he just says she "Upwardly and R-U-N-N-O-F-T."
  • Subverted later on, in that the kid knew exactly what he was talking about, anyway.
• Villainous Breakdown: "Babyface" Nelson and Homer Stokes.
  • Nelson gets improve...sort of.
  • "MY Name IS GEORGE NELSON, AND I'M FEELIN' Ten FEET Tall!"
• Villain with Good Publicity: Homer Stokes, oh so much
• Working on the Chain Gang: The story begins with Ulysses, Pete, and Delmar escaping from this while chained to each other. Pete, at one point, is recaptured and put dorsum to work on the chain gang and has to exist cleaved out of prison house over again.
• 10 Meets Y: The 3 Stooges meets The Odyssey.

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Source: https://the-true-tropes.fandom.com/wiki/O_Brother,_Where_Art_Thou%3F

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