I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess The Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty are two of the movies you haven't seen yet, because they're almost universally regarded as low points in the Coens careers. Furthermore, I'm under the impression they were made to get out of a three-picture contract they accepted to get O Brother funded, which from that perspective would make O Brother worse because if you're going to make a deal with the devil, should result in better work, right?
(Not sure how The Man Who Wasn't There fits into this dynamic or I have it wrong and Wasn't There was the three picture deal, but I'm pretty sure it was O Brother.)
Anyway, I stand by O Brother being great and great fun, watched it more times than I can count, and it was one of my mother's favorite Coen Bros movies, leading her to tell me she wanted to own all their movies, leading me to search their filmography on early Google as an easy way to cover Mother's Day and birthday gifts for awhile, leading me to film discussion forums and there the rabbit hole that lead to my interest in becoming a filmmaker, so yeah, this movie + Big Lebowski are very special to me.
Haha absolutely correct about Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty. The three-picture deal is good info, I’ll look into that.
My dad loves O Brother and we must have watched it half a dozen times together. The more I think about it, I think a lot of my reaction as I wrote it here is coming from having seen it so many times. Like, I think I had a hard time finding the laugh lines because even if I’d mostly forgotten they’re still embedded deep in my memory, sapping the surprise of the humor
Nice review. I haven't seen O Brother in many years but think of it fondly. Didn't realize until reading this that I remember very little of the second half of the movie...
Curious what you mean by 'the first fencepost.' Hasn't agriculture and private property been firmly established by the time of the Homeric heroes? Don't we get elaborate descriptions of agricultural life in the shield of Achilles? Can't specifically recall mention of fenceposts, but the timing seems off by a few thousand years to me.
Thank you! Yeah I maybe haven’t expressed the thought quite fully. Agriculture and property definitely exist. Do fences already exist? Idk
But it seems to me that enclosure marks a significant step toward the formalization and regimentation of numerous parts of life. Territory is no longer a matter of tribes and kingdoms but individuals. And those boundaries are no longer subject to negotiation but physically defined. Maybe this is totally unsupportable!
“The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying “this is mine,” and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.”
Maybe the very fact that the second half is an ill conceived interminable slog is itself a tribute to the structure of the Odyssey!
Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.
Love the movie, hate your review, love the fact that you wrote it. 😉
perhaps "immolated hecatombs of cattle to Zeus" is an answer to your question about Babyface?
I'm a big fan of the movie, but good article.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess The Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty are two of the movies you haven't seen yet, because they're almost universally regarded as low points in the Coens careers. Furthermore, I'm under the impression they were made to get out of a three-picture contract they accepted to get O Brother funded, which from that perspective would make O Brother worse because if you're going to make a deal with the devil, should result in better work, right?
(Not sure how The Man Who Wasn't There fits into this dynamic or I have it wrong and Wasn't There was the three picture deal, but I'm pretty sure it was O Brother.)
Anyway, I stand by O Brother being great and great fun, watched it more times than I can count, and it was one of my mother's favorite Coen Bros movies, leading her to tell me she wanted to own all their movies, leading me to search their filmography on early Google as an easy way to cover Mother's Day and birthday gifts for awhile, leading me to film discussion forums and there the rabbit hole that lead to my interest in becoming a filmmaker, so yeah, this movie + Big Lebowski are very special to me.
Haha absolutely correct about Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty. The three-picture deal is good info, I’ll look into that.
My dad loves O Brother and we must have watched it half a dozen times together. The more I think about it, I think a lot of my reaction as I wrote it here is coming from having seen it so many times. Like, I think I had a hard time finding the laugh lines because even if I’d mostly forgotten they’re still embedded deep in my memory, sapping the surprise of the humor
Nice review. I haven't seen O Brother in many years but think of it fondly. Didn't realize until reading this that I remember very little of the second half of the movie...
Curious what you mean by 'the first fencepost.' Hasn't agriculture and private property been firmly established by the time of the Homeric heroes? Don't we get elaborate descriptions of agricultural life in the shield of Achilles? Can't specifically recall mention of fenceposts, but the timing seems off by a few thousand years to me.
Thank you! Yeah I maybe haven’t expressed the thought quite fully. Agriculture and property definitely exist. Do fences already exist? Idk
But it seems to me that enclosure marks a significant step toward the formalization and regimentation of numerous parts of life. Territory is no longer a matter of tribes and kingdoms but individuals. And those boundaries are no longer subject to negotiation but physically defined. Maybe this is totally unsupportable!
“The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying “this is mine,” and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.”
— Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
There it is. Exactly what I was trying to get at. Thank you!
O my God. I can't finish the review. He's bonafide. Their daddy got hit by a train. Do not seek the treasure. O George not the livestock.
The film isn't funny?!?