O Brother, Where Art Thou?

O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a 2000 satirical comedy-drama film written, produced, co-edited, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. It stars George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson, with Chris Thomas King, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, and Charles Durning in supporting roles.

The film is set in rural Mississippi in 1937, and it follows three escaped convicts searching for hidden treasure while a sheriff relentlessly pursues them. Its story is a modern satire which, while incorporating social features of the American South, is loosely based on Homer’s epic Greek poem The Odyssey. Some examples of this include Sirens, a Cyclops, and the main character’s name, ”Ulysses”, which is the Roman name for ”Odysseus”. The title of the film is a reference to the 1941 Preston Sturges film Sullivan’s Travels, in which the protagonist is a director who wants to film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a fictitious book about the Great Depression.

Much of the music used in the film is period folk music. The movie was one of the first to extensively use digital color correction to give the film an autumnal sepia-tinted look. It was released by Buena Vista Pictures in North America, while Universal Pictures, through United International Pictures, released it in other countries. The film was met with a positive critical reception, and the soundtrack won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002. The country and folk musicians who were dubbed into the film include John Hartford, Alison Krauss, Dan Tyminski, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Ralph Stanley, Chris Sharp, and Patty Loveless. They joined to perform the music from the film on the Down from the Mountain concert tour. One of the performances was filmed and released as a documentary.