Oddaptations - The Odyssey → O Brother, Where Art Thou?

I don't want FOP, GODDAMNIT! I'm a Dapper Dan man!

Some people like to complain about the inevitable changes that occur when a story is adapted from one medium to another. But let's be honest, sometimes, the less faithful an adaptation is, the more memorable it is. So, in this series I'll be taking a look at adaptations where creators took one look at the source material and said, "FUCK THAT NOISE!" to see how that turned out. Today's Oddaptation:

The Odyssey of Homer (8th Century-ish BCE) by Homer, trans. Richmond Lattimore into O Brother, Where Art Thou? dir. Joel Cohen, written by Ethan and Joel Cohen

Sing to me, muse, of those quirky writer-directors who transposed an ancient Greek epic they claim never to have read into one of the most quote-able movies ever made.

The Original: Something is rotten in the state of Ithaca. The king, Odysseus, never returned after the Trojan War (which itself took ten years) ended ten years ago. And now 100+ disreputable gentlemen are pressing their suit with Queen Penelope in order to take the throne. This is complicated by the fact that Odysseus and Penelope's son, Telemachus, is already twenty and probably could resolve the whole thing by claiming the throne himself (I mean, the ending makes it seem like it wouldn't be too hard). Instead, he decides to go looking for his father: he eventually makes his way to the the court of Menelaus and Helen in Sparta, who tell him that Odysseus is currently a captive of the nymph Calypso. Let's join that story, already in progress: Hypothetical Reader?

Thanks, Lucas. Turns out that Odysseus isn't just a captive of Calypso, but she's kept him on the island of Ogygia for the last seven years.

So, he's been as loyal to Penelope over the past twenty years as she's been to him, right?

Oh, now, he's been sowing his proverbial "wild oats" all over the Mediterranean.

Oh.

Yeah, it turns out he's kind of a dick, but Athena and Zeus intervene by commanding Calyspo to release him. He's even able to escape the notice of Poseidon, who's prevented him from going home for the last ten years for reasons that will be clear later. Anyway, he sails a raft to the kingdom of Alcinous. He hides his identity for a while before revealing that he's actually the Odysseus who came up with the idea of the Trojan horse and finally starts telling his story. Back to you, Lucas.

So, we finally learn that at the end of the Trojan War Odysseus declined to make an offering to Poseidon to ensure a safe passage home. Poseidon, obviously not impressed by this display of hubris, decided to put Odysseus on some sort of double secret probation. So he sails around for awhile, trying his hand at piracy and briefly stopping by the island of the Lotus-eaters, where he must forcibly drag his men back onto the boats because it turns out that Lotus is essentially heroin. They make a quick stop on the island of the Cyclopes (that's old-timey for cyclopses), where Odysseus cleverly escapes getting eaten by blinding the cyclops Polyphemus and claiming that his name is "no one" (a ploy copped by Captain Nemo of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea fame). Except he goofs it up by telling Polyphemus that his real name is Odysseus once they're making good their escape. Turns out that Polyphemus is the son of Poseidon, and that means that Odysseus has violated the terms of his double secret probation. So, for the next couple of years, Odysseus sails towards home, but somehow or other, his pride or his men's stupidity donks everything up. But at least he gets to have cool adventures like that time when he visits blind prophet Tiresias in the Underworld, or that time when he insists on hearing the sirens' song, or that time when the sorceress Circe turns all of his men into pigs. Anyway, eventually he talks about how he's been shacking up with Calypso for the last seven years, and Alcinous agrees to help him sneak back into Ithaca, HR?

So, he gets there and disguises himself to see if Penelope has really been faithful to him for the last twenty years. Turns out that she has. Anyway, after a distinguishing scar and his ability to string a bow confirm that he's actually Odysseus, he teams up with Telemachus to brutally murder all of the suitors.

Jesus!

Don't you mean, "By Zeus!"

Sure.

And they all live happily ever after.

Except for the suitors.

Yes, they all die.

The Remake: Damn! Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney), Delmar O'Donnell (Tim Blake Nelson), and Pete Hogwallop (John Turturo) are in a tight spot!  See, they've up and R-U-N-N-O-F-T from a Mississippi chaingang because Everett's got a treasure hidden away in his house that's going to be washed away when the Tennessee Valley Authority floods the valley to build a Hydroelectric dam. At least that's what Everett's told Pete and Delmar. We'll see if that turns out to be the case, after all, that blind man told them that they'd find a fortune, but not the fortune they seek. Whatever it is, I hope it's worth the ob-stack-les.

Ob-stack-les?

Oh, yeah. Like the relentless Sheriff Cooley (Daniel Van Bargen) who's out to recapture our intrepid heroes at all costs, oh, and of course, Pete's cousin, Wash (Frank Collison), who betrays them to Cooley.

Pete's daddy always said, "Never trust a Hogwallop!"

Indeed. Briefly after making good their escape they encounter a riverside baptism where Pete and Delmar have their sins washed away, including that Piggly-Wiggly Delmar knocked over in Yazoo! Then they pick up a hitch-hiker named Tommy Robinson (Chris Thomas King) who says he's sold his soul to the devil in exchange for learnin' how to play his guitar real good. Which is good news for the boys because—

You're not gonna be tellin' tales out of school, now are you?

It's just that there's this man at the radio station (Stephen Root) who'll give you 10 dollars to sing into a can. And this same radio station also hosts broadcasts by Gov. Menelaus "Pappy" O'Daniel (Charles Durning). He's running for re-election against the re-form candidate, Homer "Friend of the Little Man" Stokes (Wayne Duvall). Polls show Stokes's pullin' Pappy's pants down, gonna paddle his be-hind.

Ain't gon' paddle it, gon' kick it, real hard!

Anyway, after the boys get separated from Tommy, they get caught up in a whirlwind bank stick-up with the notorious manic depressive gangster George "NOT BABYFACE!" Nelson (Michael Badalucco), before encountering the siren song of three washer women at the river. The next morning, Everett and Delmar wake up to find a toad in Pete's clothes. Even worse, the gigantic, one-eyed Bible salesman "Big" Dan Teague (John Goodman) kills the toad! Meanwhile, the song our heroes recorded as the Soggy-Bottom Boys has been climbin' the charts.

Whole damn state's goin' ape-y for it!

Yeah, too bad no one knows where the Soggy Bottom Boys are. Well, we know, they're back in Everett's home town where he tries to assert his rights as the goddamn paterfamilias! See, after he got sent away for practicing law without a license, his wife, Penny McGill (née and now Wharvey) (Holly Hunter) divorced him and told their six (now seven) daughters he was hit by a train. And now she's engaged to Stokes's campaign manager Vernon T. Waldrip (Ray McKinnon).

She says he's bona fide!

I know.

He's a suitor!

I got it. Anyway, after gettin thrown out of the Woolworth's, Everett and Delmar decide to take in a movie, but in the middle, a chaingang is marched in to—

Do not seek the treasure!

Pete? But they thought he was a toad.

Do. Not. Seek. The Treasure.

They thought. He was. A toad.

DO! NOT! SEEK! THE TREASURE! It's bushwhack!

So, Delmar and Everett bust Pete out, and Everett confesses that there never was no treasure. They're gonna have it out over it when the sound of a Klan rally breaks their concentration. It turns out that the Klan are about to lynch Tommy! Also, Homer Stokes is a local Klan leader. In any case, Everett, Pete, and Delmar steal some robes, disrupt the lynching, and, for good measure, cut the support wire on the fire-y cross sending it crashing down on Dan Teague! They head back to town and dress as an old-time-y band to sneak into a Homer Stokes campaign event where Penny and Vernon are in attendance. Also there, Pappy O'Daniel hoping to hire Waldrip away from Stokes. Everett fruitlessly tries to woo Penny, but gets a much warmer reception from the crowd when he and the boys sing "The Man of Constant Sorrow" with everyone recognizing the voices of the Soggy Bottom Boys!

This is where everything seems to go wrong, right?

That's not a quote from the movie.

Yeah, but I'd prefer not to recite a quote about "miscegenation."

Good point. Homer Stokes shows up and makes a stink, being oddly coy about his KKK membership while making it clear that he's a member of the KKK, but the crowd aren't having any of it, and everyone stans (Baby-boomers, feel free to ask a Millennial what "stanning" is) for the Soggy Bottom Boys!

Is they is or is they ain't his constitchency?

They is ain't! Stokes is run out of town on rail, and Pappy O'Daniel, seeing that the crowd doesn't mind that the Soggy Bottom Boys is integrated, swoops in and pardons them, promising to make them his brain trust if re-elected.

So, it sounds like we're wrapped up.

Nope! See Penny still wants Everett to go to their old house and retrieve their old wedding ring. And who should be waiting there but Cooley, ignorant of and indifferent to the pardon and ready to hang Everett, Pete, Delmar, and Tommy. Everett's pride finally breaks and he prays for deliverance. And wouldn't you know it, this is the day they're damming the river. A flash flood clears out Cooley et al. while leaving our heroes to float to safety on a rolltop desk!

Isn't that where Penny left the ring?

She thought so, but she's convinced that this isn't the right one. Maybe she left it in the chifferobe. Anyway, she's already said her piece and counted to three. The End!


Fidelity to Source Material: Well, I'd say it's pretty high all things considered. We'll talk about that below.

Things That Survived Intact: We've still got a clever, prideful protagonist trying to reunite with his wife and family who is opposed by an unreasoning, unrelenting authority figure. We've also got: a sidekick who gets turned into an animal (well, not really), sirens (well, not really), and a blind prophet (hey, that one checks out).

Smart Changes: So, ditching the returned king aspect actually helps a lot. Sure, there weren't any kings in Depression-era Mississippi, but this also means that Everett's journey can focus nearly exclusively on his personal relationships (in Ancient Greek poetics this likely would have been considered a bug, not a feature). So, instead of needing to set the entire social order aright by reclaiming a throne, Everett is seeking to return to the role of husband and father.  Instead of being ceaselessly devoted to her absent husband, Penny divorces Everett and gets engaged to Vernon. This means that instead of coming back to slaughter more than  a hundred men, Everett really needs to become the kind of man that deserves Penny. Now, since it's a comedy he gets to cheat and do it by being handed a steady job as a political appointee, but still, he does show character growth by humbling himself in the face of certain death. Even if the rules of comedy mean he gets to cheat death and float to safety. Plus, there's something I haven't mentioned, the music. This movie is full of old-timey harmony, bluegrass, prison work songs, and music with lyrics about love and longing, breaking the law, and finding grace. Which I guess, isn't as big a change for a work originally designed to be recited for public enjoyment.

Why it Works: So, while The Odyssey does have some elements of humor, you'd be hard pressed to call it a comedy. This shift in genre from epic to picaresque lets the Cohens retain some of the more outlandish elements, stripped of their supernatural nature, and tell a grounded, human story.