Masters of the universe (1/1/01)
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O Brother Where Art Thou? [Joel and Ethan Coen, 2000.]
There’s a moment about twenty minutes into this feature, when the three cons who’ve escaped from the chaingang [George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson] are camping out in the woods — posed, to be precise, before a faded yellow forest background [etiolated; as if every leaf on every tree had been pressed into a book in 1937 and left to wait for the Coens to come and collect it to dress their set], debating their options in their best witless-cracker accents — when suddenly all around them in the woods a host of mysterious ethereal figures materialize, moving slowly and silently [though voices are heard singing, off] like ghosts or apparitions toward some unknown destination: a moment of pure Fellini inserted seamlessly [for it turns out they’re all going down to the water to be baptized] into what seems superficially a period piece about Mississippi in the Depression. At this point I laughed out loud [not for the first time], and muttered “fucking genius” under my popcorn-saturated breath. — Suffice it that this is not the only inspired moment in this opus, which among other things is loosely based upon the
Odyssey [John Goodman does a Bible-salesman Cyclops and Holly Hunter is the somewhat-faithful Penelope beset by suitors], and touches on the legend of Robert Johnson, the secret empire of the Ku Klux Klan, the career of Baby Face Nelson, Southern politicians, rural electrification, radio, and pomade. — The title makes reference to the great Preston Sturges comedy
Sullivan’s Travels: that was one of the best movies of the Forties, and this is a worthy homage. Check it out.
____________Skywalkers (12/22/00)
