O Brother, Where Art Thou?

I've heard the title of this film for a very long time from my father. My boyfriend spoke of this film very often, saying it was very entertaining. I will admit, the title made me not want to watch it. I had the impression that it was very artsy. After the first ten minutes watching this film, I was sold. I loved it.

I caught myself laughing out loud quite often even with the many serious tones happening in the film. The whole scene with George "Babyface" Nelson is a perfect example. A man casually rolls up and picks up these three men and ends up shooting at the cops while Everett steers the car. Where the characters and the audience should be startled into disbelief, they can't really help but smile at the situation. Another example is after the exciting night with the Sirens, they believe that Pete is a toad. After they run into Pete in the theater and he tries to warn them about the ambush, Delmar only cares about letting him know that they thought he was a toad. Lastly, Everett's little girls that kept saying that he was hit by a train and how the new soon-to-be father is "bona fide". I  couldn't help but smile at it.

The scene that I really enjoyed was when Pete, Delmar, and Everett sneak into the party to try to talk to Penny. After successfully getting on stage, Everett goes over to Penny and we have a medium shot reverse-shot scene during the conversation. The interesting part of the scene is that Penny has her back to him, until she realizes that they are the Soggy Bottom Boys. It's a way of telling the audience that she has no interest and has completely shut him out. The scene also consists of many long shots from the audience to the stage which makes us feel like we are a part of the crowd. I'm sure everyone has had that feeling of seeing someone they idolize in some way on stage and this is a way for the Coen Brothers to give us that feeling again. While Everett is singing, the camera is at a slight low angle. I believe this was done to give him a bit of a "star" idea. He's important to the crowd and therefore we are looking up at him. After Homer claimed that the men were bad and declared the music over, the crowd turned on him. He was once a man of the people and here he is upsetting the people because the men were not white. During his whole speech, the camera is kept at eye level with a medium shot on Homer. As the men bring in the plank of wood, the camera follows them slightly and then switches to Homer and zooms in from a medium shot to almost a close-up. As he's carried out, the camera is at a high angle and follows him out. The high angle is used to let the audience know that he has fallen and he no longer has any power.