Sullivan's Odyssey?

Last week's film was an Ancient Greek Drama, re-worked in 1944.

This week's film is almost exactly the opposite: a 1941 film re-worked as an Ancient Greek Drama.


Permit me to explain.

Preston Sturges' 1941 comedy Sullivan's Travels tells the story of a successful film-maker, John L. Sullivan, who is having a crisis of conscience. His films thus far have been light, comic, and very, very popular - but he feels guilty about making such trivial entertainment at a time when much of the country is suffering through genuine hardship and pain. To that end, he wants his next film to be a dark, serious portrait of American pain and Depression, called O Brother, Where Art Thou? (you can probably see where I'm going with this).


John L. Sullivan never got to make O Brother, Where Art Thou? because a) his life went in a different direction and b) he was a fictional character in a Preston Sturges movie.


Not to worry however, because 59 years later, the Coen Brothers (who are not fictional characters, but make real films for the real world) released their own O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which deals with many of the themes and ideas experienced by Sullivan in the earlier movie. 


But because they are the Coen Brothers, they also made their film an adaptation of The Odyssey by Homer. As you do.


Homer's Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus (Ulysses) and his ten-year journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. Having incurred the wrath of the god Poseidon (angering a god was very easy to do in those days) Odysseus has many obstacles thrown in his path, and must face a man-eating Cyclops, the seductive (but deadly) Sirens and many other adversities before finally arriving home to find that everyone thinks he is dead. His wife, Penelope, is besieged by suitors, and Odysseus, disguising himself as an old beggar, defeats them all in an archery contest before revealing his true identity and reclaiming his family and kingdom. 

O Brother, Where Art Thou? pays lip service to all these plot points, but in truth, it is much more concerned with Sullivan's Travels than it is with The Odyssey (more about that on Thursday).


Set in the American South in 1937, the film follows Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney) and his two friends as they escape from a chain gang and set off on a long, adventure-filled journey home. 


Did I mention it's also a musical?


We'll be showing O Brother, Where Art Thou? at the usual time of 7.30 on Thursday, the 10th of March at the Victoria Park Baptist Church. I hope to see you there!

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