O Brother, Where Art Thou?

[MisterCairo]

A number of us in the "What Movie did you Last Watch?" thread are commenting on one of my favourite films, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and I thought rather than filling up that thread with our favourite quotes and so on, I'd start a thread (I did a search and couldn't find one, Bartenders please merge if I missed it!).

Period perfect (the burning newspaper with the article on "Who are the Soggy Bottom Boys?" clearly shows if I recall the date July 13, 1937), great characters, great clothing and great ol timey music!

So, who are your favourite characters? Favourite lines or scenes? Favourite songs? Any one else know that George Clooney lip synched Man of Constant Sorrow but that Tim Blake Nelson did indeed sing In the Jailhouse now?

"Damn! We're in a tight spot!"

 

[The Lonely Navigator]

I liked the part where Clooney said he was a 'Dapper Dan' man when he couldn't get the pomade he wanted:

Pomade Vendor: I can get the part from Bristol. It'll take two weeks, here's your pomade.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Two weeks? That don't do me no good.
Pomade Vendor: Nearest Ford auto man's Bristol.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Hold on, I don't want this pomade. I want Dapper Dan.
Pomade Vendor: I don't carry Dapper Dan, I carry Fop.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, I don't want Fop, ******n it! I'm a Dapper Dan man!
Pomade Vendor: Watch your language, young feller, this is a public market. Now if you want Dapper Dan, I can order it for you, have it in a couple of weeks.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, ain't this place a geographical oddity. Two weeks from everywhere!

 

[camjr]

Is you is, or is you ain't my constituents?

 

[Feraud]

An excellent film. One of my favorite modern films about the era.
Great script, directing, casting, soundtrack, etc.
The entire script is quotable!

 

[AmateisGal]

The soundtrack is amazing, too. We bought it because it was so good!

"How's my hair?"

"I didn't get hit by no train!"

 

[Mahagonny Bill]

"I've stomped my foot and counted to three"

 

[FountainPenGirl]

Truth is stranger than fiction

What's interesting is there were performers in Country and Western music from the '30's thru the '50's with no more unusual names than the "Soggy Bottom Boys". Names like "The Trough Sloppers", "The Fruit Jar Drinkers", "Roy Acuff and his Crazy Tenneseeans"," Arky the Arkansas Wood Chopper", and the list goes on. Of course the song "Man of Constant Sorrow" was a good number for Carter and Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys in 1951. George Clooney's voice in the movie recording was done by Dan Tyminski a quite talented performer of his own right.
Great movie. One the best detailed "period" movies of recent time. The music made it great even if the songs were a little off time period wise.

 

[1961MJS]

"I've stomped my foot and counted to three"

That's one of life's great mysteries. Why did he want her back???

Later

 

[sheeplady]

"I didn't get hit by no train!"

"Lots of respectable people have been hit by trains."

 

[Doctor Strange]

A great, great, great, great flick! Brilliantly written, played, scored, and shot - and endlessly, hilariously quotable.

I would say that it's my favorite Coen Brothers film... But alas, I love several of their other ones just as much.

 

[MisterCairo]

OBWAT as mentioned by several is an entire film of quotable quotes. It reminds me of Withnail & I in that respect. There isn't a single scene that's boring, where you think "I wish this would fast forward to [whatever]".

On my DVD version there's an extra, a look at the art direction and technical treatment of the film. Roger Deakin took what he described as Ireland-lush greenery and converted it to dustbowl sepia tone. The film was digitized, the digital images re-worked, then transferred back to film. The befores and afters are amazing!

 

[Doctor Strange]

That same "digital grading" technique was used in the Lord of the Rings films at about the same time. (See the documentary about it on the Extended Edition of FOTR.) Partly it was done to smooth out material that had been shot in differing locations under differing lighting over a three-year period and make it look coherent when intercut, but it was also to push the eyepopping greenery of the Shire, the golden woods of Lothlorien, etc.

But that doesn't mean I think anything less of Roger Deakins. In fact, I think he's a genius: he's my favorite contemporary cinematographer!

 

[scotrace]

Something like...

"We needed to eat up that horse. It was startin' t'turn."

"And stay out of the Woolworth's!"

"That Preacher Man just done warshed away all of my sins!"

"Friend, your foldin' money's come unstole..."

"Are any of you boys smithies?"

:Hell, it ain't even old timey!"


"Dumber'n a sackful of hammers..."

And perhaps the best:

"DO.
NOT.
SEEEK.
THE.
TREASURE!"

It is one of my favorite films, hands down, and a GREAT soundtrack.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Them sireens done loved Pete up an' turned him into a TOAD!

 

[tonyb]

And not just any kind of toad, neither.

 

[tonyb]

Pete: Well, hell, it ain't square one. Ain't nobody gonna pick up three filthy, unshaved hitchhikers, and one of them a know-it-all that can't keep his trap shut.

Everett: Pete, the personal rancor reflected in that remark I don't intend to dignify with comment. But I would like to address your general attitude of hopeless negativism. Consider the lilies of the g***amn field or ... hell! Take a look at Delmar here as your paradigm of hope.

Delmar: Yeah, look at me.

 

[DNO]

"Okay...I'm with you fellas!" Love Delmar.

 

[DNO]

"One third of a gopher would only arouse my appetite without bedding it down." And, of course, Ulysses Everett McGill.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

[/IMG]
"Gopher Everett?"

 

[Cricket]

"And stay out of the Woolworth's!"

I love this one because the store they actually filmed that in is here in my town, Yazoo City, Mississippi, where they actually filmed a good portion of it.

It is actually a former hardware store that has been transformed into a vintage goods, arts and crafts, etc. store now. But it is a great place to get lost in with all its treasures.

Everytime my hubby and I go in there, when we leave, I always look at him and say..."And stay out of the Woolworth's". It never gets old.