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Grade 10 Film Studies

O Brother, Where Art
Thou?
The Odyssey Summary From Grade Saver
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Ten years after the fall of Troy, the victorious Greek hero Odysseus has still
not returned to his native Ithaca. A band of rowdy suitors, believing
Odysseus to be dead, has overrun his palace, courting his faithful -- though
weakening -- wife, Penelope, and going through his stock of food. With
permission from Zeus, the goddess Athena, Odysseus' greatest immortal ally,
appears in disguise and urges Odysseus' son Telemachus to seek news of his
father at Pylos and Sparta. However, the suitors, led by Antinous, plan to
ambush him upon his return.
As Telemachus tracks Odysseus' trail
through stories from his old
comrades-in-arms, Athena arranges
for the release of Odysseus from the
island of the beautiful goddess
Calypso, whose prisoner and lover he
has been for the last eight years.
Odysseus sets sail on a makeshift
raft, but the sea god Poseidon, whose
wrath Odysseus incurred earlier in his
adventures by blinding Poseidon's
son, the Cyclops Polyphemus,
conjures up a storm. With Athena's
help, Odysseus reaches the Phaeacians. Their princess, Nausicaa, who has a
crush on the handsome warrior, opens the palace to the stranger. Odysseus
withholds his identity for as long as he can until finally, at the Phaeacians'
request, he tells the story of his adventures.
Odysseus relates how, following the Trojan War, his men suffered more losses
at the hands of the Kikones, then were nearly tempted to stay on the island
of the drug-addled Lotus Eaters. Next, the Cyclops Polyphemus devoured
many of Odysseus' men before an ingenious plan of Odysseus' allowed the
rest to escape -- but not before Odysseus revealed his name to Polyphemus
and thus started his personal war with Poseidon. The wind god Ailos then
provided Odysseus with a bag of winds to aid his return home, but the crew
greedily opened the bag and sent the ship to the land of the giant, man-
eating Laistrygonians, where they again barely escaped.
On their next stop, the goddess Circe tricked Odysseus' men and turned
them into pigs. With the help of the god Hermes, Odysseus defied her spell
and metamorphosed the pigs back into men. They stayed on her island for a
year in the lap of luxury, with Odysseus as her lover, before moving on and
resisting the temptations of the seductive and dangerous Sirens, navigating
between the sea monster Scylla and the whirlpools of Charybdis, and
plumbing the depths of Hades to receive a prophecy from the blind seer
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Tiresias. Resting on the island of Helios, Odysseus' men disobeyed his orders
not to touch the oxen. At sea, Zeus punished them and all but Odysseus died
in a storm. It was then that Odysseus reached Calypso's island.
Odysseus finishes his story, and the Phaeacians hospitably give him gifts and
ferry him home on a ship. Athena disguises Odysseus as a beggar and
instructs him to seek out his old swineherd, Eumaeus; she will recall
Telemachus from his own travels. With Athena's help, Telemachus avoids the
suitors' ambush and reunites with his father, who reveals his identity only to
his son and swineherd. He devises a plan to overthrow the suitors with their
help.
In disguise as a beggar, Odysseus investigates his palace. The suitors and a
few of his old servants generally treat him rudely as Odysseus sizes up the
loyalty of Penelope and his other servants. Penelope, who notes the
resemblance between the beggar and her presumably dead
husband, proposes a contest: she will, at last, marry the
suitor who can string
Odysseus' great bow
and shoot an
arrow through a
dozen axe heads.

Only Odysseus
can pull off the
feat. Bow in
hand, he shoots
and kills the
suitor Antinous and reveals his identity. With Telemachus, Eumaeus, and his
goatherd Philoitios at his side, Odysseus leads the massacre of the suitors,
aided only at the end by Athena. Odysseus lovingly reunites with Penelope,
his knowledge of their bed that he built the proof that overcomes her
skepticism that he is an impostor. Outside of town, Odysseus visits his ailing
father, Laertes, but an army of the suitors' relatives quickly finds them. With
the encouragement of a disguised Athena, Laertes strikes down the
ringleader, Antinous' father. Before the battle can progress any further,
Athena, on command from Zeus, orders peace between the two sides.
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Day 5 37:41-56:29
1. From 39:39-42:34 the Coen Brothers employ a technique called a montage. A montage is the
process or technique of selecting, editing, and piecing together separate sections of film to form a
continuous whole. What information is communicated in this montage? Make a list.

2. In The Odyssey, Odysseus boat travels past an island that is home to the sirens. Their songs drive
men mad with love. Read the passage from the Odyssey that inspired the scene with the women
at the river. What are your thoughts on the adaptation?

"I had hardly finished telling everything to the men before we reached
the island of the two Sirens, for the wind had been very favourable.
Then all of a sudden it fell dead calm; there was not a breath of
wind nor a ripple upon the water, so the men furled the sails and
stowed them; then taking to their oars they whitened the water with
the foam they raised in rowing. Meanwhile I look a large wheel of
wax and cut it up small with my sword. Then I kneaded the wax in my
strong hands till it became soft, which it soon did between the kneading
and the rays of the sun-god son of Hyperion. Then I stopped the ears
of all my men, and they bound me hands and feet to the mast as I stood
upright on the crosspiece; but they went on rowing themselves. When
we had got within earshot of the land, and the ship was going at a
good rate, the Sirens saw that we were getting in shore and began
with their singing.

"'Come here,' they sang, 'renowned Ulysses, honour to the Achaean

name, and listen to our two voices. No one ever sailed past us without
staying to hear the enchanting sweetness of our song- and he who listens
will go on his way not only charmed, but wiser, for we know all the
ills that the gods laid upon the Argives and Trojans before Troy,
and can tell you everything that is going to happen over the whole
world.'

"They sang these words most musically, and as I longed to hear them
further I made by frowning to my men that they should set me free;
but they quickened their stroke, and Eurylochus and Perimedes bound
me with still stronger bonds till we had got out of hearing of the
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Sirens' voices. Then my men took the wax from their ears and unbound
me.

3. Todays section also includes the Coen Brothers adaptation of the cyclops. In The Odyssey the
Cyclops is a god-hating monster that captures Odysseus and his men. How is Big Dan Teague a
monster?

4. How do the Coen Brothers use mise en scene to further develop the symbolism of Sherriff Cooley
being Satan?

5. How does the conversation between Pete and Cooley further convince the audience of this
symbolism? (Pay attention to what Pete says)