The Coen Brothers’ “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”: A Ludic Comedy of Appearances or an Author’s Confession of Faith Into the Power of Laughter?
Abstract
The article shows how postmodern works try to reinterpret classic film. One such method is the introduction by the artists (the Coen brothers) into the film text a category of historicity. It is understood as a form of reconstruction of the past, as well as a screen behind which the discourse on the problems of the modern era takes place. The author disagrees with the theses present in contemporary research that negate the possibility of the postmodern aesthetic generating meaning that extends beyond the sphere of the text. In his interpretation of O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) Skupień focuses on those aspects of experiencing historicity, which extend beyond the surface reading of meanings in a postmodern text. The author examines issues such as: the question of false adaptation, references to 1930s cinema, the role of music as a vehicle for our ideas regarding the past, and a direct reference to the matrix upon which the meaning of Coen brothers’ film is built: i.e. the classic film of Preston Sturges – Sullivan's Travels.
Keywords:
Coen brothers, historicity, postmodernism, Preston SturgesReferences
Ankersmit, Franklin R. Historiografia i postmodernizm. W Postmodernizm, 145–172. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Baran i Suszczyński, 1997.
Google Scholar
Baudrillard, Jean. Symulakry i symulacja. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sic!, 2005.
Google Scholar
Bergan, Ronald. The Coen Brothers. London: A Phoenix Paperback, 2001.
Google Scholar
Booker, Keith M. Postmodern Hollywood. What’s new in film and why it makes us feel so strange. London: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007.
Google Scholar
Helman, Alicja. Twórcza zdrada. Filmowe adaptacje literatury. Poznań: Ars Nova, 1998. Hutcheon, Linda. Historiograficzna metapowieść: parodia i intertekstualność historii. W Postmodernizm, 378–398. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Baran i Suszczyński, 1997.
Google Scholar
Loska, Krzysztof. Joel i Ethan Coenowie. Kino i postmodernizm. W Kino amerykańskie. Twórcy. Kraków: Rabid, 2006.
Google Scholar
Pirolini, Alessandro. The Cinema of Preston Sturges. A Critical Study. Jefferson, North Carolina and London: MacFarland & Company, 2010.
Google Scholar
Seeley, Tracy. “O Brother, What Art Thou?: Postmodern pranksterism, or parody with a purpose”. Post Script, Essays in Film and the Humanities 27 (2) (2008): 95–105.
Google Scholar
Szacki, Jerzy. Spotkania z utopią. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sic!, 2000.
Google Scholar
Authors
Ireneusz Skupieńkwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
Jagiellonian University Poland
Doktorant w Instytucie Sztuk Audiowizualnych Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego; przygotowuje rozprawę doktorską poświęconą twórczości Prestona Sturgesa; mieszka i pracuje w Wodzisławiu Śląskim.
Statistics
Abstract views: 28PDF downloads: 22
License
Copyright (c) 2015 Ireneusz Skupień
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The author grants the publisher a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Kwartalnik Filmowy, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in Kwartalnik Filmowy should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). The journal is published under the CC BY 4.0 licence. By submitting an article, the author agrees to make it available under this licence.
In issues from 105-106 (2019) to 119 (2022) all articles were published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. During this period the authors granted a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in „Kwartalnik Filmowy”, retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.
Most read articles by the same author(s)
- Ireneusz Skupień, “True Grit”, or on Possibilities of Treating the Genre as a Political Mirror , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 93-94 (2016): American Cinema
