O Brother, Where Art Thou?: Use of African American Motifs

The film O Brother, Where Art Thou? by the Coen brothers although set in the 1930s (a time in which racial unrest was prevalent) and set around the story of three Caucasian convicts named Ulysses Everett McGill played by George Clooney, Pete Hogwallop played by John Turturro, and Delmar O'Donnell played by John Blake Nelson who have escaped from prison to find gold that Everett has hidden, focuses on a great deal of African American motifs throughout the movie which habitually tend to be the saving grace of the three men.

In the opening of the film, we see an African-American chain gang singing while working in a rock quarry. As the African-American men sing while doing their work, Everett and his companions Pete and Delmar escape. The African-Americans provide the cover to distract the deputies from seeing the three men. Ironically, the song being sung is about the the fate of the Everett and his companions, they sing about the a sheriff telling the deputy to fetch Lazarus (Everett and his companions are being hunted by the sheriff and deputy, thus they are the Lazarus of which the chain gang sings). Later in the movie, as Everett and his companions attempt to hop a train, but fail, they are looking for a way to escape the deputies on their heels when an old, blind African-American man comes scooting along on the railroad on a wagon. The men's fates are once again save as the man gives them a ride while also predicting their fate.

Ironically, the next time their paths are intertwined with a black man is at a crossroads which could be meant to symbolize the intersection of the African American predicament and Caucasian predicament in the 1930s. Especially in the South, because during this time neither group of individuals had the upper hand. The Depression evened the playing field for the all Southerns whether they were African American or Caucasian. The crossroads could also signify the intersection of the past and present by using the myth of Tommy Johnson (or could signify myth of Robert Johnson; both Johnsons were influential American Delta blues musicians who were thought to have sold their souls to the devil for talent at the crossroads) of the past with the interpretation the his myth in the present (i.e. O Brother).
Which ever it may be, the crossroads seems to foreshadow the intermingling of African American Tommy Johnson and the three men's fates later in the film.

Another example of the refuge African American motifs offer Everett and his gang is when Tommy is kidnapped by the KKK and the three men go to rescue him. The three men put on black face so that they could not be seen in the dark by KKK members, after which the KKK members accuse Everett and his men of being mulattoes who have infiltrated the KKK. Black face has been a part of African American history and fact that it was used in the movie not as derogatory tool but as a instrument in subterfuge to save the three men once again examples the Coens use of using African American motifs as saving grace for Everett and his men. I think the usage of the motifs with in the film are spectacularly used and, whether intentional or not, still speak to the genius of the Coen brothers.