O Brother, Where Art Thou?

BLACK:

In black, we hear a chain-gang chant, many voices together,

spaced around the unison strike of picks against rock. A

title burns in:

O muse!

Sing in me, and through me tell the story

Of that man skilled in all the ways of contending...

A wanderer, harried for years on end...

On the sound of an impact we cut to:

A PICK:

splitting a rock.

As the chant continues, wider angles show the chain-gang at

work. They are black men in bleached and faded stripes,

chained together, working under a brutal midday sun.

It is flat delta countryside; the straight-ruled road

stretches to infinity. Mounted guards with shotguns lazily

patrol the line.

The chain-gang chant is regular and, it seems, timeless.

We slowly fade out, returning to

BLACK:

The last of the voices fades.

After a long beat we hear the guitar introduction to Harry

McClintock's 'The Big Rock Candy Mountain.'

A WHEAT FIELD:

A road cuts across the middle background. Noonday sun beats

down.

We hear the distant picks and shovels of men at work and

see, rising above ground level, the occasional upraised pick

and spade heaving dirt. Men are digging a ditch alongside

the road.

After a long beat, three men pop up in the wheat field in

the middle foreground. They wear faded stripes and grey duck-

billed caps. They scurry abreast toward the camera, throwing

an occasional glance back at the ditch-diggers. A clanking

sound accompanies their run. Oddly, the wheat between them

sweeps down as they run. After a brief sprint they drop back

down into the wheat.

In the background a man enters frame left, strolling along

the road, wearing a khaki uniform and sunglasses, a shotgun

resting against one shoulder. He glances idly down into the

ditch and strolls on out of frame right.

The three men rise back up from the wheat and, clanking,

resume their sprint.

THREE PAIRS OF EYES

They are topped by three cap bills, and peer out from behind

a blind of greenery. We hear distant whistling.

The men are looking at a weathered barn. A young boy,

whistling, is heading down the road that leads away from the

barn, jiggling the traces of the old plough horse that leads

him. He turns a corner and is gone.

BARNYARD:

The three clanking men (we can now see their leg irons) are

awkwardly chasing a chicken around the yard. The squawking

yardbird doesn't need to move much to elude the three bunched

men.

COUNTRY LANE:

It curves in a gentle S into the background. It is sun-

dappled, pretty.

We hear clanking footsteps approaching at a trot.

The three men enter in the foreground and trot on down the

lane. The leftmost has a flapping chicken tucked under one

arm.

AFTERNOON CAMPFIRE

The three men sit in a side-by-side arc around a dying fire,

one of them contentedly picking his teeth with a small chicken

bone, another wiping grease off his chin with a sleeve, the

third idly poking at the fire with a spit.

Each of them, still bound by chains, clinks as he moves.

One of them abruptly c*cks his head, listening.

The others notice his attitude and also freeze, listening.

We hear the distant baying of hounds.

ROLLING HILLS:

From high on a ridge we see the three chained men running

toward us.

In addition to their clanks we hear a distant chugging sound.

TRACKING:

Laterally with the clanking, running feet.

The chugging sound is very loud.

RUNNING:

Next to a freight train. A boxcar door is open.

INSIDE THE BOXCAR

The lead convict hooks an elbow in and starts hauling himself

up, his two clanking friends keeping pace outside.

Six hobos sit in the boxcar, lounging against sacks of

O'Daniel's Flour. They impassively watch the convict clamber

in as his two confederates run to keep up.

The convict hauls himself to his feet. In spite of his stubble

he has carefully tended hair and a pencil mustache. He is

Everett.

As he dusts himself off:

EVERETT:

Say, uh, any a you boys smithies?

The hobos stare.

Everett gives an ingratiating smile as, behind him, the second

convict starts to haul himself into the boxcar, the third

convict still keeping pace outside.

EVERETT:

Or, if not smithies per se, were you

otherwise trained in the metallurgic

arts before straitened circumstances

forced you into a life of aimless

wanderin'?

The convict running outside the boxcar door stumbles and

disappears and the middle convict is yanked out immediately

after. Everett, just finishing his speech, flips forward in

turn, smashes his chin onto the floor and is sucked out the

open doorway, his clawing fingernails leaving parallel grooves

on the boxcar floorboards.

The hobos impassively watch.

OUTSIDE:

The three men tumble, clanking, down the track embankment.

Squush - they come to a rest in swampland at the bottom.

They shake their heads clear, then rise to their feet in the

muck and watch the train recede.

Its fading clatter leaves the baying of hounds.

EVERETT:

Jesus - can't I count on you people?

The second con is Delmar.

DELMAR:

Sorry, Everett.

Everett looks desperately about.

EVERETT:

All right - if we take off through

that bayou-

The third con, Pete, bald but also with beard stubble, angrily

cuts in.

PETE:

Wait a minute! Who elected you leader

a this outfit?

EVERETT:

Well, Pete, I just figured it should

be the one with capacity for abstract

thought. But if that ain't the

consensus view, hell, let's put her

to a vote!

PETE:

Suits me! I'm votin' for yours truly!

EVERETT:

Well I'm votin' for yours truly too!

Both men look interrogatively to Delmar.

He looks from Pete to Everett, and nods agreeably.

DELMAR:

Okay - I'm with you fellas.

Everett makes a sudden hushing gesture and all listen.

The baying of hounds is louder now, but through it we hear a

distant scrape of metal against metal, like the workings of

a rusty pump. The men turn in unison to look up the track.

A small, distant form is moving slowly up the track toward

them.

As it draws closer it resolves into a human-propelled flatcar.

An ancient black man rhythmically pumps its long seesaw

handle.

The three convicts look out at the swampland which begins to

show movement, the bowing grass trampled by men and dogs.

The flatcar draws even and slows.

EVERETT:

Mind if we join you, ol' timer?

OLD MAN:

Join me, my sons.

The three men clamber aboard and the old man resumes pumping.

The three men exchange glances; Delmar waves a clanking hand

before the old man's milky eyes. No reaction.

DELMAR:

You work for the railroad, grandpa?

OLD MAN:

I work for no man.

PETE:

Got a name, do ya?

OLD MAN:

I have no name.

EVERETT:

Well, that right there may be why

you've had difficulty finding gainful

employment. Ya see, in the mart of

competitive commerce, the-

OLD MAN:

You seek a great fortune, you three

who are now in chains...

The men fall silent.

OLD MAN:

And you will find a fortune - though

it will not be the fortune you seek...

The three convicts, faces upturned, listen raptly to the

blind prophet.

OLD MAN:

...But first, first you must travel

a long and difficult road - a road

fraught with peril, uh-huh, and

pregnant with adventure. You shall

see things wonderful to tell. You

shall see a cow on the roof of a

cottonhouse, uh-huh, and oh, so many

startlements...

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