The film O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a reinterpretation of the epic poem The Odyssey. The Coen brothers, writers and directors of the film, did not overanalyze their portrayal. “It occurred to us, after we put some effort into it, that this was a story about someone coming home, and in a way episodic in nature, and it kind of evolved into that,” says Joel Coen in Blood Siblings, “It is based very loosely and unseriously on the Odyssey” (Woods 32). O Brother, Where Art Thou? contains ideas from the Odyssey for the sake of modernization and the entertainment of an audience that includes the allusions to the epic. The Coen brothers use elements of Homer's Odyssey to enhance and give direction to O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a reinterpretation made simply to demonstrate that an epic adventure like The Odyssey could be modernized to apply it. to modern times. The film begins with the evocation of the Muse taken from Homer's evocation in the Odyssey. The writers pray to a higher power to tell them the story "of that man skilled in all ways of fighting... A wanderer, tormented for years and years" (O brother, where art thou?). This is a direct and telling quote from Robert Fitzgerald's 1961 translation of The Odyssey. Opening O Brother, Where Art Thou? with the same invocation of Homer's Muse, the Coens soon create a direct correlation between the two works. This tells the audience that they should expect the direction of the plot to mimic that of the Odyssey. The main characters of each work are automatically associated with each other through their names, but they also share similar personalities and characteristics. Odysseus is a cunning hero of the Trojan War who uses his deceptive paper elements of the epic poem to enhance and give direction to his work. Works Cited Burke, Daniel. “RNS Feature: “The Complicated Gospel of the Coen Brothers”” Religious News Service. 28 September 2009. Web. 01 March 2010. .Homer. The Odyssey: Fitzgerald's translation. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1998. Print.Jase. “O brother, where art thou?” The myth of the Lamia. January 3, 2010. Web. March 3, 2010. .O brother, where are you? Director Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. Perf. George Clooney, Tim Blake Nelson and John Turturro. Studio Canal, Working Title Films, 2000. DVD.Woods, Paul A., ed. Blood Brothers: the cinema of Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. Grand Rapids: Plexus, 2000. Print.