To help prepare for my response paper for The Odyssey/ "Oh Brother Where Art Thou," I re-watched "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" and definetly picked up on a few details I didn't get the first time. While many aspects of the movie were clarified for me, one thing that I'm still having trouble with is the significance of George Nelson.
When I first watched the movie, I thought his role was to show one of the many twists and turns the prisoners experienced on their journey. However after re-watching it, I feel like he is suppose to signify how some people struggled with this idea of being a "good" christian in an environment where there really isn't any religious diversity.
When he is first introduced to the prisoners, he had just robbed two banks and was on his way to rob a third. In the car, he asks the boys if they are bad. Delmar answers, "I was bad until yesterday, but me and Pete have been saved." Once the boys arrive to the third bank, George Nelson declares, " Jesus saves, but George Nelson withdraws." After he takes the money, an old women says " isn't that baby face Nelson?" and he flips out, saying "I am George Nelson and I was born to raise hell." The scene then cuts to the boys sitting around the campfire with all of their stolen money, and Pete says stealing all this money "almost makes me wish I hadn't been saved." However George Nelson doesn't say anything, and appears to upset when we would think he should be happy from getting away with stealing a bunch of money. Then he gives the boys all the money he stole, and walks away into the darkness.
For someone who was "born to raise hell," it is clear George Nelson believes by going against the idea go being a "good" christian, he appears to be tough and a bad-ass. But at the end of the day, all he really wants to be is excepted.
I think George Nelson reflects on humanity as a whole. Everyone has extreme highs and extreme lows, and George Nelson just happened to encounter his faster than most. The intense adrenaline high he seems to get from robbing banks could play into his sadness after it is all over. He seems to fall down from this high very quickly and very far. Also, I think the fact that he flips out after being called "baby faced" shows that he is a very insecure individual, and may use his bank robbing prowess to give himself self confidence.
ReplyDeleteGeorge is a somewhat confusing character to me as well, although when we watched the film I tried not to give him much thought since I wasn't sure what to think. It seems like George has something not quite right about him. He might have had some kind of traumatic experience when he was younger. His views of things are definitely unique-- for example, when he was being taken to his death he was describing how great it was going to be and how all the lightning would be flowing through him and how important he would seem. I don't know if George is really deliberately thinking about religion-- or going against religion-- at all. He seems to have some kind of constant inner monologue that we aren't privy to but drives his "ups and downs."
ReplyDeleteGeorge Nelson is also an example of how the Coens bring in quasi-mythical figures from American popular culture, as they do with Tommy Johnson and the crossroads. The 1920s-30s saw a number of celebrity criminals, bank robbers and mobsters who were given nicknames by the press (like "Scarface" or "Babyface" or "Bonnie and Clyde"). The whole idea of a criminal who *wants* to be known and acknowledged for his crimes taps into this idea--and Nelson wants to try and revamp his public image, apparently. ("Babyface," as you say, doesn't sound so "bad-ass.")
ReplyDeleteThis does seem to reflect the Homeric phenomenon of figures (from the Trojan War, for example) who have received local fame in their lifetime, whose exploits are passed on through the oral tradition and whose exploits are well-known.