In The Odyssey, the one-eyed giant Polyphemus is a cannibal who lives in a cave, but in Ethan Coen and Joel Coen’s O Brother Where Art Thou?, he’s at a picnic eating chicken, pickles, and drinking beer. The Coens claimed they did not read The Odyssey, but someone on staff did, especially reading Book 9, Ulysses’ encounter with Polyphemus. In that confrontation, wily Ulysses defeats blinds the giant, but in O Brother Where Art Thou?, he loses, knocked cold.
The Coens’ encounter begins when Ulysses Everett McGill and loyal follower Delmar O’Donnell are lunching in a restaurant and talking about money. Nearby, Big Dan Teague, aka Polyphemus, a large man wearing an eye patch, assumes that the money is in the shoebox they are carefully tending. Unable to resist a con, he approaches them. “I like your style,” he says, “so I’m gonna propose you a proposition. You cover my check so I don’t have to run back up to my room, have your waitress wrap your dinner picnic-style, and we’ll retire to more private environs where I will explain to you how vast amounts of money can be made in the service of God Amighty.”
Big Dan Teague is complimentary at the picnic with Ulysses and Delmar, “Thankee boys for throwin’ in that fricassee. I’m a man with a large appetite, and even with lunch under my belt, I was feeling a mite peckish,” he says. Everett responds, “Our pleasure, Big Dan.” But when the eating is done, Big Dan swings into action, breaks a tree limb flattens Ulysses and Everett. Then, rifling through their pockets, he steals their money. Then opening the shoebox he thinks is filled with cash, he finds a bullfrog. Pissed, Big Dan crushes the bullfrog in his fist.
It’s a crude way to end a picnic, but the Coens must have their joke.
The Cast: George Clooney as Ulysses Everett McGill; John Turturro as Pet; Tim Blake Nelson as Delmar; John Goodman as Big Dan Teague
See Joel Coen. O Brother Where Art Thou (2000). The screenplay is by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen