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O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Date: Mar 08 2001

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Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

at heart

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

The movie John saw recently has a lot of symbolism from the Bible. The movie is strange because many of the characters are blind. John feels that there is some symbolism in that, but isn’t sure exactly what it is. He asks Tanis what her interpretation is.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

John

Tanis

John: Y’know yesterday I went and saw this movie, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” George Clooney is in it and there’s a lot of Biblical references. Y’know as far as the Devil and God and religion and a lot of the people were blind in the movie. And some of them were good and some of them were bad and some were half-blind and…

Tanis: Well, I haven’t seen that movie John, but if people are blind that’s usually, um, a metaphor for them being unable to see themselves truly or see the situation truly or, um, to…to clearly see what’s going on. It could be kind of a resounding metaphor that all of us are blind at heart. Or none of us can truly see ourselves or our path.

John: Yeah, it was interesting ‘cause some, y’know, the first person that’s blind is someone that gives them the overall vision for the whole movie. And then there’s a guy that’s half-blind and he beats him up. And then there’s another guy who’s totally blind who spurs this one treasure that they’re told they’re going to find on this thing. But, they don’t know it at that time.

Tanis: I’d probably want to see that movie and stuff to understand it, but…but I don’t…I mean it’s stupid for me to…

John: I know, but you should go see it. It’d be fun to talk about after that.

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Discussion

It’s difficult for Tanis to help because she hasn’t seen the movie. She sort of feels like she is grabbing at straws. But, since she has a lot of background in literature she knows a lot about what these literary devices mean. She takes a shot in the dark to try and answer John’s question, but says that maybe she should see the movie and then talk about it after. Have you seen this movie? What do you think? Come to the “Movie Madness” message board and ask them! From the front row, Zach