There was an innocent spirit in the movies that Preston Sturges made during World War II. His comedy was broad and his wit could be cutting, but at their core his films recall a time when we thought we had reason to be optimistic about the innate goodness of the human spirit. Sturges’s style did not survive the cynical realism of the postwar era. But while it lasted, his films dominated the industry.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
Chocolat (2000), directed by Lasse Hallström
Joel and Ethan Coen came up with a strange concept for O Brother, Where Art Thou?: they took major elements of Homer's Odyssey and set them in the Depression-era South. George Clooney's character is named Ulysses, the cyclops is represented by a Bible salesman with a patch over one eye, a blind seer comes along on a handcar, and of course, there are three bathing sirens.