20 Things You Didn't Know About O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Certain movies you expect to become cultural phenomena significant enough to earn their own spin-offs, but this artsy oddity probably is not one of them. Nevertheless, the release of O Brother, Where Art Thou? came simultaneous to a companion movie, Down From The Mountain.

A concert film and documentary, Down From The Mountain capitalises on how the movie revitalised interest in traditional bluegrass and Americana music by filming a benefit concert for the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee performed by the musicians featured in the Coens' original movie.

With performances from the likes of Alison Krauss, Ralph Stanley, Emmylou Harris, The Fairfield Four and Gillian Welch (the last of whom also has a cameo in O Brother asking for the Soggy Bottom Boys record at Woolworths), along with behind the scenes footage, Down From The Mountain captures the soundscape of the Coen brothers' movie live.

Co-directed by rock documentary pioneer DA Pennebacker (music fans will know his Bob Dylan film Dont Look Back, if only for the way that Dylan holding up cards with the lyrics of Subterranean Homesick Blues prefigured the idea of the music video and became one of that medium's enduring images), Down From The Mountain may be little more than a curio for fans of either O Brother, Where Art Thou? or traditional American music. But for those people it's a real gem.