Brothers Ethan (left) and Joel Coen
THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS B
USA (132 mi) 2018
Things have a way of
escalating out here in the West.
―Buster Scruggs (Tim Blake Nelson)
Demonstrating more
theatricality than usual, exhibiting a flair for the stage, the Coens have
immersed themselves into a traveling Broadway theater troupe, making a series
of illustrated short stories come alive onscreen. Borrowing exclusively from a storybook
entitled The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and
Other Tales of the American Frontier, the camera scrutinizes a hard-covered
picture book while a hand turns the pages to reveal six stories and
illustrations contained within. While
it’s a literary gesture, all the stories take place in a budding frontier of
the American West, still grappling with its identity, as we examine singing
gunslingers, an inept bank robber facing the end of a rope, twice, a lone gold
prospector seeking his fortune in a lush and beautiful valley, an exploited
thespian of the oddest sort (a damning assessment of the entertainment
business), and even a wagon train romance that goes awry, ending with a grim
stagecoach ride with passengers who don’t seem particularly thrilled with their
destination. Each exceedingly different
in tone, with death a common denominator in all of the stories, the project was
begun as a collection of stories for Netflix to be shown in a six-part
television series, the first of their films to be shot digitally, but once
completed, edited with such economy, it’s been pared down to the size of a
typical feature-length movie, so why not enjoy viewing it in a theater? While the first three are more bizarre, the
final three carry more dramatic weight and are easily enjoyable. While it’s not particularly earth-shaking in
terms of Coen’s originality, watching a film in this format feels similar to
Kelly Reichardt’s Certain
Women (2016), which was itself adapted from a collection of short stories,
largely character-driven, each its own version of a morality play. Reminiscent of the musical numbers from their
earlier film, Hail,
Caesar! (2016), there’s a healthy dose of singing throughout, some staged
intentionally in comic renditions for the viewers, like a kind of surreal
musical theater, while others simply appear spontaneously in keeping with the
character, all contributing to the overall frontier spirit that feels more than
anything like bedtime stories.
The Ballad of Buster
Scruggs
Tim Blake Nelson,
the “dumb as rocks” country boy in O
Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), returns as the irrepressibly cheerful
singing cowboy, a man in white, overly polite and seemingly harmless, perhaps
modeled after Roy Rogers, the good guy who always wins in a fair fight, taking
on a host of unscrupulous characters that he dispatches with ease, though he
introduces himself singing ballads, like the old Marty Robbins favorite,
Marty Robbins - Cool Water -
YouTube (3:10), strumming a guitar while saddled on a horse, riding through
the essence of Monument Valley, like a walk down memory lane. Narrating the saga of his own life through
song, while always seen facing the camera, there’s little doubt that we are in
a movie, where fables have a larger-than-life impact, spreading the word
whether it holds true or not, where every event is an exaggerated adventure
story about valor and heroism that ultimately prevails in this lawless outback
of derelicts and outlaws, where seemingly one man is responsible for cleaning
up these towns. With malice and a hint
of violence creeping out of every dark corner, Buster blithely fends off all
contenders with a smile, set in a cartoonish universe of prevailing good
fortune, where he always gets his man, even when outnumbered. This kind of buffoonish novelty wears off,
however, when a man in black known only as “The Kid” rides into town, playing a
tune on his harmonica. Dazed by the
dulcet tones and overconfident from his earlier encounters, Buster never knew
what hit him, where his soul rising from a dead body lying on the ground tells
us all we need to know, as Buster slowly rises up to heaven on angel’s wings,
harmonizing in a duet with his living rival, still cheerfully singing about
heading for a better place where hopefully peace prevails.
Near Algodones
In the stark
emptiness of an open plain, the use of digital cameras is never more apparent
than this segment, where a lone bank sits in the middle of nowhere, seemingly
the only building constructed for miles in any direction, while next to it is a
well with a sign attached saying “Bad Water.”
A rider on a horse (James Franco) approaches and configures the lay of the
land, with he and the horse standing silently like silhouettes for a good long
while, the quiet before the storm, before he decides to enter. A lone bank teller sits inside, setting the
stage for extreme comic absurdity, as it’s hard to imagine any place like this
ever existed except in fairy tales, as banks tend to be closer to populated
areas. The thought of a teller dutifully
sitting at his post all day without a single customer shoots into the mind with
a smile, but here, once a cowboy steps inside, the teller can’t stop yakking,
telling tall stories about how he proudly thwarted prior robbery attempts. As if he needed to be reminded of his
purpose, the cowboy pulls out a gun and stages a robbery. The quick-thinking teller initiates a
diversion that would stop many, but not this cowboy, who sneaks outside with a
bag of money prior to being fired on before he can get to his horse, holed up
under cover of the water hole as much of the money flies off in the
breeze. The teller, dressed in a suit of
iron pots, charges the outlaw, with bullets clanking off the iron, knocking the
criminal out with a single blow to the head.
When he awakes, he’s strung up to a tree atop a horse (the only tree
seen for miles), hands tied behind his back with a noose around his neck, with
a sheriff asking if he has any last words he’d like to say, with the cowboy
incredulously unaware of how he arrived in this predicament. Like something out of a Sergio Leone flick,
all hell breaks loose when they are attacked by a band of Comanches, killing
the entire posse, but leaving him in the same predicament. A roving cattleman eventually sets him free,
offering a renewed chance at life, but they’re quickly apprehended by the law
where he’s charged with cattle rustling, soon finding himself with another
noose around his neck. Sizing up the man
next to him breaking down in uncontrollable tears, the cowboy doesn’t mince
words. “First time?” The irony, of course, is that he’s sentenced
to death for a crime he didn’t actually commit, as it was a stroke of good luck
that he escaped from his real crime. The
moral: crime doesn’t pay.
Meal Ticket
Eerily strange and grim, this features a traveling one-man
road show, like something seen out of PINOCCHIO (1940), where the performer
(Harry Melling, aka Dudley Dursley from the Harry
Potter series) is little more than a caged prisoner, an actor with no arms
or legs, yet whose stage presence is amazingly complex and sophisticated, doing
Shakespeare readings, Bible and poetry selections, while reciting the popular
Gettysburg Address. The unscrupulous man
behind the scenes is the despicable owner, Liam Neeson, who dresses and feeds
his artist, but they never say a solitary word to each other. Instead they are simply passengers drifting
in the night, each using the other.
Moving from town to town across the West, people show up mostly out of
curiosity, not knowing what to expect, setting up in the middle of town, but
the curiously gifted performer has the power to bring audiences to tears, with
the owner passing a cup through the audience afterwards for payment. But as time goes on audiences dwindle and
grow smaller, leaving the owner bitterly annoyed. Noticing a bigger crowd across the street, he
discovers a trained chicken that can apparently defy the odds, with the owner
deciding to invest instead in the chicken.
After watching the owner practice dropping a big stone off a cliff into
the river below, we have every reason to believe that is the fate of his
cruelly exploited performer, brutally dispatched, upstaged by a chicken. The moral:
There is simply no accounting for taste.
All Gold Canyon
Adapted from a Jack London story, this one features the most
beautiful scenery, with a shaggy white-haired prospector (Tom Waits) coming
across a mountainous pass with his mule, discovering a luscious green valley
below with a river snaking through it, an alluring sight to behold. Freely singing “Mother Machree” to the winds,
he rambles through the forest muttering to himself throughout the sequence in a
way only Tom Waits can do, exhibiting signs of an isolationist, a mountain man
in his element seeking his fortune, but also capturing that frontier spirit of
independence and entrepreneurship, finding early signs of gold, digging
multiple holes searching for that larger pocket that he believes is in the
vicinity. After spending plenty of
backbreaking work looking to strike it rich, he finally celebrates his find,
only to be shot in the back by a man shadowing his actions, cleverly disguising
the seriousness of the wound and surprising his attacker, catching him
unawares. Not only is he furious that
the man would shoot him in the back, but how cowardly can one man be for
stealing another man’s work, while doing nothing to earn or deserve it. His cagy actions pay dividends in the end,
where his hard work and perseverance pay off, extremely fortunate that the
bullet passed right through without causing any internal damage, burying his
attacker in the hole he dug after extracting bags of gold, showing rare
optimism from the Coens, becoming one of the few to ultimately achieve the
American Dream.
The Gal Who Got Rattled
The most developed sequence of the bunch, not really typical of the Coen
brothers style, inspired by a Western tale from Stewart Edward White, a
contemporary of Jack London’s, slowly developing, not very flashy, but using very
precise language, this actually becomes the most surprising segment, especially
the way the story twists at the end, which could never have been anticipated,
as little dark turns occur throughout that add immense pleasure to the overall
experience, where it’s nice to be able to expect the unexpected. Starting off in an ungodly boring dinner
conversation, a brother and sister team of the overly twitchy Gilbert
(Jefferson Mays) and the more stable and levelheaded Alice (Zoe Kazan) head out
of the city to Oregon to seek their fortune, and a prospective arranged husband
for Alice with a business partner (potentially, as it hasn’t really been
arranged), traveling by wagon train, bringing with them their pesky dog named
President Pierce, whose constant yapping is getting on the nerves of their
fellow travelers. When Gilbert dies on
the trail to a sudden bout of cholera, Alice has nowhere else to go, sticking
with the wagon train, though she has no conceivable means of paying the boy her
brother hired to help them on the journey.
Bringing this problem to the two men in charge, cowpoke Billy Knapp
(Bill Heck) and the grizzly old veteran wagonmaster Mr. Arthur (Grainger
Hines), riding partners for 15 years, they believe the agreed upon wage is
basically a swindle, far more than what others receive. It turns out Gilbert never had any business
sense, but Alice is still perplexed by what to do. Knapp makes her an offer that includes a
marriage proposal, which will settle her debts but also provide for the future,
leaving Arthur speechless, seen muttering to himself. This romance back doors into the most
understated of melodramatic soap operas, with few seeing it coming. Knapp however fails in his attempt to rid the
train of her dog, as it ran away before he could shoot him, thinking they will
never see him again. But when Alice
wanders away from the train, Mr. Arthur sets out to find her and bring her
back, but is surprised at how far she wandered, finally seen hypnotically
transfixed in pleasure at the dog barking at the erratic behavior of prairie
dogs, popping their heads in and out of their holes. But before they can return, trouble lurks in
the distance, as they are attacked by a patrol of Comanches, with Arthur
handing her a gun with two bullets, with instructions to use it in the event of
a dire emergency should he become incapacitated or shot dead. Heroically, Arthur proves himself a worthy
adversary, fending off waves of attacks singlehanded, offering an amusing
monologue while doing it, seemingly satisfied with himself, as if he’s seen it
all. But he’s surprised by a rogue
warrior who disguises himself, remaining hidden until the last minute, then
smacking Arthur in the head with a tomahawk, lying helplessly on the
ground. In the Indian’s excitement to
take a scalp, he falls for a trick of his own, playing dead, with Arthur
putting a bullet through his head.
Retreating back to Alice, she was unaware of these surprise tactics,
having taken her own life when she thought Arthur was dead. Who would have thought President Pierce would
outlive both of his masters? The real
dilemma, however, is Arthur didn’t know what he would say when explaining to
Knapp what happened.
The Mortal Remains
Easily the most macabre of the group, the only segment not
to feature a death, though the entire sequence may itself be a strange
stagecoach journey into hell and eternal damnation. The first clue is that the coachman can’t
stop, even when asked, riding continuously until they reach their
destination. The second clue is that
they are transporting a corpse on the roof of the stagecoach. But it’s the nature of the conversation that
leaves this one in a state of ambiguity afterwards, with viewers wondering just
what this is all about. Inside the coach
are an Englishman (Jojo O’Neill) and an Irishman (Brendan Gleeson), both
claiming to be bounty hunters responsible for carrying the loaded corpse up
above, but what’s implied is the three passengers sitting across from them may
already be dead, where they are instead harvesting dead souls, transporting
them to their next destination along the way.
Across from them are a lady (Tyne Daly) squeezed between two men, a
Frenchman (Saul Rubenik) and a frontier trapper (Chelcie Ross). Perhaps most illuminating is the choice of
songs sung by the Irishman, entitled “The Unfortunate Lad,” The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs
Soundtrack - "The Unfortunate Lad ...
YouTube (2:21), featuring a character cut down in his prime, similarly themed and sung to the same melody
as “The Streets of Laredo,” Marty Robbins - The Streets
Of Laredo - YouTube (2:50), where a dying cowboy sings his lament to
another cowboy, which hardly seems fitting for the occasion. The ghastly choice of color on the
passenger’s faces, however, resembles that of a morgue, where they may be sent
on the route of the damned, driven into a mysterious underworld. What stands out here are the clearly
distinctive personalities of the three passengers literally crying out to be
heard, yet their efforts seem to be in vain, as what they have to say, so
valuable in determining their own view and opinion, seems to hold so little
significance to the others, literally falling on deaf ears. While they remain in a state of delusion
about their plight, all thinking they are heading for a better place, delving
into strains of comic absurdity arguing along the way about just what
constitutes better, in the end it’s
hard to argue against death. Only when
they arrive at the final station does the inevitable appear to sink in, as no
one wishes to depart, leaving a hint of the supernatural to conclude this most
unusual film.
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