The Ballad of Buster ScruggsStories of the Wild West have been romanticized in movies, literature, and art for a hundred years or more. If the development of these United States were likened to that of a child growing up, this period in history would be the equivalent of our rebellious teenage years, where we spread our net wider to discover what our national identity means to us...and what it doesn't, like how violence can define us. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is an anthology Western by the Coen brothers (Joel and Ethan), comprised of six tales that range from the comical to the tragic, while depicting the foibles, follies, and failings of frontier life.
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The Ballad of Buster Scruggs begins with a whimsical tale about the eponymous Buster (Tim Blake Nelson), a sonorous cowboy and unlikely outlaw both who moseys his way through dusty canyons and equally dusty saloons with a song on his lips and a swift six-shooter at the ready. Despite moments of sudden violence, this introductory chapter paints a wryly comic picture of the cliches of the classic Westerns of yesteryear. It also upends these tropes by making Buster seem like something of a sociopath, repeatedly entering dangerous environments and all but provoking others into shootouts that he's sure to win. In this way, he represents a kind of American exceptionalism, expecting his environment to cater to his perspective, while not changing his own. Or it could just be that Buster is a kind of "Candide"--naively optimistic and ebullient in spite of residing in a rough and dirty locale. "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" is followed by "Near Algodones", which tells the story of a hapless bank robber (James Franco) who picks the wrong establishment upon which to ply his trade. This has less to do with the unscrupulous cowboy's judgment than the teller he confronts (Stephen Root), who adopts a unique form of body armor to give him an edge in their encounter. "Near Algodones" maintains the comical edge from the earlier episode, although it's comedy is blacker. The cowboy is tried and found guilty for attempted robbery by a posse leader (Ralph Ineson), all while he is unconscious. At the moment of his hanging, a band of Comanches intervene...and have no interest in saving the cowboy, who must rely on alternative means of salvation. And even when things start to look up, life seems to have it in for this foolish bank robber, and he must resign himself to his fate.
The tone of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs changes with "Meal Ticket", which is about a young thespian and orator named Harrison (Harry Melling), who delivers poems and speeches with theatrical flair to small towns in the cold frontier. Because Harrison is deprived of arms or legs, he is conveyed from town to town by an impresario (Liam Neeson), who sets up a makeshift stage from his travelling wagon, and begs for coins from the audience, literally hat in hand. Despite Harrison's powerful oratory that initially moves his audience to the verge of tears, as he recites everything from "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley to the Gettysburg Address, eventually the duo find that they are not pulling in enough income by themselves to stay alive. The impresario takes care of Harrison, but their relationship is deliberately unclear. The sense that he does this as though he were just performing upkeep on his proverbial "meal ticket" instead of from altruism becomes increasingly pronounced as the story continues. "Meal Ticket" feels cold and even aloof compared to its counterparts. Harrison never has a speaking line that isn't performed on stage, and the impresario never speaks directly to Harrison, as if he resents attending to the intelligent (if dependent) artist. "Meal Ticket" is followed with "All Gold Canyon", which is adapted from the story of the same name by Jack London. It tells of a verdant valley seemingly untouched by man, until a crusty prospector (Tom Waits) comes searching for a "pocket" of gold. "All Gold Canyon" is a relatively quiet vignette, as the prospector has practically no one to talk to but himself as he pans for tiny nuggets in the river, hoping to narrow down the likely source of his "Mister Pocket". The plot of "All Gold Canyon" often feels like it will go in one direction, yet defies conventional expectations at almost every turn and swings another way. For example, the prospector poaches an owl's egg early on, and the mother owl watches him from on high as he continues to despoil the valley with his presence. Yet the owl ultimately only serves as a reminder to the audience that we are not alone in nature; rather, because we are a part of it, we have to remember our responsibility as stewards of it.
Moving at languid pace is the next entry in the film, "The Gal Who Got Rattled". A young woman named Alice Longabaugh (Zoe Kazan) finds herself devoid of security after her brother, Gilbert (Jefferson Mays), dies shortly after they depart on a caravan to the wilderness of Oregon. Gilbert has told her that she will marry a business associate of his so that he could obtain a more stable financial position in the territory, even though Alice has never met her intended. Stranded among strangers and ill-equipped to support herself, Alice comes to befriend a kindly trail guide named Billy Knapp (Bill Heck). At first, their relationship is platonic, even somewhat formal. Billy pities the unfortunate gal's situation, although that pity grows into something more as she comes to him for assistance with issues like a hired hand named Matt (Ethan Dubin) who is taking advantage of her lack of business acumen and to deal with Gilbert's yappy terrier, curiously named "President Pierce". Alice and Billy become closer gradually, though in keeping with the manners of the day, their romance may appear cool and even stilted to audiences. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs closes with an eerie stagecoach story that wouldn't be out of place if it were told around a campfire some Halloween night. "The Mortal Remains" is possessed of a creepiness usually reserved for scary stories, but it deals with a travelling party of five making their way to Fort Morgan, Colorado for various reasons. The travelers include a rambling trapper (Chelcie Ross), the unflinchingly religious Mrs. Betjeman (Tyne Daly), and a Frenchman named René (Saul Rubinek), who seems predisposed to antagonize Mrs. Betjeman because of her stern attitude toward love. The other two passengers are the most enigmatic--Clarence (Brendan Gleeson) and Thigpen (Jonjo O'Neill)--who describe themselves as "reapers", though they are in fact bounty hunters; their ill-fated quarry is travelling upon the roof above them. Clarence seems the more subdued of the pair, though Thigpen seems to relish in unsettling the three strangers, deriving a thrill from giving them a case of the willies.
It is obvious that The Ballad of Buster Scruggs wears its inspiration on its sleeve by virtue of being something of a "revisionist Western". Moreover, there are myriad nods to art, literature, movies, and television shows that preceded it, giving it a heavy glaze of nostalgia all throughout. The titular Buster Scruggs is a deliberate simulacrum of Roy Rogers, only made into something a little more twisted, like a Looney Tunes caricature. His ability to make the patrons of a tavern burst into song after he slays a cranky gambler named Çurly Joe (Clancy Brown) is clearly inappropriate but hysterical nonetheless. [This is lampshaded when the fallen gambler's brother (Danny McCarthy) interrupts the festivities over the corpse of his sibling to "call out" Buster.] The Coen brothers are no strangers to being self-referential, and the tone of each story recalls many of their prior works; doesn't Buster feel just a bit like Ulysses Everett McGill from O Brother, Where Art Thou? The sheer bleakness of "Meal Ticket" recalls Westerns like The Great Silence, defying the bright and sunny heroics sometimes attributed to the genre. Even the impresario's fur coat recalls the same one worn by John McCabe in McCabe & Mrs. Miller. The slow pacing of "The Girl Who Got Rattled", along with the wagon train story itself, is like the kinds of paperback Western adventure stories so popular from long ago--the kind that one might find a stack of in the attic some dusty summer afternoon. Even the majestic vista of the valley of "All Gold Valley" is evokes the untainted majesty of a painting like "A Pastoral Scene" by Asher Brown Durand. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is bookended (literally) by the image of a vintage collection of stories (titled "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs"), complete with chapter breaks and illustrated images. Though The Ballad of Buster Scruggs may be a revisionist Western, it also exists as an exploration of the genre and how its mystique has been infused into our national identity for over a century.
Recommended for: Fans of the Western and for those accustomed to the clever and poignant brand of comedy and drama that have made the Coen brothers some of the most beloved filmmakers today. Instances of violence are themselves a part of the identity of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, ranging in their application from slapstick to the sorrowful, and is itself a commentary on how violence defines us as Americans.
The tone of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs changes with "Meal Ticket", which is about a young thespian and orator named Harrison (Harry Melling), who delivers poems and speeches with theatrical flair to small towns in the cold frontier. Because Harrison is deprived of arms or legs, he is conveyed from town to town by an impresario (Liam Neeson), who sets up a makeshift stage from his travelling wagon, and begs for coins from the audience, literally hat in hand. Despite Harrison's powerful oratory that initially moves his audience to the verge of tears, as he recites everything from "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley to the Gettysburg Address, eventually the duo find that they are not pulling in enough income by themselves to stay alive. The impresario takes care of Harrison, but their relationship is deliberately unclear. The sense that he does this as though he were just performing upkeep on his proverbial "meal ticket" instead of from altruism becomes increasingly pronounced as the story continues. "Meal Ticket" feels cold and even aloof compared to its counterparts. Harrison never has a speaking line that isn't performed on stage, and the impresario never speaks directly to Harrison, as if he resents attending to the intelligent (if dependent) artist. "Meal Ticket" is followed with "All Gold Canyon", which is adapted from the story of the same name by Jack London. It tells of a verdant valley seemingly untouched by man, until a crusty prospector (Tom Waits) comes searching for a "pocket" of gold. "All Gold Canyon" is a relatively quiet vignette, as the prospector has practically no one to talk to but himself as he pans for tiny nuggets in the river, hoping to narrow down the likely source of his "Mister Pocket". The plot of "All Gold Canyon" often feels like it will go in one direction, yet defies conventional expectations at almost every turn and swings another way. For example, the prospector poaches an owl's egg early on, and the mother owl watches him from on high as he continues to despoil the valley with his presence. Yet the owl ultimately only serves as a reminder to the audience that we are not alone in nature; rather, because we are a part of it, we have to remember our responsibility as stewards of it.
Moving at languid pace is the next entry in the film, "The Gal Who Got Rattled". A young woman named Alice Longabaugh (Zoe Kazan) finds herself devoid of security after her brother, Gilbert (Jefferson Mays), dies shortly after they depart on a caravan to the wilderness of Oregon. Gilbert has told her that she will marry a business associate of his so that he could obtain a more stable financial position in the territory, even though Alice has never met her intended. Stranded among strangers and ill-equipped to support herself, Alice comes to befriend a kindly trail guide named Billy Knapp (Bill Heck). At first, their relationship is platonic, even somewhat formal. Billy pities the unfortunate gal's situation, although that pity grows into something more as she comes to him for assistance with issues like a hired hand named Matt (Ethan Dubin) who is taking advantage of her lack of business acumen and to deal with Gilbert's yappy terrier, curiously named "President Pierce". Alice and Billy become closer gradually, though in keeping with the manners of the day, their romance may appear cool and even stilted to audiences. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs closes with an eerie stagecoach story that wouldn't be out of place if it were told around a campfire some Halloween night. "The Mortal Remains" is possessed of a creepiness usually reserved for scary stories, but it deals with a travelling party of five making their way to Fort Morgan, Colorado for various reasons. The travelers include a rambling trapper (Chelcie Ross), the unflinchingly religious Mrs. Betjeman (Tyne Daly), and a Frenchman named René (Saul Rubinek), who seems predisposed to antagonize Mrs. Betjeman because of her stern attitude toward love. The other two passengers are the most enigmatic--Clarence (Brendan Gleeson) and Thigpen (Jonjo O'Neill)--who describe themselves as "reapers", though they are in fact bounty hunters; their ill-fated quarry is travelling upon the roof above them. Clarence seems the more subdued of the pair, though Thigpen seems to relish in unsettling the three strangers, deriving a thrill from giving them a case of the willies.
It is obvious that The Ballad of Buster Scruggs wears its inspiration on its sleeve by virtue of being something of a "revisionist Western". Moreover, there are myriad nods to art, literature, movies, and television shows that preceded it, giving it a heavy glaze of nostalgia all throughout. The titular Buster Scruggs is a deliberate simulacrum of Roy Rogers, only made into something a little more twisted, like a Looney Tunes caricature. His ability to make the patrons of a tavern burst into song after he slays a cranky gambler named Çurly Joe (Clancy Brown) is clearly inappropriate but hysterical nonetheless. [This is lampshaded when the fallen gambler's brother (Danny McCarthy) interrupts the festivities over the corpse of his sibling to "call out" Buster.] The Coen brothers are no strangers to being self-referential, and the tone of each story recalls many of their prior works; doesn't Buster feel just a bit like Ulysses Everett McGill from O Brother, Where Art Thou? The sheer bleakness of "Meal Ticket" recalls Westerns like The Great Silence, defying the bright and sunny heroics sometimes attributed to the genre. Even the impresario's fur coat recalls the same one worn by John McCabe in McCabe & Mrs. Miller. The slow pacing of "The Girl Who Got Rattled", along with the wagon train story itself, is like the kinds of paperback Western adventure stories so popular from long ago--the kind that one might find a stack of in the attic some dusty summer afternoon. Even the majestic vista of the valley of "All Gold Valley" is evokes the untainted majesty of a painting like "A Pastoral Scene" by Asher Brown Durand. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is bookended (literally) by the image of a vintage collection of stories (titled "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs"), complete with chapter breaks and illustrated images. Though The Ballad of Buster Scruggs may be a revisionist Western, it also exists as an exploration of the genre and how its mystique has been infused into our national identity for over a century.
Recommended for: Fans of the Western and for those accustomed to the clever and poignant brand of comedy and drama that have made the Coen brothers some of the most beloved filmmakers today. Instances of violence are themselves a part of the identity of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, ranging in their application from slapstick to the sorrowful, and is itself a commentary on how violence defines us as Americans.