The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
If it wasn’t already clear, Joel & Ethan Coen love the Western genre, and beyond that, the tropes and themes within the genre. Yes, they have only made a couple of films in the genre, with “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” being only their second after “True Grit,” but you can see the affection for the genre in plenty of their films, whether it’s the cops and criminals in “Blood Simple,” the stark scenes in the snow in “Fargo,” or the amorality in “No Country for Old Men.” Hell, look at Sam Elliot’s character in “The Big Lebowski” and tell me he isn’t someone out of an Old West story. The brothers Coen always have worn their appreciation for genres and the way they operate on their sleeves, and “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” is another example of that.
Their latest film is a series of six stories, all set in the Old West, all looking at a piece of western storytelling from film history through Joel and Ethan’s particularly unique sensibilities. Anthologies are difficult to judge on the whole, because you don’t necessarily have a through line narrative to connect them, so it basically has to be judged on a story-by-story basis. However great the Coens are as filmmakers, even they aren’t immune to that.
The film begins with a hand leafing through the titular book before diving in to the story that gives the film it’s title, about a singing cowboy who rides his horse, Dan, and wears and clean white shirt and hat, who stops in at two very different saloons along the way, and the dust ups he gets into to at each. This is easily one of the best pieces of storytelling the Coens have ever done, and only Tim Blake Nelson could play this character and make it so endearing to watch. Nelson is sensational as Scruggs, selling the duel nature of the character, both as a joyous songbird of the West, and as a vicious killer, all with a smile on his face, even when he finds himself on the bad ends of situations, as he has here. It’s a shame this was the best way to open the film, because the brothers have their best material, and weapons, at work in it, and none of the later stories can compete.
The next story is “Near Algodones,” and it has James Franco as a cowboy who is looking to rob a bank with scarcely a thing around it. The teller (Stephen Root) has some tricks up his sleeve, but the cowboy accomplishes his task until an unseen shooter captures him outside, getting him ready for the noose. Fate may have other plans, however, or it may not. This is a shorter segment than the first one, and that’s fine- it doesn’t have to be longer, and plays fine for what it is. It’s done quick, and we can move on to other stories.
Next is a sad, somber tale about a man with no legs and no hands (played by Harry Melling) who is taken along the frontier, from town to town, by a businessman (Liam Neeson) who exploits his sonorous voice, and love of old poetry and stories, for profit. The name of the story, “Meal Ticket,” tells you the everything you need to know about the dynamic at work here. There’s something haunting and human in Melling’s voice and face that makes the final scene of this segment land with a punch you do not expect.
We follow that with an old-fashioned gold prospecting story with “All Gold Canyon” (based on a tale by Jack London), with Tom Waits as a prospector by a stream as he tries to strike gold. It’s largely a one-man show for Waits, who is terrific at playing the prospector’s determination, joy and struggles as he finds himself pulling up largely specs. Contrary to “Near Algodones,” “All Gold Canyon” has a strong grasp of why this story is so effective for audiences, and it has beautiful cinematography by Bruno Delbonnel to go with a complimentary Carter Burwell score. Up to now, my second favorite segment of the film.
Next up is the longest, most developed narrative of “Buster Scruggs,” “The Gal Who Got Rattled,” inspired by a story by Stewart Edward White. We start at a dinner at a boarding house, where brother and sister Gilbert (Jefferson Mays) and Alice (Zoe Kazan) Longabaugh are having their last meal before they make their way to Oregon in a wagon train. Gilbert has promised his sister a new life, and maybe, a marriage, when they get to Oregon, but as the trek progresses, after Gilbert has died, Alice intimates to one of the leaders of the train, Billy Knapp (Bill Heck), that her brother often exaggerated his abilities, leaving her in a pickle. This is a very standard western tale, and probably the most accessible one beyond the first story, and that’s something that I really like about watching it, as Heck and Kazan has lovely chemistry while a potential romance blooms. The way it ends falls into familiar genre tropes, and leads into the last story as unexpected love loses to the nature of the Old West, as we’ve seen it before.
We close with “The Mortal Remains,” and you can’t help but feel like this segment, along with the first one, is why Joel and Ethan Coen wanted to turn these short stories into a movie, as five passengers (Jonjo O’Neill, Brendan Gleeson, Saul Rubinek, Tyne Daly and Chelcie Ross) ride a stagecoach to their destination as they discuss life, love and death. As a trapper, Ross stole this segment with his brilliant, hilarious telling of a love he lost, but more compelling than that even is the way the Coens and Delbonnel play with color grading and color, in general, along this ride, using the visuals to help convey the type of story they are telling here. Even more so than “Meal Ticket,” “Mortal Remains” leaves us with an unsettled feeling of mortality dictated by the time and place, and deeds, for these people, and yes, the ending feels pretentious to a point, but I enjoyed the note the Coens leave us on as they bring this uneven, but more than satisfying anthology of western tales to a close.
