It’s become clearer to me over time that the Coen Brothers clearly love fables. Their stories usually have this larger than life quality to them, which elevate their movies above normal films. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is the Coens idea to take this concept of fables, and basically turn it into the movie version of a book of them, creating their personal tall tales of the Old West.
The story is told using a classic movie device: the opening and closing of a book. There are 6 chapters/segments the Coens tell:
- The Ballad of Buster Scruggs: The title character (Tim Blake Nelson) is the current crack shot of the west, defending his title against any and all challengers.
- Near Algodones: A cowboy (James Franco) attempts to rob a local, desolate bank.
- Meal Ticket: A traveling armless, legless poet (Harry Melling) is ushered from town by his financial backer (Liam Neeson) to drum up excitement and money.
- All Gold Canyon: A prospector (Tom Waits) searches for gold near a river in a beautiful valley.
- The Gal Who Got Rattled: A woman (Zoe Kazan) and her brother (Jefferson Mays) travel west on the Oregon Trail in a wagon train run by 2 experiences wagoneers (Bill Heck and Grainger Hines)
- The Mortal Remains: 5 people in a wagon (Brendan Gleeson, Tyne Daly, Jonjo O’Neill, Saul Rubinek, and Chelcie Ross) head to the nearest town, regaling each other with tales of their exploits.
Lets discuss these in pairs, in reverse order by quality. The bottom 2 are Near Algodones and The Mortal Remains. The Coens take Western tropes – a hanging and a stagecoach ride – in hopes to craft a legendary tale for each of them. However, both tales end rather abruptly and can’t really get past the hook of the story. For Near Algodones, the story is literally built around it’s last line: darkly amusing punch line, but that’s really it, hoping Stephen Root and James Franco can carry it to the end. The Mortal remains feels like it ends where it should be starting, as the group enters a giant creepy hotel for the night, and boom, book is closed. What is most frustrating here is the Coen’s nose for funny characters is fully on display in these two acts: Stephen Root and Chelcie Ross add to the legendary kooky Coen canon, and the rest of the stagecoach crew are so wholly draw in a few lines that you really want to spend more time with them.
The theme of the next 2 are “Something’s Missing.” These two are The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Meal Ticket. These stories are more enjoyably put together, setting up Buster Scruggs and the Poet/Proprietor stories via either jovial song or well written poetic storytelling. Both stories SHOW us how rhythms and repetition define the leads: Buster’s duels go the same way every time: the poet speaks the same poems in similar fashion to audiences. However, by the time our story nears its end, either time or youth enters the picture, creating a new set of rules our leads may not be ready for. Scruggs needed more time with the challenger studying Buster a bit and getting us invested. Meal Ticket is almost perfect, only drawing dullness from repeating its poem a tad too often. Had Liam Neeson’s character picked up more acts along the way, the big reveal at the end, in my opinion, would have been more potent as well, but it’s still a comically cruel stomach punch only the Coens can pull off.
And that brings us to the 2 Coen stories that should be in a book today, they’re that good: All Gold Canyon and The Girl Who Got Rattled. Both unfold slowly, establishing their setting and leads little by little. There is a plan involved, the plan goes awry, culminating in a lovely climax just in time for the story to end. The Girl Who Got Rattled is a lovely piece of short movie making: it’s got a love story, a cute dog, gunfights, and 3 engaging characters, all set with a beautiful backdrop of rolling grassy hills. That segment ends on a beautiful but very sad note that hits you like a stomach punch. My personal favorite though was the All Gold Canyon, which opens on this majestic valley, with a stream, surrounded by mountains, and Tom Waits and his jackass stumble upon it. For most of the story, we’re going through the mechanics of how a prospector finds his gold, but Waits is so good selling his glee, that you’re riveted the entire time. Like all Coen films, you know a twist is coming, and it certainly hits hard. However, the Coens have a climax of a trap laying in wait, ending on a beautiful note of unexpected peace. The story of a prospector and his gold is rarely told as simply and charmingly as All Gold Canyon, but that’s what simply what the Coen’s do.
At first, I was a little surprised the Coens agreed to make a Netflix movie. However, Ballad of Buster Scruggs fits perfectly into Netflix’s model, and will hopefully let the Coens find an even wider audience than they already have. I’m picturing some curious fan of this film stumbling on The Big Lebowski on Netflix, and having their minds blown by The Dude, or never being able to look at wood chippers the same again.
I think that there may be a hidden plot twist in “The Girl Who Got Rattled”. What if the fellow that supposedly fought off the Indians made it all up to cover up his murdering her? “How Am I Ever Going to Tell Billy?” was perhaps the beginning of how to plot his deed. He was pointedly anti-social, turning away from her after her brother died. A man of VERY few words to the point of rudeness. When his partner told him of his desire to leave the trail and marry her, he offered not a single sympathetic word – just grunted. One can imagine him telling the tale of the Indian attack, in fact it looks just like a tall tale would sound – impossibly outnumbered, bravely he thinks on his feet, stands his ground as bullets fly, and miraculously wins the day! At the end, when he is hit in the head by the tomahawk, that strikes me as establishing a good alibi by injuring himself just enough to add verisimilitude to his story. Even when he aims his rifle at the approaching Indians, he says it himself – “this will tell the tale!” Yes indeed – a tall tale.
None of this stuff occurred to me until after I had finished watching the film. Then I thought how it would sound to his partner when he told him the story…like a story, that’s what! And none of the others in the wagon train heard anything of the Indian attack? No gunshots? They weren’t that far away…. I would have been suspicious. Then the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if the Coen’s hadn’t given us the final plot twist – allowing us to identify with the man being told this story, as to whether or not it rang true.
Man…. the above realization gave me goosebumps more than any other episode. They were all great.