Type in any movie or show to find where you can watch it, or type a person's name.

User Reviews for: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

AndrewBloom
CONTAINS SPOILERS9/10  5 years ago
[9.3/10] When I think about the things that connect the six different vignettes that make up *The Ballad of Buster Scruggs*, the Western-themed anthology film from the Coen Bros., I come up with the same two themes that are present throughout the duo’s filmography: uncertainty and death. That’s a little grim for what is an, at times, bleak, foreboding, heartbreaking film, but also one that is funny, whimsical, and even downright sweet at times. And yet whether they’re putting the wind at your back or having it blow you down, the sense of the unpredictability of life, and the way what comes after puts that into relief, is present through each of the disparate but connected segments.

The film features a seemingly unflappable gunfighter being suddenly and unexpectedly flapped (and then doing some flapping of his own). It has well-dug claims being subject to interlopers, a random series of events leading a man away from and then back into the noose, and an unanticipated romance being felled by the consequences of a yapping dog. And in each of these stories, death looms large, whether it be the brutal results of an act that no longer sells or the balance of choosing an easy death and the certainty of the afterlife over enduring the potential for a brutal one, or a portentous carriage ride that has more in common with passage down the River Styx than an amble through the countryside.

As befits a film from directors with a throughline entries as diverse as *The Big Lebowski* and *No Country For Old Men*, this movie revels in the unknowable nature of the working of the world, where the only certainty lies in the unavoidable journey to the next one.

But it’s also full of absolute aesthetic splendor and pitch perfect visuals as the Coens ply their audience with tales of the mortal and unexpected. *Scruggs* makes the most of its western setting, with gorgeous vistas, striking weather-worn towns and encampments, and image after image of bold figures flanked by the desert landscape. The lighting makes a big difference in the film, from the bright crisp tones of the outsized opening vignette of the segment that gives the film its title, to the darkening hues of the final scene which signals the sort of descent the characters are experiencing.

At the same time, the framing and editing are superb. *Scruggs* is a tactile, patient film, showing the audience the ominous advance of boots on bankhouse boards, or the steady rhythm of panning for gold in azure waters, or the advance of a fleet of indigenous fighters from far off in the distance. The Coens and their team know when to stop and focus on the individual details that give texture to this world, when to hold fast on the faces of the souls at their center and help the audience feel what they’re feeling, and when to pull back and give you the sense of worldly scope at play in each of these stories. As well-written as each vignette is, it’s the perfect visuals and staging that let’s each land with such force.

It also helps that despite the commonality of the western setting, *Scruggs* evokes different visual moods at the same time it’s delivering stories with different tones. There’s a tall tale-esque, exaggerated, even impressionistic vibe to the opening sequence, that looks back on the heightened reality of gunfighting in the public consciousness with bemused romanticism. But that’s contrasted by the “Meal Ticket” segment, which tastefully but brutally telegraphs a grim end for a disabled performer who’s no longer useful. (The segment also can’t help but intimate some subtext about the Coens’ own classically-informed creations falling in esteem and attention in favor of flashier, chicken-multiplying blockbusters at the box office.)

There’s a trademark sense of literal gallows humor and irony in the “Near Algodones” vignette, where a seemingly simple bank robbery turns from lethal reprimand to mortal reprieve and back again over and over. That sense of the strange, tragicomic unpredictability of life is clearest here, with glimpses of beauty and unknown forces pushing our outlaw protagonist like a leaf on the wind. It’s balanced, though, by a separate parable in “All Gold Canyon”, a tale of persistence and determination and good and bad fortune, but also one of the indifference of bucolic nature to our quests and impediments. While the workings of the world push the outlaw in the former around, the world is at bay, waiting to return to normal, after the old prospector’s steady, and unexpectedly bloody perturbation of land to find his fortune.

The final segment, “The Mortal Remains”, is one long conversation about the nature of men and of relations between them, that ends when the tenor of their destination becomes clear and eclipses such worldly concerns. It’s one of the most elliptical pieces in the film, as filled with writerly dialogue as it is with symbols and portents. But it also offers the movie’s sharpest take on death, the way it sneaks up unawares and intrudes on the more prosaic concerns that consume our lives.

Still, I don’t think it’s the key to *Scruggs* and its tales of wonder and woe. That comes in “The Gal Who Got Rattled,” the penultimate vignette, the one that feels the most like a complete story, and for my money, the best of the six. It features the Coens’ sweetest romantic relationship since *Fargo*, their exploration of the expectations placed on and the options available to women in this time and place, and the apotheosis of the way that the unexpected can bring great joy to our lives when we embrace its uncertainty, but also how the random barking of a dog that narrowly escaped its own death can instead bring it to those on the cusp of settling into that joy. It is the most heartening and eventually harrowing segment in the film, one filled with richly drawn characters, stunning visuals, and the clearest encapsulation of the movie’s ideas in the conversations between the titular “gal” and her earnest suitor.

Those ideas boil down to that “embrace the mystery” lesson that the Coens have been toying with for decades, most notably in *A Serious Man*, and the prospect of death, whether it’s of peace, of shock, or of ominous portents, that lurks in the background. *The Ballad of Buster Scruggs* gives us all sides of these notions, and a buffet of different tones and tales to put them into relief. It is an alternatively hilarious, dispiriting, and inspiring film that collects the best and various modes of the Coens, and fits them into one varied but complete package, representing their most venerable motifs with charm and poignance.
Like  -  Dislike  -  60
Please use spoiler tags:[spoiler] text [/spoiler]
Whitsbrain
9/10  2 years ago
The rare anthology that isn't of the Horror genre. Well, it may not be Horror, but it certainly is dark. But then, almost everything about the Old West seems a horrific way to live compared to the conveniences and luxuries most of us have today. I kept thinking about how much time a person that lived back then would have had to consider their own life and not be distracted by things like movies, social media, sports, showers , etc. I don't know if the way characters spoke was accurate, but the dialog hinted at an antiquated but eloquent dialect. Then again, with the Coen Brothers, the dialog of the characters flows almost unnaturally. Certainly, the characters in these stories aren't as well educated as we are today, so I'm guessing it's writers being clever.

I'm not a fan of Westerns, but I am an anthology and short story nut. This was a film I really enjoyed. As is the case in almost all anthologies, there's a twist, and here, the turns are severe. I felt guilty about how much I actually enjoyed them because most are very cruel to undeserving characters. A number of the stories end abruptly and are going to be jarring to many viewers.

This is beautiful to look at. The wide open spaces of the West stretch out and dwarf the little people of the prairies. I almost always like the Coens, and for them to be spinning a collection of tales like this is nearly gold to me. So about those six stories, here's how I'd rate them in my order of enjoyment:

The Gal Who Got Rattled
All Golds Canyon
Near Aldgones
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Meal Ticket
The Mortal Remains
Like  -  Dislike  -  10
Please use spoiler tags:[spoiler] text [/spoiler]
Back to Top