Movie Time: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

It's Movie Time!

Today's movie post is about a movie that came out in 2018 written and directed by Joel and Ethan Cohen.   

I've posted about movies by the Cohen brothers before such as Barton Fink and O Brother Where Art Thou?.  The Cohen make movies that are distinctive in their voice and aesthetic. Their films challenge the senses and the mind. 

The movie I watched last weekend is very much right in the Cohens' wheelhouse, daring you to follow where they lead and defying your expectations once you get there. 

From 2018, it's The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. 

The full title as it appears on the title screen is The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Other Tales of the American Frontier. The movie is a collection of 6 separate stories with nothing in common  other than being set in the American western frontier.

And perhaps also there's this connective tissue: life is brutal and unfair. 

Well, that seems kind of dark, don't it?

A darkness that is belied by the appearance of Buster Scruggs in the film's first story. 

"The Ballad of Buster Scruggs"

Decked out in white while singing and yodeling on the back of his horse, Buster is a genial, affable gent of wit and intelligence.  He conveys a sense of innocence against the harsh and brutal environs of the American west.

Until he deins to enter a saloon where he is not welcome and we discover that Buster Scruggs is quite the killer, fast, deadly and insanely accurate with a gun.  

A visit to a 2nd saloon goes badly there as well. 

And Scruggs proves to be quite deadly without a gun.

Here's a clip with the "Surly Joe" song 'n' dance number.

You might get an idea of what kind of movie you're getting from that clip.

And you would be right AND wrong.  

You might think you're in for some Blazing Saddles level of absurdity.

But (SPOILER) things do not end well for Buster Scruggs.

Or maybe they do as the toils and cares of this oh so brutal world are left behind. 

"Near Algodones"

Our next story concerns a bank robber for whom Murphy's Law seems to be a constant companion. Whatever can go wrong goes wrong and our erstwhile robber winds up in a hangman's noose.

He gets a temporary reprieve from his sentence but things still keep going wrong.

Good news! He's finally freed from the noose but damn it! More things keep going wrong until....

He winds up in a hangman's noose a second time. 

You might expect he might cheat death a 2nd time but...

Nah, we've moved on to our next story.

"Meal Ticket"

A somber story about an aging travelling impresario and a performer known as Harrison. When he draws back the curtain on his mobile stage, the audience is greeted by a pale dour looking young man.

With no arms and no legs.

But by God, he has a voice.

With a beautiful, powerful speaking voice, Harrison regales his audience with a variety of oratory ranging from Bible passages to Shakespeare to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.  

These performances are working against the ever colder winter weather and competion from another travelling act. 

A chicken.

A chicken who does math. 

The impresario buys the chicken and now has a choice to make: kill the competition or keep the chicken and lose Harrison.

Given the dire and bizarre turns these stories have taken, I'll leave it to you to guess who wins out in a competion between humanity and poultry.

Because we're off to our 4th tale, as we follow a grizzled prospector into a lush, beautiful mountain valley.

"All Gold Canyon"

You know what this valley needs? Holes! 

Our prospector gets to diggin', lookin' for gold! 

After several days of hard working and constant digging, the prospector finds a mother lode of gold!

Success! 

But a young man with a gun shows up with other ideas. 

Given how these stories have played out so far, you might think you have an idea how this turns out.

And you would be right AND wrong.  

"The Gal Who Got Rattled"

The fifth story on our journey is one where the ending of this one hurts me the most.

Alice Longabaugh is on a wagon train heading to Oregon with her older brother, Gilbert.

Gilbert dies, leaving Alice alone with no family, no support and no prospects awaiting her in either Oregon or back east if she turns around.

Over time, Billy Knapp, one of the wagon train leaders, finds himself in the position of taking care of Alice and the two develop a strong bond with each other.  

Billy proposes and Alice accepts and hey, one of these damn stories ends on a happy....

Sorry... it does not.

The ending is exceedingly heartbreaking. 

"The Mortal Remains"

Our last story picks up in a stagecoach making a midnight run across the plains to Fort Morgan, Colorado.

There are five peope inside the stagecoach:

An Englishman (Thigpen) and an Irishman (Clarence) who are in business partners "ferrying cargo", meaning the wrapped up corpse on the roof of the stagecoach.

Frenchman René is a suave sophisticate as well as an invertebrate gambler. 

There is a nameless fur trapper rambling about his past relationship with a Hunkpapa woman in which neither knew the other's language but they got along just fine (wink! wink!)

Sitting between René and the Trapper is Mrs. Betjeman, a stern austere woman, a fine upstanding Christian who can't believe she's stuck in a stagecoach with all these sinners.

These 5 people engage in an intense and passionate discussion about the nature of humanity and differing views of morality.

Such a frank discussion is not something the morally uptight Mrs. Betjeman is prepared to cope with and she becomes apoplectic.

 René calls for the coach to be stopped and we get our first glimpse outside at the driver, a faceless man in a dark cloak swirling about him as the stagecoach rushes through the dark.

Thigpen explains that the stage company's policy is not to stop for any reason. 

Thigpen and Clarence clarify their line of work as "reapers", or bounty hunters. Wanted Dead or Alive? Dead works just fine for Thigpen. He describes his joy at watching his prey die,  especially the expression in their eyes as they "negotiate the passage" and "try to make sense of it".

The coach arrives in Fort Morgan and stops in front of the hotel, a dark and foreboding edifice. More funeral home than Holiday Inn. 

Thigpen and Clarence drag their "cargo" inside while  Mrs. Betjeman, René and the Trapper stand outside the doors of the... hotel, reluctant to go in. 

The stagecoach leaves without dropping off any luggage.  

Guys, I might be a bit slow here but I think this whole last story is some kind of metaphor for death or something.

Something for me to ponder when I try to go to sleep at night as the credits roll.

The "It's That Person Who Was In That Thing" Department 

• Tim Blake Nelson was Buster Scruggs. He was Delmar O'Donnell in O Brother, Where Art Thou? .  Tim was the only actor in the  Soggy Bottom Boys to do his own singing.  
• One of my favorite character actors is Stephen Root who plays the bank teller.  Root was Milton in Office Space and Jimmy James in NewsRadio which is just two of the dozens and dozens of roles this man has played.  
• Liam Neeson is the Impresario who takes Harrison to his performances.  Hard to tell under that grizzled old western look.  
• That guy at the boarding house with Alice Longabaugh kinda looks like that weird train guy from Big Bang Theory and Kevin from Kevin Can Fuck Himself. Yep, it's Eric Petersen.  
• Underneath a thick mustache and a thick French accent is Saul Rubinek as René. Much like Stephen Root, Rubinek is an actor who is frequently in some damn thing or another. Right off the top of my head, I know him from roles in Frasier, Leverage and Star Trek: The Next Generation. 

Ballad of Buster Scruggs is challenging as most films by the Cohen brothers can be. In any given moment, in any scene, the comedy can come at you from an unexpected direction and likewise, so can the tragedy take surprising turns.  

The off kilter nature of the Cohens is accentuated by the chosen format of telling not one story over the course of a movie but rather exploring six distinctive narratives. The broad absurdity that begins the film with Buster Scraggs evolves through different tales before ending with a dark and disturbing meditation on morality and death.  

I may not have gotten what I expected from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs but what I did find in this film was something that was genuinely entertaining and thought provoking. I was in turns amused by what I saw and I was disturbed by it as well.

Which means mission accomplished  by Joel and Ethan Cohen.