Review of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) by Andrewburge — 16 Dec 2018

When I heard 'The Ballad of Buster Scruggs' is a film comprised of six short stories about the Wild West, I was a bis skeptical. Simply because no matter how good those six short stories might be (and, mind you, they are) if nothing connects them, they are slightly isolated, therefore pointless to be put together.

And by connection, I don't mean a general theme, I mean something that would put these six films into their own capsule. Fortunately, these are the Coen Brothers, the most original, interesting modern filmmakers. And they succeeded in blending their creative writing with a visual beauty, not necessarily surreal, but improbable. For instance, in the first two films, there is a bar and a bank, respectively, in the middle of nowhere. This is not surreal, you can build them wherever you want, but is unlikely. This extends to the characters. Buster Scruggs, the classic cowboy in the first film, often breaks the fourth wall talking to the audience. Then in the next, there is a guy covered in frying pans protecting his bank. "Pan-shot!" he screams to the confused bank robber (James Franco).

If these first two films are often comedic and caricaturist in their approach, the third one is the most somber. I will not spoil it here, but its bleak. And as we get closer to the last one we start to see that connection which encapsulates all these six stories, and only these six stories! Death. All these films deal in one way or another with death and how present and casual it was in the Wild West. Most characters die quickly, usually with a head-shot and the worries of their killers are more of a spiritual and moral nature than a legal one (best example is the ending of the third film).

The best of these films was the last one. It is rich in pointless conversations and philosophies of five people travelling on a stagecoach to a hotel. Yet two of those five are observers. Slowly, through clever and careful writing, the atmosphere becomes grim, even the beyond beautifully picturesque visual tone slightly changes and in the end, they reach their destination, yet again, a lonely hotel in the middle of nowhere having a reception and a staircase fading up.