Joel and Ethan Coen spin not one but six Western tales in their excellent anthology THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS. Starring a fine cast including James Franco, Liam Neeson, Tom Waits, Zoe Kazan, Brendon Gleeson, Tim Blake Nelson and others, the film’s title is actually the name of the first tale in a short story anthology. What connects the tales is their Old West setting and also that they are basically campfire tales – the kind of suspense-filled tales best told around a campfire – sometimes scary, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but often with a twist or surprise and a touch of the surreal or supernatural. These stories evoke both ghost stories and O. Henry tales, with a dash of adventure, but they are transformed into signature Coen brothers tales. That means dark humor, twisted expectations, irony, and a certain amount of violence – basically, anything but ordinary.
Each tale features iconic Western characters and themes, referencing both classic Western films like HIGH NOON and adventure tales like those of Jack London. But like all good campfire stories, there is some trickery afoot and the Coens play on our expectations of these familiar characters and situations, recombining them in clever, unexpected ways that make for gripping, surprising stories – some suspenseful, some heartbreaking, some darkly comic but all highly entertaining. All deal with death in some way, appropriate for the ghost-story flavor of campfire stories. Perfectly evoking the sense of campfire tales, the Coens twist and spoof the Western genre, adding their signature irony and dark humor. Despite the anthology form, THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS is classic Coen brothers..
The film opens with an old-fashioned feel, presenting its stories as drawn from a old book of short stories. The opening shot is of the cover of an old-fashioned leather-bound book of illustrated tales, with a hand opens the book and turns the pages. Each tale starts with its title on the page, accompanied by an illustration with a mysterious caption to draw us in. The Coens’ use this technique to tie the stories together, returning to the book at the end of each to transition to the next. The technique puts the audience in the right mind-set for old-fashioned tales; and it works well as transition, but also lulls the viewer into a comfortable complacency that makes it easier for the Coens to take us by surprise when they upend things.
Since twists and surprises are essential parts of campfire tales, we will reveal few plot details here. All the stories are filled with iconic Western characters and take place in Western settings like dusty frontier towns, dry desert gulches, remote snowy mountains, or the wind-swept open range. The tales are varied, touching on different Western types and themes, and range from humorous to tragic, with plenty of suspense and drama, but all suffused with the Coens’ unique style.
The film begins with a more comic tale drawn from one of the earliest Western movie styles, the singing cowboy. In the title story “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” Tim Blake Nelson plays Buster Scruggs, a singing cowboy type dressed all in good-guy white, from his fancy buckskin suit to his big Stetson hat. Strumming his guitar aside a white horse, talkative and affable Buster narrates his own story as he roams from town to town in the dusty desert landscape. Buster is a top-notch singer but he is a crack shot as well, a skill that comes in handy. Fans of O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? know that Nelson has the pipes for this singing cowboy role, as well as a goofy, comic style combined with serious acting chops that serves this story well.
After that strong start, the film follows up with different tone in “Near Algodones,” with James Franco as a would-be bank robber. Other tales feature Zoe Kazan as a woman traveling in a wagon train in “The Gal Who Got Rattled” and Liam Neeson and Harry Melling star in a tale of a traveling show offering entertainment to remote mining camps in the high mountains, titled “Meal Ticket.” Most of the stories have the dark, color-desaturated look of the Coens’ TRUE GRIT, but “All Gold Canyon,” in which Tom Waits plays a prospector, takes place in a color-drenched natural world in which man an intruder. One the most darkly funny tales is the last one, “The Mortal Remains,” an ensemble story of five people traveling together in a stage coach and starring Brendon Gleeson and Tyne Daly among others.
Carter Burwell’s score is perfect, hitting all the right notes for tales of singing cowboys, bank robbers, gunslingers, wagon trains, bounty hunters, and stagecoaches in the old frontier.
The landscapes look classic Western but this Netflix release film is the Coens’ first foray into digital rather than film. Still, Oscar-nominated Director of Photography Bruno Delbonnel (INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, AMELIE) delivers all the outstanding visual fire and artistry one expects from a Coen brothers movie. The film is being released in a few theaters as well as on Netflix. It may have been originally planned as a online-only release but the film is visually powerful enough that seeing it on a big screen is preferable.
Joel and Ethan Coen entertain and engross us just as well with this marvelous collection of unsettling tales as they have with their feature-length stories. This anthology film is not only just as good as those films, it is one of the Coens’ best. THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS opens Friday, Nov. 16, at the Tivoli Theater and on-demand on Netflix.
RATING: 5 out of 5 stars
