The Coen Brothers find the heart of the West
As I watched The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, I couldn’t help but think of this passage from my favorite piece of American literature, “The Way to Rainy Mountain” by N. Scott Momaday.
“Loneliness is an aspect of the land. All things in the plain are isolate; there is no confusion of objects in the eye, but one hill or one tree or one man. To look upon that landscape in the early morning, with the sun at your back, is to lose the sense of proportion.”
He’s referring to what would seem like a tall hill for most Tennesseans, jutting up from the plains in Oklahoma. Here in the valley, we don’t see as much of the sky and sometimes lack the wonder that it garners for those that live in the west.
But in those classic American tales, the westerns that dominated so much of our entertainment, directors like Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah brought this sky, and the lonely lands that lie beneath, to audiences around the world.
The influence of these directors are on display in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, but the western vignettes found within the film are overwhelmingly Coen Brother’s. It’s almost a greatest hits of all the themes found in their films, distilled into six wildly different and original stories.
The stories are simple enough: a friendly and melodious gunslinger meets his match, a bank robber finds his noose, a showman finds a new act, a gold digger finds a vein, a lonely woman finds her beau, a group of travelers encounter a shared fate. It’s in the telling of these stories where the beauty is found.
This has always been the case with the Coen Brothers. They are some of the best filmmakers of a generation—an Americana Scorcese, a folksy Hitchcock, a down home Woody Allen. But their vision of America isn’t limited. They’ve captured the culture of the country from coast to coast, from time period to time period, understanding that it’s the human element that connects all stories.
The details, though…those are where the Coen’s shine. They understand their subjects, the world in which they live, and the choices that they make. Characters are key in great filmmaking.
Every character in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs has a past—they are a collection of experiences that make up their personalities. This is true of even the more surreal characters, of which there are a few.
But then, films aren’t simply short stories or novels acted out in front of a camera. They are, of course, a visual medium. The Coen’s make distinct choices in their filming, be it long shots of the great emptiness of the American West or the intimacy of a coach filled with very different people.
In the last story, pay close attention to the lighting and the tone as the sun slowly sets, and the coachman continues driving on towards his destination. Some of these choices are obvious—there are many nods to the great westerns of the past.
How many films have seen a hanging from horseback? How many a lonely saloon in the middle of a desert? But the Coen’s take these ideas and play with them, architects that they are, building worlds and challenging preconceptions.
And where would the Coen’s be without their familiar players? The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is packed with some of the best talent Hollywood has to offer: Liam Neeson, James Franco, Zoe Kazan, Brenden Gleeson, Stephen Root, Tim Blake Nelson, Tyne Daly, just to name a few. In one segment, Tom Waits even shows up. The cast is simply exceptional.
That Netflix managed to nab such a great film, streaming to homes instead of released wide in theaters, is nothing short of miraculous. It bodes well for the streaming service that it can pull this kind of talent.
I can’t help but wonder, though, if this is the best way for the content to be distributed? It looked great on my television, to be sure, but I felt almost cheated at not seeing a film like this one on the big screen. It’s nice for convenience sake, but art should demand the best venue available.
Either way, though, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is not to be missed.