The old Wild West, six stories of violence, gun-slinging, double-dealing, horror with some singing, dancing and mystery mixed in Cohen style. What more can you say, what more could you want?
What a magnificent love letter to the western, the long worn and dusty genre of which True Grit is the Cohen’s impressive entry. In fact the fingerprints of True Grit can found all over the six stories contained within The Ballad of Buster Scruggs with a similar feel, characters and name-places particularly in The Gal Who Got Rattled and Meal Ticket which I can believe had Rooster Cogburn riding somewhere in the distance in a different story.
With the first comedic style story firing off with an oddly distinctive and cinematic look, albeit from different film eras, you wonder where the brothers are going and what they are trying to say to us. With Tim Blake Nelson having a blast as Buster Scruggs the viewer is hurled headfirst into a surreal world of grimy murderers with black and white hat singing goodies and baddies, or are they all baddies? So, on we go.
I can’t help feeling the main character of the whole film, unseen, uncredited but always there and always having a big influence in each story, is death. The very part of life we cannot avoid, that’s always there, and that America was built on. Senseless, murderous, sadly for profit, uncaring and unbiased death. Whether it is a cameo in Tom Waits tale as he ploddingly works away to find his old nemesis Mr Pocket, a superb and beautifully filmed section or the heartless and cruel protagonist in Zoe Kazan and Bill Heck’s sensitively realised Oregon Trail story were the taciturn Mr. Arthur, a spot-on performance by Grainger Hines, indirectly gives the Reaper a helping hand.
Each story, plays with tropes whilst still staying true to western formula, most horrifying in The Meal Ticket and more whimsically in Near Algodone and All Gold Canyon with every section a simple tale that is perfectly balanced, until we get to the more seemingly studio-set and infernal seeming The Mortal Remains that is the perfect bookend to the stories. Who is that coach driver? Have a guess.
All the actors in this joyous and memorable film, be they well-known faces, or maybe lesser known to some of us, are on top of their game, pitching the performance for the style of story perfectly and making the viewing time of over two hours fly by.
The treatment of native Americans seems harsh as they are the usual stereotypical ‘savages’ that are cruel and murderous but if staying true to the trope, the wild west stories of the past then that’s how they were seen, perhaps a balancing tale telling one of their stories would have balanced this but overall they were peripheral and only shown in the manner they were to change the circumstances for two sets of characters.
There seems to be no doubt for me that the modern masters of the oater film are the Cohens who just in this six-story special can make grim, horrific, realistic and stylist western films at the drop of a hat. It is a new genre for me mickey-taking nostalgia.
A big spotlessly clean white hat, or a black hat or raccoon hat, does not matter, they can do it.
Review by DeletedBlockedParent2019-06-21T17:44:27Z
The old Wild West, six stories of violence, gun-slinging, double-dealing, horror with some singing, dancing and mystery mixed in Cohen style. What more can you say, what more could you want?
What a magnificent love letter to the western, the long worn and dusty genre of which True Grit is the Cohen’s impressive entry. In fact the fingerprints of True Grit can found all over the six stories contained within The Ballad of Buster Scruggs with a similar feel, characters and name-places particularly in The Gal Who Got Rattled and Meal Ticket which I can believe had Rooster Cogburn riding somewhere in the distance in a different story.
With the first comedic style story firing off with an oddly distinctive and cinematic look, albeit from different film eras, you wonder where the brothers are going and what they are trying to say to us. With Tim Blake Nelson having a blast as Buster Scruggs the viewer is hurled headfirst into a surreal world of grimy murderers with black and white hat singing goodies and baddies, or are they all baddies? So, on we go.
I can’t help feeling the main character of the whole film, unseen, uncredited but always there and always having a big influence in each story, is death. The very part of life we cannot avoid, that’s always there, and that America was built on. Senseless, murderous, sadly for profit, uncaring and unbiased death. Whether it is a cameo in Tom Waits tale as he ploddingly works away to find his old nemesis Mr Pocket, a superb and beautifully filmed section or the heartless and cruel protagonist in Zoe Kazan and Bill Heck’s sensitively realised Oregon Trail story were the taciturn Mr. Arthur, a spot-on performance by Grainger Hines, indirectly gives the Reaper a helping hand.
Each story, plays with tropes whilst still staying true to western formula, most horrifying in The Meal Ticket and more whimsically in Near Algodone and All Gold Canyon with every section a simple tale that is perfectly balanced, until we get to the more seemingly studio-set and infernal seeming The Mortal Remains that is the perfect bookend to the stories. Who is that coach driver? Have a guess.
All the actors in this joyous and memorable film, be they well-known faces, or maybe lesser known to some of us, are on top of their game, pitching the performance for the style of story perfectly and making the viewing time of over two hours fly by.
The treatment of native Americans seems harsh as they are the usual stereotypical ‘savages’ that are cruel and murderous but if staying true to the trope, the wild west stories of the past then that’s how they were seen, perhaps a balancing tale telling one of their stories would have balanced this but overall they were peripheral and only shown in the manner they were to change the circumstances for two sets of characters.
There seems to be no doubt for me that the modern masters of the oater film are the Cohens who just in this six-story special can make grim, horrific, realistic and stylist western films at the drop of a hat. It is a new genre for me mickey-taking nostalgia.
A big spotlessly clean white hat, or a black hat or raccoon hat, does not matter, they can do it.
I hope they do it some more.