‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’ Is The Rosetta Stone to the Coen Canon

With over 35 years of directing, writing, and producing to their credit, Joel and Ethan Coen have created a body of work that ranges from gritty to zany to surreal and every beat in between. They’re as renowned for their stoner comedy detective stories (The Big Lebowski) as their Depression-era roadshow musicals (O Brother, Where Art Thou?), and a dozen other films that defy easy categorization. But this variety also makes it tough to get a handle on what constitutes a “Coen Brothers picture.” It’s more than just dark comedy. Critics correctly identify the existentialist strains, especially in the Coens’ more surreal work (Barton Fink; A Serious Man), but “existentialism” is a category, not a theme.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, an anthology of Westerns that received three Oscar nominations, functions as a Coen Brothers canon in miniature. All the films share a common setting – the mythical American west – and a common fascination with death. But they range from the madcap to the morbid, the stirring to the subdued. They hit the same high notes and low notes as four decades of Coen work, but in a fraction of the time. Newcomers to the Coen pantheon could use this Netflix gem as a sampler, while veterans can take it as a Rosetta stone for the brothers’ entire career.

(Caution: the following analysis spoils the vignettes in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs pretty explicitly.)

It doesn’t take long for the audience to gather that each story in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is going to be about death. The titular story, starring Tim Blake Nelson, wallows in it. Our protagonist gets drawn into one reluctant massacre after another, each with jarring lightheartedness. The juxtaposition of glee and blood – Scruggs leading a bar in a singalong while a man weeps over the shattered face of his brother – clues the audience in early. We are in for some surprises.

The subsequent two stories lead us further down the grim path. “Near Algodones” is perhaps the weakest of the six, a life-flash before a hanging reminiscent of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. But it still diverts us by situating the absurd with the desperate: Stephen Root chasing down James Franco while covered in pans; the banal chatter of the drover who rescues Franco’s nameless cowboy; the bathos of Franco’s “first time?” to his condemned neighbor.

“Meal Ticket” unfolds slower than its predecessors, contrasting men of action with a man incapable of acting without aid. It’s the gentlest of the narratives until its final scene, a montage of instances in the life of a traveling sideshow and its gruff caretaker. The Professor can evoke the English canon with his soliloquies, and his condition compels the eye. But all the poetry in the world will not stay the hand of death – especially when a better act comes along.

The first three stories are replete with the odd, meant to keep us asking what’s normal and what isn’t. “All Gold Canyon”, based on a Jack London story, is by contrast aggressively normal. It focuses on the routine of investigating a gold prospect: a montage of Tom Waits digging, panning, and plotting that gives grueling work a hint of suspense. By the time Waits’s prospector uncovers a massive lump of ore, we are hooked into his quest.

His ambush by a nameless claim-jumper feels all too pat, in light of the tone set by the first three vignettes. “Aha,” we think, “all these stories will end in death.” But this deviation from tone – Waits’s triumphant counter-ambush, his desperate first aid, his slow recovery – makes the story satisfying. This is the first hint of the Coens’ genius as directors. “All Gold Canyon” only works because it comes fourth – because it veers from the expectation they’ve set.

Having given us hope for the triumph of the human spirit, the Coens then set us a sweeping tale of a pioneer girl out of her element in “The Gal Who Got Rattled.” We follow Zoe Kazan along, mourning her small losses and cheering her small victories. The dawning fondness between her reluctant settler and Bill Heck is so stumbling and guileless that we can’t help but root for it. And yet, for all this sweetness, death has not been put off the scent.

All the pieces assembled throughout this vignette – the missing dog, the rumors of Indian raiders, the steely capability of Mr. Arthur (Grainger Hines) and the quaking timidness of Alice – arrive at precisely the right moment. Like a Greek tragedy, this story could not have unfolded any other way.

By this point, the audience has been whiplashed from cynicism to hope to pathos, bringing us to “The Mortal Remains.” Other critics found this the weakest of the six – a ghost story padded out, a coachful of stereotypes. I can’t dispute those labels, although this overlooks some fine performances, including veteran character actor Chelcie Ross’s finest work. But beyond that, “The Mortal Remains” is the closest thing to a statement of principles the Coen Brothers will ever give us.

It comes shortly after Brendan Gleeson croons “The Unfortunate Lad.” The prissy moralist’s wife (Tyne Daly) brings her coughing fit to a gradual halt as a horrifying realization, never shared aloud with the audience, overtakes her. And then the Englishman (Jonjo O’Neill) describes their trade:

“They’re so easily taken when they are distracted, people are. So I’m the distractor, with a little story, a little conversation, a song, a sparkle, and Clarence does the thumping while their attention is on me […] I must say, it’s always interesting watching them after Clarence has worked his art. Watching them negotiate the passage.”

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Better critics than I have previously identified the Coen Brothers’ work as existentialist. This informs us of their philosophy, perhaps, but it takes more than philosophy to make art. How does existentialism make a story?

Existentialism is the modern’s answer to the modern. The temptation when confronted with the dread of the unknowable – the “fear and trembling” of Kierkegaard, the “being and nothingness” of Sartre – is to recoil in nihilism and depression. But existentialism teaches that humans must seek meaning in themselves and their circumstances. “One must imagine Sisyphus happy,” wrote Camus. Though death is certain, a whole host of experiences are still possible.

The Coen Brothers have ventured from corner to corner of the canvas of human experience. But, from their screwball farces to their darkest comedies, they’ve returned time and again to one theme: the capacity for surprise in the face of certain death.

A woman defends herself from her vengeful husband, only to find that her husband wasn’t the man pursuing her. A hapless criminal, on the verge of being throttled to oblivion by a bounty hunter, notes that they have a tattoo in common. A mobster lets a pleading victim live, only for that victim to blackmail him with his mercy. A hitman opines sagely on the chaos of the world, only to be struck by a car on his way home. Good or bad, you’ll never see it coming.

Each of the six vignettes in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs – and every movie in the Coen Brothers’ curriculum – is about that potential to be surprised, even with death waiting just out of frame. Death is the constant in all the stories. But death doesn’t stop Buster Scruggs from singing, or a cowboy sentenced to hang from appreciating a pretty girl. It also doesn’t stay its hand to save a cripple’s life, or prevent a misunderstanding from ending a blossoming romance in suicide. Surprise can be the absurdity of comedy or the absurdity of horror – and, in the Coens’ hands, one can flip to the other remarkably fast.

In the face of certain death, then, entertaining ourselves and our fellow passengers isn’t an ignoble calling. There’s nothing wrong with a little song and dance until the big man sneaks up to thump us on the head. We can count ourselves lucky that we have Joel and Ethan facing us in the carriage, spending a few hours diverting us until we reach our final stop.

John Perich (@perich) lives and writes in the Boston area. When he’s not scrutinizing pop culture at Overthinking It, he blogs at his own site, Periscope Depth. His latest crime thriller, Too Late to Run, is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other retailers.

Stream The Ballad of Buster Scruggs on Netflix