What are the dominant thoughts that run through the six stories in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs?

Margarita 2021-12-02 08:01:26

"Even if there is a thousand-year-old iron threshold, a soil bun will eventually be needed."

The dominant thought of this movie is the suddenness, contingency and inevitability of death .

There are six stories in total. In the first five stories, people died, and in the sixth story, several people walked with the corpses.

The protagonist of the first story is Buster Scruggs in the name of the film. He is good at rhythm, accurate marksmanship, and quick drawing of his spear. However, there are people outside the sky. The new man in black in the town has a better singing voice, more precise marksmanship, and quicker drawing of his spear. So the happiest old bus died at the hands of this black-clothed man. Because there is already the reason that there will always be someone who will surpass himself tomorrow, and he heard the unspeakable singing before he died, the old man died very happy. After being shot, he checked his hat, and then grew angel wings, sang a song, and ascended to heaven.

The protagonist of the second story was sentenced to hang for bank robbery, and escaped punishment for a surprise attack by the Indians. However, I escaped the first time, but couldn't escape the second time. He finally went to the gallows because of the crime he did not commit, because he had already had an experience, this time facing the noose, he didn't care. Immediately before the executioner covered his head, he also saw a beautiful woman-it would not be a pity to die like this. The judge's decision was only in a few sentences:

He was caught driving rustled beeves.
Good enough. Hang him.

In the third story, there are no four-legged artists in the mobile theater. Because his performance is too sunny and white, the audience is dwindling day by day. When he couldn't make more money for the troupe owner, he was replaced by a hen who knew arithmetic. In this story, there is no intuitive killing scene. The boss threw a stone under the bridge in the last second, turned and walked towards the artist with a smile, and the next second there was only a chicken coop in the carriage. Apart from the impassioned performance on the stage, the artist had almost no lines and no physical movements. Deducing the longing of life and the helplessness of death based solely on the expression in the eyes.

The reversal of the fourth story is wonderful. The old people panning for gold in the Golden Valley are a bit like the old people in Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" in some respects. It may be that their obsessions are similar. After he finally found the gold mine, he was shot by the gangster who had been following him. Just when I thought that the old man died at the moment of success, the old man pretending to be dead fought back, but the greedy gangster died in the end. There is no dialogue in the whole story, and the old man talks to himself all the way. The old man finally left with the gold, leaving behind the devastated Golden Valley. Human beings are also greedy in asking for nature.

There is a romantic love element in the fifth story. According to the law that one person must die in each story, I always thought it would be Mr. Knapp who died here. As for how to die, who knows, maybe it was the death of the hostess's male servant Matt, maybe the death of the Indians, or the jealousy of his business partners. Unexpectedly, when a good thing is about to happen, the heroine died of her fear of the unknown.

The sixth story was not understood at all for the first time. I only felt that the hotel where a few people were going to enter looked strange, and I was afraid that several passengers would die in this hotel. Two brushes and three brushes, combined with the conversations of the previous passengers in the carriage, realized that the two who carried the corpse were messengers sent by the god of death. Some people in the film called them "bounty hunters", and they are also in Western culture. Call this type of messenger the "reaper of soul".

One of the messengers also described various performances before death, such as the following paragraph of bargaining with death.

I must say... it's always interesting watching them after Clarence has worked his art. Watching them negotiate... the passage.
Passage?
From here to there. To the other side. Watching them try to make sense of it, as they pass to that other place. I do like looking into their eyes as they try to make sense of it.

The three passengers across from the messenger were all elderly, and it was time to go there. So the last hotel is actually hell, not the murder scene I originally imagined.

People are mortal, either humorously or calmly; or dying of unsafe meals, or greed; or dying in their own heart. But no matter how careful, in the end, this body will not escape that day. The hotel in the sixth story is everyone's final destination.

The Coen brothers have become a little softer than before, and many critics don't like this change. Fortunately, the Coen brothers, like David Lynch, Woody Allen, Spielberg and other masters, have formed their own genre. They don’t need to care about the rules or unspoken rules in the industry, and they don’t need to have a redemptive turn. Don't care if the scene is too bloody, bad guys won't necessarily be punished.

A very unique movie.

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Extended Reading

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs quotes

  • Buster Scruggs (segment "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs"): I'd like me a splash of whiskey to wash the trail dust off my gullet and keep my singing voice in fettle.

    Cantina Bartender (segment "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs"): Whiskey's illegal. This is a dry country.

    Buster Scruggs (segment "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs"): [points to the other customers] Well, what are they drinking?

    Cantina Bartender (segment "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs"): ...whiskey. They's outlaws.

  • Englishman (segment "The Mortal Remains"): 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.

    Irishman (segment "The Mortal Remains"): He is very good, this one. You should see him.

    Englishman (segment "The Mortal Remains"): No, *he* is good!

    Irishman (segment "The Mortal Remains"): [shrugs] I *can* thump.