The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

After a brief theatrical run, Joel and Ethan Coen's latest film, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, is now streaming on Netflix, another signal that the way we watch movies is changing. The Coens, while not box office giants, are two of the most acclaimed directors working today, and that they have been engaged by a streaming service speaks volumes.

As for the film itself, I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. In some ways it's brilliant, in others strange and distant. It has an unusual structure--it's an anthology of six stories, all set in the American West. Usually anthologies, which are pretty rare these days, are made up of different directors, but each of these vignettes have the weird Coen stamp.

The title story, and the first, can be described as zany. Tim Blake Nelson plays Buster Scruggs, a singing cowboy in all white get-up. He's cheerful and charming, but also a deadly shot. Even when unarmed he manages to get a man to shoot himself in the face, after which he leads a saloon full of people into a musical number about the dead man. As with the other stories, there is a macabre ending, but this one manages to be hopeful.

The second story stars James Franco, who attempts to rob a bank but is outwitted by the teller (the great character Stephen Root) and is ready to be hanged when Indians attack, leaving him bound on the horse, a rope around his neck. This reminded me of the ending of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, when Clint Eastwood left Eli Wallach in a similar situation.

Next up is the most macabre story, with Liam Neeson playing an impresario who goes from town to town in a wagon that turns into a stage. The performer is a limbless man (Harry Melling) who recites. There is something very ghastly about this segment, as if it were taken from a story by Poe, and the ending, which I will not give away, is as cruel as could be. The effects were so good that I thought the actor was truly limbless, but no, it's the same actor who played Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter films).

The fourth story has Tom Waits as a grizzled prospector (is there any other kind?) who comes across a pristine meadow. He persistently pans for gold, even talking to the mother lode he knows is there (he calls it "Mr. Pocket"). Again, no spoilers here. This story was based on one by Jack London. It reminds me again how unique a treasure Waits is.

The penultimate story, and the longest and perhaps the best, concerns Zoe Kazan as a young woman traveling by wagon train to Oregon. Her brother drops dead, so her future is uncertain, but the wagon leader (Bill Peck, in the best performance of the film) feels her plight and proposes marriage. Again, a surprise ending.

The last story is also in a Poe vein. Five people are traveling by coach, including an old trapper, an uptight Christian woman (Tyne Daly) and a French gambler. The two men traveling with them are escorting a dead body, which sits on the roof. I figured out was going on fairly early, but it didn't diminish my enjoyment of the ghoulishness of the piece.

The question that I'm left with is this: is The Ballad of Buster Scruggs worth the sum of its parts? I think so, because each of the six stories has something to recommend it, and the Coens and their editor, Roderick Jaynes (which is a pseudonym for the Coens) tie the stories together into one tapestry, with an emotional through line. The photography by Bruno Delbonnel is Oscar-worthy (it is the Coens' first digital film) and the music by Carter Burwell also serves as a ribbon that ties the stories together. The theme song, as it were, is an old Irish song that was later adapted into the Western song "The Streets of Laredo," and is about as melancholy a melody as can be imagined.