I Love Movies
I just saw the Coen Brothers' new one, [i]The Ballad of Buster Scruggs[/i]. This is a set of six short films, connected only by their taking place in the "Old West" of legend. It's at the same time a hilarious parody of several Wild West tropes, an insight into characters we may not have associated with the Old West, and a commentary on human nature. The stories are:
1. A good-natured, Roy Rogers-like singing cowboy who isn't what he seems to be.
2. A bank robbery with a very resourceful banker, and how we can't escape our fate.
3. An armless and legless man who travels the West giving poetry readings, and his manager who takes care of him.
4. The adventures of a grizzled old prospector and the effect humans have on nature.
5. A single woman's adventures on a wagon train traveling the Oregon Trail, and how the main character is limited not just by the place of women in that society, but by her own view of herself.
6. Five passengers in a carriage entertain each other with their stories and opinions.
There's the usual unexpected details - a camera shot from inside a guitar, for example - and the tight pacing the Coens are known for. Highly recommended and enjoyable on several levels.
1. A good-natured, Roy Rogers-like singing cowboy who isn't what he seems to be.
2. A bank robbery with a very resourceful banker, and how we can't escape our fate.
3. An armless and legless man who travels the West giving poetry readings, and his manager who takes care of him.
4. The adventures of a grizzled old prospector and the effect humans have on nature.
5. A single woman's adventures on a wagon train traveling the Oregon Trail, and how the main character is limited not just by the place of women in that society, but by her own view of herself.
6. Five passengers in a carriage entertain each other with their stories and opinions.
There's the usual unexpected details - a camera shot from inside a guitar, for example - and the tight pacing the Coens are known for. Highly recommended and enjoyable on several levels.
