How is this in any Oscar Category other than six entries in live action shorts? The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is not a feature-length film. Instead, it’s a series of six short films. Okay, so apparently this means it’s an anthology film because each of the six is tied together in theme: the American west. Once I accept that its anthology format gets it in the door for feature-length consideration, then, okay, I’ll begrudgingly go along.
(Well, I’ll go along with some sass. I looked over the list of award nominations for the film. (And I really want to put that in quotes (guess I’m not accepting yet).) One nomination from an obscure award category was for Best Ensemble Cast. What? None of the cast in any one of the six had to do anything else with any of the other six short vignettes. (The film was awarded that by the Indiana Journalists.) But whatever.)
Now that that’s out of my system (we’ll see how completely), I watched this due to its Best Adapted Screenplay nomination from the Academy. Who wrote this? The Coen Brothers.* Okay, so I buried the lead a bit. If you have seen more than two Coen Brothers’ films, you know they have a tendency for leaning odd. And its no different here. But they also have a tendency for side-eye detail as if in technicolor while everything else is seen in sepia tones. (I particularly loved No Country for Old Men (That was probably my first Oscar-race movie-viewing year) and Inside Llewyn Davis.)
The Coen Brothers do not disappoint. But what’s interesting with this style of story-telling is that their style gets to stretch across the types that apply to different people. Each story has its appeal to different viewers, me included.
But I’m also too literal. (This is no surprise to those who know me well.) I have a hard time looking at the six of these together and rating them because I cared for them individually so differently. As the short films progress, the viewer is on a roller coaster for theme, for tone, and for outcome. As much as one or two didn’t speak to me, oh my, how ever did the portion with Liam Neeson (Meal Ticket) do so. That voice it spoke with, though, was dark and sinister. The one with the wagon train too was a favorite. And thus, as I think of rating, the former has five stars among these. Another might have only three. As I’ve written more, I’ve realized, though, the average is four. (I originally thought I was assigning three stars here; I’ve edited.)
If you don’t have time for a full film but you want some high-caliber entertainment, watch one of these clips. It is the Coen Brothers. And even if you don’t fancy one of these, it’s likely you will some of the others. Then the next time you need twenty minutes of quality (albeit possibly head-scratching) entertainment, watch another. It’s on Netflix, after all, so you can keep going back. (The film was released at the cinema for one week in November before its Netflix release. I wonder if that was before anyone realized Roma would get all the nominations it did with only a Netflix release.)
Okay, so I guess I came around after all. As many writers have been credited saying, “I don’t know what I think until I write it down.” It’s true.
*The Coen Brothers are credited as writers and directors, but they based some of the pieces on other tales already written, one, notably, by Jack London. I’m sure that’s why this is nominated for Adapted Screenplay and not original.