Ok, I had to come back on this film because it's the talk of the western town. We are in 2018 and money still runs the world...money, power, gold and oil. Treasures are buried underground and we all dig for it, consequently digging our own graves. America was discovered a long time ago by man. Before man establish himself on the new frontier there was already man living in America, and horses. The steam train came much later on, and then the cars, and the planes above the plains.
Folsom, you said that you turned it off; where about?
Ethan and Joel gave us vignettes of western America with sarcasm and humor.
It's only a very small glimpse, a narrow vision viewed from their own eyes and mind.
Their trademark is swift dialog, storytelling, stylish marriage between form and function.
On this one they are telling us that the western period was a marking one in America's history.
Before the Coen brothers we had John Wayne, Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra.
Now we have electric cars, bitcoin, oil under the sand and ocean floor.
We have less trains, more planes and ships, and pipelines.
I look @ films as for what they are, for what is onscreen with the music directing my emotions.
We have science-fictions films like 2001, westerns like Lawrence, adventures like The Gold Rush, actions like Rambo, romances like Once Upon a Time.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a western, like Lawrence of Arabia and Citizen Kane and Casablanca and The Searchers. It's no Sergio Leone or Quentin Tarantino type of style a la Clint Eastwood and Cristoph Waltz. I'm employing a figure of speech here to get behind the mule, the message of these six new vignettes of the Western American frontier.
It's only a very small glimpse in the entire world's picture. Man conquered man and history is made. Man takes what he figures is his because he dig for it under the land that is his land.
Before the first man came to America there was no man, only buffalos, wild horses, mountains, rivers, lakes, and two oceans on each side. It's a figure of speech again, just bare with me, it's coming to the Coen brothers' messages from their last flick on Netflix.
Each short film from the six has its own western message. There is no doubt that we are entering the wild frontier behind the mind of the Coen brothers. The simplicity of it all is a good approach.
Each vignette has its own unique power/message. And beyond those messages there is an entire history of filmmaking, storytelling, style, American history, land of the brave and the free.
Gold was certainly a big part of Wall Street back then when the rush was on...check chapter number four to go back in Charlie Chaplin memory lane. It's a beautiful land too, before all those holes.
Chapter number two hasn't changed today, we are still living it, but only the technologies have changed a bit and the coin.
Chapter one is crystal clear as Black and White.
A good speaker is only as good as a chicken can hit the notes and attract real interest.
There is great irony still today with our chickens, our zoos, our circus and our speakers.
Check it out in chapter three.
There is nothing more dramatic than in chapter five. Everything in that chapter is weaved to perfection, like a precision scalpel under the hand of a professional scalper/surgeon. The dialog is incisive, and so is the silence. This is pure mastercraft drama with the saddest twist of them all.
Chapter six is a lesson in the art of persuasive immortality, a tour-de-force from the actors sitting inside that coach...five of them and the sixth one riding the horses from above...invisible character.
The more we look the more we see, the more we see the closer we get to the Coen brother's vision. They sure have their vision of the American frontier from their new western flick.
Their touch is uniquely addictive in a well mastered tell.
Folsom, which chapter did you miss?
And why do you say that they made this special western more for themselves than for their audience?