"The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" is a movie I've watched over and over again recently.
The Coen brothers-directed film consists of six separate stories, each in a different style, all around a single theme - the impermanence of life. It is said that the six stories were created more than twenty years apart, and the brothers finally waited for the right opportunity to integrate it. The original plan was to make an episode-style web series, but it was eventually combined into a movie version.
For me, this movie has so many fascinating elements. The Coen Brothers directors, Westerns, and one of my favorite writers - Jack London (The Fourth Story Golden Valley based on Jack London's short story), folk singer Tom Waits (The Fourth Story Golden Valley star and the singer of the episode in that story).
If "No Country for Old Men" is a profound expression of the Coen brothers' philosophy of death, and "Ground Thunder" is a retrospective and a tribute to the happy and grudge Western, then "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" must be both. .
Vengeance, duel, robbery, wandering, gold panning, caravans in vast fields, conflict between pioneering whites and Indians, and deaths that are either absurd or happy, inevitable or heartbreaking, take turns. The six movie stories are short and concise, with unusually full forms and contents, contrasting and supporting each other. Each story is like a short and concise fable, which together brings a kind of overall spirit, giving people a more profound shock. .
First Story: The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs
A handsome cowboy dressed in white, playing the guitar and singing songs, walked on horseback in the vast wilderness of the west.
Afterwards, he experienced several battles in a mountain tavern and a small town bar, and easily killed all opponents in seconds. His movements were quick and unrestrained, and he all told people that this was an omnipotent hero sharpshooter who was taking revenge against a hero. When the two were dueling, he even looked at the mirror in front of him and shot the opponent behind him.
One battle ended, and another, but this time, the opponent was faster and more dashing than him. During the duel, he fell before he saw the opponent draw a gun. The sharpshooter fell, and his soul said lightly: "No one can be the boss forever."
Whether you are a waste or a hero, in the face of death, you are nothing but a weed in the wildfire. No matter what you are in the limelight for a moment, the next moment in life will teach you to bow your head and be a man at any time.
Second Story: "Near Algodones"
A destitute young man is about to rob a bank in the countryside, and there is only a short old man guarding the bank. The young man looked confident, but after a gun fight, he was knocked down by the old man with the iron pan all over his body. While being executed, the firing squad was attacked by the Indians. He was rescued by a passing cattle driver, but he didn’t think that it would take long for the cattle driver to escape, and he was caught by the mounted police. It turned out that the cattle were stolen by the cattle driver, and the young man was wronged and sentenced to death. This time, the young man thought he had seen through the impermanence of life, and he was still laughing at the crying prisoner beside him during the execution, "This is the first time?"
But just before closing his eyes, he saw the exciting girl in the crowd, so he said, "What a beautiful girl."
At that moment he must have loved life again. But there is no way out.
Life is ups and downs, you think that you are finished, but you will survive in the next moment; you think it will be bright, but you are just entering another trap. You think you are in control of your life, but life always makes you humble. The order of appearances in life is important. You see, people have the same physiological response to unknown happiness and unknown fear. The result is life and death.
The third story: "Meal Ticket"
This is a terribly sad story. The storyline is simple, yet carries deep metaphors. The meaning is very similar to the famous novel "Between Men and Mice".
A wandering entertainer took a boy with physical disabilities and received meager tickets for his speeches. Young people lectured on legendary works—Shelley’s Ozymandias, Shakespeare’s sonnets, and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
But the audience is getting smaller and smaller, the income is almost nothing, and the acrobats are becoming more and more desperate for the disabled teenagers. One day, a variety entertainer saw people crowding and making noise because of a hen that could count, so he spent a lot of money to buy the hen, and on a high bridge on the way, he threw a disabled boy.
The relationship between the two has a conflict between ideal and reality, spiritual world and eating and sex, life and survival. Artists think that they are talking to God, but in the face of reality, they are worthless, they are not as good as a nodding hen.
Fourth Story: All Gold Canyon
Because it's based on a Jack London novel, this is one of my favorite stories. Jack London is a writer who can give his work a unique personality, and he integrates his magnificent life into his works. He has written a lot of moving adventure stories and a lot of thoughtful works, and in this "Golden Valley", Jack London is like a poet, writing the profound and peaceful nature of nature and the calmness of the waves. poetry.
It can be said that this is a story with the most beautiful and moving pictures. The story takes place in an inaccessible valley in the west. Jack London spends a lot of words in the novel to describe the natural scenery. And the Coen brothers made Jack London's novel completely visual through the lens. Every frozen picture can be found in the novel.
An old man entered a quiet and pleasant valley. On the hillside near the river, relying on his rich experience and unremitting perseverance, he found a gold mine, but at the moment when he discovered the gold mine, a young man opened his door to him. With one shot, he played dead to find a chance to fight back and killed the young man. After burying the attackers and leaving the valley with the gold, the valley was calm again, as if nothing had happened.
People think that they are the masters of all things, and they arbitrarily intrude and take away. But nature doesn't care about people at all. Let you intrigue and control your ambitions. After the invasion and struggle, it is the eternal silence of nature.
Fifth Story: The Gal Who Got Rattled
This is a story of sudden despair in romance.
The girl lost her relatives on the way with the carriage. A young convoy gunman kept protecting her and fell in love with her. The two began to test and gradually fell in love with each other. The young convoy gunman told the girl: He wants to live in peace life, if the girl agrees, he can help the girl out of the situation, and then they can live together. He also told the girl that he couldn't figure out that another older guard, Mr. Arthur, was so good, but he had been living a homeless life, and he thought it was bad.
One day the girl was walking outside the convoy and met a group of Indians who were attacking. Mr. Arthur rushed over, but he was the only one, and he considered the worst. So he handed the girl a gun and told her that if it falls into the hands of the Indians, you will be in great pain, and don't press the button until the last moment.
Arthur fought the Indians alone, and at the last moment, he fell to the ground and pretended to defeat the Indians who underestimated the enemy. But when he turned around, he found that the girl had pulled the trigger and died. Arthur said with great regret: "Poor girl."
Life is made up of uncertainty, and who can control it. This is doomed to be an absurd act full of refutation, and no one can predict whether life will be better or worse in the future. Just imagine how absurd a person who jumped off a building would have the desire to live again in mid-air.
Story Six: The Mortal Remains
This is a story that does not stage death but tells death all the time.
The plot of the story takes place in a traveling carriage with a hunter, a lady, a gambler, a man known as the boss and his assistants.
The story consists of their constant dialogue. The hunter said that people are like beavers, and they are like each other. People say that there are two types of people, gamblers say, lucky people and unfortunate people; assistants say: winners and losers; ladies say, people are divided into righteous people and sinful people.
They each stated their own ideas and argued with reason, but they were all filled with the same fear when the carriage arrived.
Under the biggest proposition of life, life and death, all concepts and values are not worth mentioning. The values we hold can make us live "for granted", but they cannot lead us to die "appropriately". Death cannot be told. .
In addition to the extraordinary story of this movie, which can be regarded as a collection of stories, the color matching of the film and the application of the soundtrack are also top-notch within the limits of my cognition.
As a form of artistic expression, film provides a fantasy that can quickly take people away from reality. In such a dreamlike fantasy, we get and let go, feel and forget. This is a process. It is different from real experience. The biggest difference The thing is, movies we can make us experience over and over again, and that's what I watch "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs." How wonderful!
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