Yes, there is a type of short story trope of the twist, or at least ironic, ending. Back in the day the TV show The Twilight Zone specialized in this, within the sci-fi genre. We don’t really get this framework in TV or movies nowadays. So, it was refreshing to see on screen for me. If you read a lot of short stories you would be very familiar with it.
After the first one, I thought it was going to be more “Raising Arizona,” and less “Fargo” meets “No Country For Old Men,” set in the late 19th Century.
Meal Ticket and Mortal Remains kind of messed with my head; had bad dreams last night.
Loved them all. Trying to rank them, I wind up with a different order each time. Tom Waits sure kicked ass as an actor.
I convinced my gf to watch it with me the day after I watched it alone. It was equally enjoyable on second viewing and she thanked me for twisting her arm.
Each vignette seemed reflective of a different style of Western film to me:
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs a sort of sendup of 1930s / 1940s Gene Autry singing cowboy style
Near Algodones the sort of almost campy action Westerns of the 80s and 90s (Tombstone, Maverick, Young Guns)
Meal Ticket - Dark, nihilistic modern westerns like The Revenant and Hostiles.
All Gold Canyon - Reminded me of something out of an old Disney Western.
The Girl Who got Rattled - Those old sweeping John Ford How The West Was Won epics.
The Mortal Remains - Not specific to any single sub-genre I can recall, but following the common Western trope of a group of strangers passing the time in a stage coach.
I think part of what made the film seem so dark and unsettling was the combination of these recognizable Western styles with deaths that seem so arbitrary, brutal or ironic.
Some critics have made a case that Buster Scruggs is an avatar of the Coen Brothers, claiming to be accused of misanthropy unfairly. Indeed, they are both artists who leave a trail of bodies in their wake… kind of, it gets very meta since the bodies that Buster creates are really the Coens…Anyway, does the Gamblers point in The Mortal Remains, that a man must play his own hand, play into Busters story? After all, playing another man’s cards is an important part of it. Probably not a coincidence.
Also, the point was made up thread that the passengers in the stagecoach are also the bounty hunters’s victems, distracted by the story- but aren’t we being distracted by a story too? Are the Bounty Hunters avatars of the Coens as well, and the passengers represent us, the audience?
Deep stuff, man.
I took this segment as a sly poke (among other things) at Meek’s Cutoff, which was pretty pokey, but much celebrated by critics.
My favorite tweet about it
I liked the episodes less and less in the order they were played. Buster was a hoot, and the repeated “Pan Shot!” lines made me laugh like I shouldn’t.
I had to catch my breath after “Meal ticket” - like "Wow! he didn’t really throw him into … ". I also wondered what happened to that poor chicken after a while.
Gold Canyon was wonderful. Besides the beautiful scenery, I really liked how “scientific” the prospector was to find Mr. Pocket. It went downhill after the gunshot though; I thought it was unbelievable after that point.
“She Got Rattled” had me going in realizing that every story is going to have a tragic ending. In fact, I thought from the title that her death was going to be from a different cause (“rattled”), so I was surprised at how it happened. To me it was the sweetest and saddest story.
I thought the last episode was very boring. I must have nodded off during it, so at the end, while I understood what was happening, I didn’t really understand or care why it was happening. Did I perhaps a crucial line of dialog?
I can see that. Although, aside from the last few minutes, their situation never seems as bleak as Meek’s Cutoff.
I think that’s why the stories need to be viewed together and in the proper order.
Ballad of Buster Scruggs is goofy, but violent. The ending is a bit of a shock, even though it wraps up with a light-hearted duet. It sets the tone that these stories don’t necessarily have happy endings.
Near Algodones is also kind of fun and silly, but also ends in tragedy for the protagonist. It’s also less cartoonish than the first story.
Meal Ticket is really dark and disturbing. Like…damn!
All Gold Canyon is actually the only one where someone other than the protagonist dies and sort of cleanses the pallet after Meal Ticket.
So by the time we get to The Girl Who Got Rattled (perhaps the most cinematic of the tales), we don’t really know what’s going to happen. But we are pretty sure it will be something bad.
And The Mortal Remains closes everything out as a sort of statement on the inevitability of Death (or something).
I’ll need to watch it again, but I believe the passengers assumed the two men were bounty hunters. In reality, I think they are meant to be something more along the line of grim reapers or Death (“reapers… harvesters of souls”) ferrying the dead to their final destination. The passengers presumably died previously.
Also…in Meal Ticket, does anyone else picture Liam Neeson’s character saying “Looks like you’re going to have to change your name…to Bob!” before tossing that dude off the bridge?
I’m half way through my second viewing of this, and am liking it even more. It is to the old West what Black Mirror is to emergent technology 
The wife and I really enjoyed it, through and through.
Did anyone else wonder if Liam Neeson’s character was sold the trick, or just the chicken?
I thought about that. I think he was scammed.
I liked it overall. Not one of the Coen’s best and I think the fact that it was a series of vignettes (some not even stories) hurt it.
There was nothing actually tragic about most of the deaths. Tragedy requires the protagonist die because of a critical flaw in his/her character, not just a random death. That might fit “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” – his flaw was overconfidence – but not the others.
Going over them (My rating in parentheses, 1-5)):
- The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (5) – Nice juxtaposition between the character and how he acted. Probably the most fully formed story of the lot.
2 Near Algodones (4) – Really just a joke, but worth it for “First timer” line. - Meal Ticket (2) – All setup that went nowhere. The payoff was weak, especially with the possibility the chicken was a swindle.
- All Gold Canyon (2) – tedious with no story or payoff: man searches for gold and finds it. Snore. But nice callback to the previous story (“How high can a bird count?”)
- The Girl Who got Rattled (3) – storm and fury, signifying nothing. Though set up, the ending was pure futility trying to be ironic.
- The Mortal Remains (5) – best episode if you consider the supernatural overtones. The hotel interior was very suggestive – dark, but with a stairway up to the light. It would have been good if they found Buster Scruggs at the top of the stairs to tie the stories together.
Overall, OK, but they’ve done better.
The last story is the one I’ve been thinking about the most.
Each of the travellers has a valid theory of people:
- People are like ferrets. All the same.
- There are good people and bad people.
- People are all unique individuals.
Each of those viewpoints is at one point or another the “correct” one. None of the travellers was wrong.
I really liked the ending. In the end, we all die anyway, so…
I swear I’ve come across this in a short story somewhere long ago. There, the guy believes the chicken trick is real and he bought the chicken thinking he was going to be rich.
It’s not the Coen’s best but I enjoyed it. I’ll have to look at it again because you all saw things that I didn’t notice.
I didn’t see the hidden meanings in the last one. It never struck me that they were all dead and on their way to the afterlife. I’m not sure how I missed that. I just saw it as a story with some very entertaining dialogue then kind of petered out at the end with no real conclusion.
I really enjoyed it. Well worth watching. Brendan Gleeson has a remarkably fine singing voice.
And I hope I meet my end with as much aplomb as the Frenchman (allthough I suspect it will be more like poor Alice).
If anyone is interested in reading the Jack London story, “All Gold Canyon,” I found it Here.
It’s very short. The beginning seemed overwritten to my 21st century sensibilities, but the plot soon asserted itself and the reading became painless. The Coen’s version hews close to the original. The deer in the stream is taken from London’s opening.
I
Old Jack deserves a screenplay credit for that one!
He got it, as did Steward Edward White, who wrote the story on which “The Gal Who Got Rattled” was based.