Joel David Coen e Ethan Jesse Coen
La ballata di Buster Scruggs

The Coen Brothers are like King Midas and everything they touch turns to gold (gold like the vein Tom Waits is searching for, as he plays an old, solitary “prospector” accompanied only by his donkey and a “great horned owl” or, uh, a female owl from which he's trying to steal eggs…), but there's a catch, and those who know the story of that king know what it is. In fact, with this beautiful 2018 Western film that I knew almost nothing about, except that Liam Neeson & the aforementioned Tom Waits were in it, it seems they have somewhat hindered the continuation of their successful film career by presenting this episodic film (even though it was even nominated for the “Screen Actors Guild Award” in 2019, specifically under Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture) featuring precisely six stories.

Now, I don't intend to do like those who describe albums track by track in their reviews, and follow that example with the episodes, but I'll say that the beginning immediately captivates the viewer with an atypical western, despite having all the right ingredients to tell the tale of the last part of a slightly over-the-top gunslinger's life, with a hint of “musical”. It then moves on to a, let's say classic, completely wacky bank robbery with a surprise ending where someone gets, uh, hanged more than once. To the point that a cowboy's emblematic question to another unfortunate, whimpering gallows colleague is more or less “eeh first time, huh?…”

Next comes the story (in my opinion the most moving of the whole film) of a young actor without legs or arms but with a great acting ability, who crosses the winter in a wagon (driven by Liam Neeson, who acts as his impresario and more…) and who will have to face a, uh, mathematical chicken…

The episode I found less attractive, although interesting, is the one starring and singing our beloved Tom Alan Waits. It is one of the two stories not written by the Coen Bros, and this particular one is based on a novella by Jack London called “All Gold Canyon”, with another surprise ending…

Following is an episode (the other one based on a story, specifically by Stewart Edward White, brother of the well-known, in America, painter Thomas Gilbert White) where we see, for the second time, some fierce “Indians” both shooting and, let's say, uh “scalping”… also with a sad surprise ending.

I won't say anything about the last one, otherwise it would be like doing that track by track that I intended to avoid from the start but didn't quite succeed, as you have clearly seen (eeh nobody's perfect, least of all me!). Actually, no, I do want to say one thing, and that is: I didn't like the "theatricality" of the shot with the fake moving background that's clearly visible from the stagecoach or carriage windows, but the story told does, in any case, lead to reflections on human types (and there it is said there are only two…) and nothing more.