A Conversation with The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Pt. 2: “Near Algodones”

Part 1, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” can be found here.

When you’re done with this one, Part 3 (“Meal Ticket) is over here.

Just up yonder a spell, Part 4 (“All Gold Canyon”).

And there on the horizon, Part 5 (“The Gal Who Got Rattled”)

Till we settled down at last for our much-deserved rest with Part 6 (“The Mortal Remains”)

(Make no mistake, friends: The following article is rife with what’s known as “Spoilers,” and will probably be most rewarding to those who are already familiar with this strange and wondrous motion picture. Nonetheless, you’re invited to read it in any event.)

In approaching the richness and ambiguity of the Coen Brothers’ most recent film, the Wild West anthology The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, one is confronted with the question of just how deep to go. The Coens, after all, are masters of the understated reference and the revelatory detail. Paying attention to John Goodman’s eyepatch in O Brother Where Art Thou reveals the fact that the whole movie is in part a retelling of The Odyssey. Goodman’s Walter Sobchek is the key to the Gulf War symbolism of The Big Lebowski (revealed in David Haglund’s insightful analysis on Slate.com), just as his Charlie Meadows gives the…