Conversation with The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Pt. 6: “The Mortal Remains”
(Friends, this movie has been out for a good seven months, but I feel compelled nonetheless to warn you of the many spoilers to be found herein. Likely you would derive more enjoyment from the film, and from the article, were you to experience them in that order. It’s on Netflix.)
As sharp-eyed readers have likely noticed, this is the sixth in a series of articles, each one focused on one of the six vignettes which comprise the Coen Brothers’ latest film. Those articles are linked below:
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, in which Tim Blake Nelson as a sort of Roy Rogers/Doc Holiday hybrid gets killed by the guy from Old Crow Medicine Show
Near Algodones, starring James Franco as a doomed parody of Clint Eastwood who gets gets killed by the dad from The VVitch, and then by a different guy
Meal Ticket, wherein Liam Neeson murders the mean kid from Harry Potter
All Gold Canyon, featuring Tom Waits chewing up a lot of gorgeous scenery and then killing some anonymous fellow (and the natural world as a whole)
The Gal Who Got Rattled, a bracingly naturalistic frontier tragedy with no really famous people, but lots of killing
