![]() The other two passengers are "reapers" and bounty hunters, an Irishman (Brendan Gleeson) and an Englishman with a devil beard (Jonjo O'Neill). This only adds irony to him ending his recitations with a line from the Gettysburg Address about a government that "shall not perish from the earth." Show business, like the dirty game of politics and life itself, is always looking for the next big thing. Yet it's no coincidence they begin with Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias," a poem about how the legacy of even the mightiest kings falls by the wayside. Though his stage career falls into the same cyclical routines as anyone's daily life, the Artist pours his heart out on stage in his orations. Keeping in mind Joel's recent "Macbeth" adaptation, it's easy to see the Artist as the chair-bound personification of the Scottish King's idea that life is but "a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more." "Meal Ticket" is less merciful in its examination of the relationship between art and commerce, as embodied by the Artist (Harry Melling) and his Impresario (Liam Neeson). ![]() The Cowboy cheats death once, but can he do it twice? This chapter and others also show how the Coens, unlike the Nihilists in "The Big Lebowski," still vouchsafe a glimmer of hope for some doomed protagonists, whether it be a place in the clouds or the face of a pretty girl. He's quicker on the draw than anyone and seems downright invincible until he meets the Kid (Willie Watson of Old Crow Medicine Show) and realizes, "You can't be top dog forever." There's no greater moment than when their duel in the street tips over into the "Yippie-ki-yi-yay" chorus of the out-of-body duet, "When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings." It's a wicked intro that sets up the whole rest of the anthology and its themes. ![]() Note that Buster comes trotting into the movie as a rider on a pale horse, like Death. "I gotta set myself up in the undertaking business," he jokes. By way of a countdown, he even blasts off one guy's fingers like five little piggies going to the meat market. The title story allows us to hear the self-described "pleasing baritone" of Tim Blake Nelson again, as we did in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" His singing cowboy, Buster Scruggs, accrues many nicknames and epithets, including "The Misanthrope" and "Herald of Demise," but for him, the preferred nomenclature is the "San Saba Songbird." Buster's outwardly genial nature belies a tendency to shoot dead any darn saloon patron who would dare to challenge him, and then break out in song about it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |