Joker: Folie à Deux

Doubling Down on a Pair of Jokers

or

The Roar of the Greasepaint (The Smell of the Crowd)
 

Folie à deux (French for 'madness of two'), also called shared psychosis or shared delusional disorder (SDD), is a psychiatric syndrome in which symptoms of a delusional belief are "transmitted" from one individual to another.

 

Re-reading my review of Joker—a film which earned a billion dollars in revenues and secured Joaquin Phoenix a Best Actor Oscar—I soft-pedaled my major reservation to the film, which was "if you're going to make a movie about a comics fan-favorite with a proven track record, maybe you should stick a little closer to the source?" The Joker, of course, was a villain—some would say THE villain of The Batman series—but the Joker without Batman is a bad guy with no opposition, a villain without redemption, and the stomping grounds of Gotham City merely a 'burg without hope...not someplace you want to go to have a good time. Director Todd Phillips went a different route through town, basing his version of "Joker" on two Martin Scorsese movies (Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy), but without that director's Catholic horror at the consequences of dwelling incessantly in an isolated mind with delusions of grandeur. Centering your film around such a character was always going to be morally questionable and never on the side of the angels.

The movie, however, was a hit. And in the movie business, when you have a hit, you make a sequel, because, in Hollywood, lightning always strikes twice in the same place, despite overwhelming evidence of diminishing returns, both artistically and financially.

 

So, here, we have that sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, which was trumpeted as a continuation of Phillips' Joker story, but adding another character from the Batman series (initially "The Animated Series" actually), the Joker's hench-woman and moll, Harley Quinn—probably the most toxic relationship in any comics setting, even more than the brick-throwing antics in Krazy Kat. But, Phillips puts the same anti-clockwise spin on the story, leaving behind the comics and the arcana. And starting fresh with old jokes.

The new film starts with a cartoon made by the animation team directed by Sylvain Chomet who made The Triplettes of Belleville as well as the unrealized Jacques Tati project, The Illusionist. It's a deflection—a lot of the movie is (as was the last one)—for when the blood-red curtains ending the cartoon open, we cut to the reality: Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) incarcerated in a wing of Gotham City's Arkham Asylum (done in full Titticut Follies grimness). Every morning, the wards are opened up by the guards (including Brendan Gleeson's Jackie Sullivan) so that the inmates can empty their bed-pans and get their requisitioned meds. Sullivan always begins the day by asking Fleck "Got a joke for me, Arthur?" but lately the erstwhile "Joker" has been silent.

You see, he's awaiting trial for the murder of talk-show host Murray Franklin, as well as three toughs who assaulted him on a subway, and for an unnamed orderly at Arkham (all presented in the first film). His attorney (Catherine Keener) has been diligently working on his case trying to keep Arthur appearing normal so she can plead insanity at his upcoming trial to keep him from being executed. But, Arthur's reputation precedes him like a shadow—he did, after all execute Franklin on live-television. And, there are those "Joker" fans in Gotham, fanning his flames—there was even a made-for-TV movie about him that gets mentioned a lot. Things are not looking good for Arthur.

That is until his relatively good, albeit drugged, behavior allows him to participate in a music-therapy program in another wing, where he meets Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga), and their mutual attraction begins to perk him up. Just like in the cartoon at the beginning, Arthur starts to break into song—but just in his imagination—old standards like "If They Could See Me Now," "For Once in My Life," "They Long to Be (Close to You)," "To Love Somebody,""Bewitched," "That's Entertainment!" and even "The Joker" from the Newley-Bricusse musical "The Roar of the Greasepaint! The Smell of the Crowd!" (which is a little too on-the-painted-nose) others start popping up whether it's just Arthur standing in front of a TV, or director Phillips goes off on some extravaganza set-piece (he's already made a shot call-back to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, so it isn't unsuspected.

The trouble, though, is pacing. Just as Joker would stop-cold whenever Phoenix had a chance to improvise for the camera, Folie a Deux stutters to a stop—or at least a slow crawl—whenever the music starts. The songs aren't delivered as bouncy show-stoppers, but slow internal monologues with hesitant half-hearted voices (even the Gaga), so there's a slight cringe factor whenever someone starts to break into song, off-set somewhat by the anticipation of what musical style Phillips will borrow (will it be La La Land? M-G-M? The Sonny and Cher Show?), and long after the joke wears a little thin, it will still be crooning along until somebody snaps out of the reverie. It tries the patience.

It will try the patience of comic book fans, as well. Just as Arthur is not "The Joker" of the comics (no, really), Lee is not Harley Quinn in any sort of incarnation, animated, live action, or four-color. The original Harley was a psychologist at Arkham Asylum, who fell under the Joker's spell during evaluations of him at the facility, and then things get a little muddled as she acquired above-human abilities and an acrobat's agility. For the longest time, she was attached to Joker's hip as a moll, henchwoman, girlfriend, soul-mate, but, eventually, that relationship became so damned toxic—they're both crazy, after all, and homicidal—that to keep Harley Quinn a viable character, keeping them apart seemed the only answer with DC Comics acting as the aggrieved parents pushing the couple apart. But, Lee in  Folie à Deux is somebody else. She's initially a fellow inmate, a firebug committed by her parents who happens to meet Arthur by accident and the sparks (heh) fly. But, even that's not right. In this, Lee is a hanger-on, like those souls who marry incarcerated prisoners for whatever reason—"in love with being in love" (but without conjugal obligation) reflected glory, "I can save them" fantasies, or just plain "bad wiring"—and she had herself committed with the intention of sharing his glory.

But, when Arthur is on trial, eventually serving as his own defense attorney (with Harvey Dent—played by Harry Lawtey serving as prosecutor), he's confronted by the reality of what he's done, and seems less the mythic failure of chaos and societal retribution, but, a flawed, screwed-up schlub, Lee dumps him, taking away the last shred of fantasy he has—even his fan-base becomes threatening to him, leaving him a good deal less better off than he was before.

Fantasy versus reality comes to a hard truth: that maybe the love of his life isn't what he thought it was (but, then, they did this in the first movie) and that the thronging crowds supporting him are merely a slathering mob there for their own self-aggrandizement (I've seen that one, too; I watch politics). Fleck has to confront the horrors of both of those realities and when they hit, there's no song or fantasy sequence to play him out.

Now, this all plays right into my film-philosophical wheel-house where love is a form of insanity and musicals are a false form that breaks the agreed-upon screen/reality wall to have characters break into unchallenged song to express internal emotions they're incapable of with mere dialog. What Phillips has done seems perfectly natural to me in the crazy-illusion film-world, especially when combined with lunatic characters like Joker and Lee. Sure, the film has flaws—I've brought up the pacing issue—but all the actors are great in it, including Phoenix and Gaga, and the concept is just enough "out-there" to maintain the themes of the first film and build on them.

And what is the theme? I'd contend that it's a cock-eyed continuation of a couple expressed in Christopher Nolan's Batman series—"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" (even if you actually start out as a villain but are a hero in your own mind) and where the symbol is the powerful thing, not the man inhabiting it. In the movie, Arthur Fleck isn't competent to carry on the mantle of "Joker" and he gets rejected.

Remember what I said about basing a movie on a villain unopposed, without redemption? There's no future in it. But "The Joker" is a popular character, some poor souls might say he's more popular than "The Batman" himself. So, you make a movie about him. But, "The Joker" that everybody (meaning the fan-base) likes is the agent of chaos, the contrarian, the one who's in control of things and leads the heroes on a merry—if deadly—chase. The Joker That brings in the box-office bucks is the one ahead of the game. That's the Joker that people respond to. That's The Joker that has fans.

This "movie-Joker" is not him; he's never in control. And I think that was always Phillips' intention with Arthur Fleck. A guy who fell between the cracks and by acting out inspired mob-hysteria among the anti-social. Joker: Folie à Deux—the name means so much more when you consider all this—is the the natural continuation of this premise and the logical conclusion. The movie does exactly what it wanted to do, bless its twisted little heart.

The result, of course, is the last riotous laugh: the movie is being rejected by its fan-base. Not because it's musical, but because this Joker is a loser. In many fan-circles, you can do bad things—horrible things—but, you can't be "a loser". That does nothing for fans wanting to identify with an agent of chaos, or see The Joker as the guy in charge manipulating the "order" of things. So, the sheep are rioting...or doing what sheep do when they protest, they find another patch of grass to gnaw away on and ignore what's not working for them anymore. As in the Who song "Let's forget you/better still" and find some other power symbol for their needful mimicking narcissism.

 

And that's the truth of it. Power fantasies are merely that. Fantasies. And when the fantasy fades away, well, as Arthur says "You get what you f-ing deserve."

 

"You can say that again, pal!"

The Banshees of Inisherin

The Best of Enemies and the Worst of Friends

or

A Tall Tale About Small People Giving Their Neighbors the Finger...

 

Banshee—"hence bean-síghe, plural mná-síghe, she-fairies or women-fairies, credulously supposed by the common people to be so affected to certain families that they are hears to sing mournful lamentations about their houses by night, whenever any of the family labours under a sickness which is to end by death, but no families which are not of an ancient & noble Stock, are believed to be honoured with this fairy privilege"

O'Brien's Irish- English Dictionary

 

The island of Inisherin sits off the West Coast of Ireland, close enough to hear the cannons from the Irish Civil War over the expanse of water that separates the conflict from its citizens (at least in 1923, when the film, The Banshees of Inisherin, takes place). One would think it was a peaceful respite for its denizens, which contain many Irish folk and the animals in their keep and their trades. But, as close as they are to the fighting that couldn't be further from the truth.

Take Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell), for instance. A local milk-man, he has a stable farm with cows, a horse, and a donkey named Jenny on whom he dotes and allows too much domestic privileges. At least in the mind of Pádraic's sister, Siobhan (Kerry Condon), who has shared the farm's duties since their mother and father passed many years ago. Pádraic makes the rounds, then, like clock-work goes to see his neighbor Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson) promptly at 2 pm, where they will proceed to O'Riordan's pub to quaff a pint (or three) and Colm entertains with his fiddle. At least, that's the way it's always been for as long as things have been.

Except for today. Pád goes down to Colm's shack of a place and sees him inside smoking. He tells him he'll meet him at the pub later, but Colm doesn't even acknowledge him. He goes home and Siobhan is surprised he's not gone off drinking with Colm. Pád tells her what's transpired and immediately has a question and an answer: "You been rowin'?" "I don't tink we've been rowin'! We was fine yesterday!" "Well, maybe he doesn't like you anymore!" she scoffs. He blusters back to Colm's and sees the door's open, Colm's gone and, well, there he sees him, off in the distance, heading for the pub. By himself.

At O'Riordan's, Pád sees Colm and confronts him. "Sit somewhere else," Colm says without looking at him. It's a clear rejection, and Pád schlumpfs off to an outside table to stew in his beer. Colm finally has enough pity to come out and explain the situation, but it's no comfort. "I just don't like you no more," he puts it bluntly. He finds Pád dull, talking about the minutiae of his life that Colm just isn't interested in...at all...not at this point in his older life. He's concerned now about legacy and his fiddle-playing and Pád's harping on his donkey and his life is just on another plane of existence now...a far lower plane, and as his days get shorter, he has fewer hours to waste.

Pád just doesn't understand. "How am I different from yesterday?" And it being a small isolated island, everyone starts to get involved, even Pád's sister. "He's ALWAYS been dull!" she shouts at Colm. "But ya live on a feckin' island off the coast of Ireland! What are ya hopin' for?" Colm starts to get it from all sides, even the local priest—who's just as prickly and easily offended as the rest of them. Finally, Colm has had it. He draws the red line. He has a pair of sheep shears. "Each day you talk to me, I'll cut a finger off and give it to you." Which is madness; he's a fiddle player and his fiddling is uppermost in his mind right now.

But, Pád just can't...and won't...let it go. He's a man who keeps chewing long past he's swallowed and he's lost in the squirrel-cage of his mind. On a small "feckin'" island what else does he have to do? Alcohol doesn't help with any restraint. And Pád starts to see himself in a different light. "I thought I was one of the nice guys!" he grieves when a confrontation sees Colm cut off index of his fingering hand and throw it at the Súilleabháin door. And he is. But, outside forces are starting to change him and his behavior and his opinion about his behavior.

If only he'd consider the lilies of the field. Or better yet the animals that co-habit with the Inishereens. McDonagh, the director, has them as a silent chorus throughout the movie, doing their jobs and not complicating matters. Like the singular deer in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, they are silent witnesses going about their business while the bi-pedals mess things up. Even the gun-reports from the Civil War don't phase them. I found myself in sympathy with the animals, especially a random shot of goats with one facing the camera as if asking "What the...?"

The Banshees of Inisherin may well have been inspired as a result of the Covid-19 prácás and its long periods of forced isolation and the fevered carousels of people's minds running without brakes (or consideration) without any one around to slow down the ponies. Little things become big issues and they can escalate to the point of irony and beyond to the absurd. Self-fulfilling prophecies and being our own worst enemies should have been among the list of symptoms for humans who either don't think or think too much. Even with disaster looming like some hectoring banshee because we think we know so much, when we don't even know what we don't know.

So, The Banshees of Inisherin is going to stay with me for a good long while—even if it sounds depressing and dark, one should see it for the brilliant performances, particularly of Farrell and Gleeson and Barry Keoghan's turn as the village not-quite-so-idiot ("i'm agin' 'em—wars and soap"), with its O. Henry sense of black irony of how red lines can be as thin as skin and how crossed swords turn quickly to crossed purposes. But, also, how even in the worst circumstances, there can be small moments of grace like a rainbow piercing a cloudy day.

The Tragedy of Macbeth

A Murder of Crows

or

"...Black, Deep Desires"

 

Joel Coen steps away from "The Coen Brothers" partnership to present his own version of Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth (or "The Scottish Play" if you expect a sandbag to fall from the rafters). There's nothing to fear here: brother Ethan usually writes their stuff and Joel directs with some intersection of duties between the two. But, here, brother Joel already has a collaborator and the material has been proven time and time again (and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow), despite the superstitions that have hovered like crows over every stage production.

 

There have been so many filmed presentations of "Macbeth" and re-imagined scenarios in which it takes place that one wonders what Coen, taking the text, would do with it. He doesn't try to anachronise the story, moving it to Haiti or setting it in Nazi Germany, but keeps it in 16th century Inverness. Presentation of that historical "Macbeth" recalls the way Orson Welles did it in 1948—stage-bound, Academy ratio, black and white, with an eye towards German Expressionism.

It begins with a shot straight up into the sky, the wind blowing, smoke and clouds combining and birds gyrating into the sky. Nature is on alert and moving because man is up to something unnatural—a battle has just been fought. Meanwhile a lone figure (Kathryn Hunter) scuttles—there is no other word for it—across a dirt path in the fog, muttering to itself and to others. This is Coen's interpretation of Shakespeare's witches, one being, recalling Andy Serkis' Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, but not a CGI creation, but one of theatricality, with twisted limbs like a bird's and a hoarse croak of a voice that feels like nails on a file. The performance is weird without being traditionally spooky and sets you on edge for what is to come.

What is to come is a professional interpretation without too much weirdness. Hunter is a tough act to follow, and she is the highlight in a film that should be full of them. I say that, but it needs to be said with some context. "Macbeth" is a much performed play, both in theater and the cinema (every decade has one film of it, it seems), and, like a symphony—or other piece of music—it can be played in differing manners even if maintaining the ascribed tempo. I might have a "perfect" rendition of the piece (and other listeners another idea of what that might entail) and notice the change of "attack" or emphasis in certain sections. It comes down to interpretation, and "Macbeth" is just as susceptible to those variations.

Like the 1948 Welles version, this one depends on less being more (although Coen cites Carl Theodor Dreyer more than Welles), the backdrops shadowed or cloaked in mist and blocks of perfectly proportioned masonry with less emphasis on grit—as, say, Polanski's version—and the figures walking through them are like mice in a maze. Predestination has created their paths and their choice is to simply follow through or not. It's a curiously unpopulated world, the only crowds being the line of soldiers set to attack Macbeth's castle, hemmed in by the "Birnam wood" of the witches' prophecy, the rest being stark spaces shadowed by the blackest blacks.

Through these spaces, the characters pace, for the most part sheltered from the wild outside that knows no geometry of straight lines, but intrudes—once the Macbeths screw their courage to the sticking place by regicide—not only by physical presences, but by the sound of that nature booming (not just knocking) to be let in, like consciences made tactile.

The acting is great throughout, with Brendan Gleeson, Alex Hassell, Stephen Root (!!), Moses Ingram, and Frances McDormand all breathing new life into the texts, bridging that Elizabethan gap of Shakespearean prose by the sheer force of performance. Denzel Washington does well (as well), bringing a maturity to the role rather than—as in some versions—as a walking personification of overweening ambition. It is only in his interpretation of the "Out, brief candle" speech that leaves a little something to be desired at that critical junction of the play. 

Up until then, Washington's Macbeth is a pragmatist, slightly world-weary and seems beaten down—he has just come from a war, after all. What is most interesting is that both Macbeths in this iteration are older, childless (so no chances of succession), and obviously have seen chances for advancement taken away from them in the past, and that, now, with this hope given thought by a supernatural origin, are almost desperate to take advantage of it, lest it pass from them one last time. Once he is king, and things start to fall apart, one would think there would be more shock, more realization that he might have been duped by the very forces that emboldened him. But, that's not there. Instead, it seems he's returned to the world-weariness at the beginning of the film—which is inconvenient as he still has much to fight. It feels false, and is missing a sense of bitter desperation that will carry him through the inevitable end.

Still, it's a beautiful, often mystical film to watch and listen to. And it's always a welcome break to just take in Shakespeare to relieve oneself of the mundane nature of everyday-speak, and glory in the poetry and precision of his story-telling.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (And Other Tales of the Western Frontier)

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back—That's a Western Waltz
or
"Uncertainty. That is appropriate for matters of this world. Only regarding the next are vouchsafed certainty."
or
"Misanthrope? I don't hate my fellow man, even when he's tiresome and surly and tries to cheat at poker. I figure that's just a human material, and him that finds in it cause for anger and dismay is just a fool for expecting better."

There is a sense of nostalgia that prepares you for The Coen Brothers' new Western anthology film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (which makes its premier on Netflix and is playing a very few theaters in the U.S., presumably for Oscar award consideration). It starts with a nicely-composed shot of a dog-eared book bearing the same title as the film, familiar for the plain dust-jacket (from a time before marketing became the thing to sell the book) that will be recognized to anyone who's had to clear out the bookshelf of a recently-passed relative, or from a Sunday afternoon perambulation through a used book store. You can practically smell the dust and age of the pages, as a hand crawls into frame and gingerly opens the book to the artistically rendered end-papers and then to the "meat" of the book, where the page-turning pauses on the dedication page, which has these words:

To Gaylord Gilpin

Who shared with us these stories,

And many more alike, one night

in camp above the roaring fork

'til approach of morn stained the sky

and our esteem for him stained our trousers.

This Book is Dedicated

There are six stories in the book, the titles giving no clue as to what they might be about. Turn the page and we see a list of the color illustration plates included in the volume. A tissue protects the illustration and we see the first burst of material showing us the contents, a single image and an arbitrary line of prose that only hints at what's inside, creating a mystery and a void to be filled, a goal to move on to. And we begin...with "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs."

1. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Buster Scruggs (Tim Blake Nelson) is a singing cowboy riding out of Monument Valley into what passes for civilization in the day and age, his legs wrapped around his horse, his arms wrapped around his guitar and his throat wrapped around the traditional ballad "Cool Water." Buster is a white-hat cowboy, loquacious of song and speech (by which he is constantly addressing the audience as in "Don't let my white duds and pleasant demeanor fool ya. I, too, have been known to violate the statutes of man... and not a few of the laws of the Almighty!"). His story demonstrates his "downright Archimedean" skills with a gun, and his reputation as the "San Saba songbird" as he creates a quick comic elegy for one of miscreants of poor nature who have the fool-hardiness to draw on him.*

One can see why the Coens were tempted to start with this one, as it is the funniest and most arch of the six stories, recalling to mind the Looney-Tunes nature of Raising Arizona, and with a lovely, goony performance by Nelson that endears you to him, even if, occasionally, it creeps one out. It sets up the tone for the entire film, where The West challenges the expert and the novice alike and Death comes in unexpected and inconvenient ways and should also prepare viewers that, as such, they can be surprising and grisly, as well. 

"The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" is a comic primer for the anthology, showing the film's approach to dusty death and the film's larger message of the nature of wilderness, and the efficacy of trying to rise above it.

"You seen 'em, you play 'em" sneered the hard man.

2. Near Algodones

An outlaw (James Franco) decides he's going to knock over the only game in town (except there's no town)—a bank that looks like it fell right out of the sky to land in the middle of the plains. But, it's just not his day. He has to contend with the institution's sole teller (Stephen Root), who's been through the procedure before, and who, in the opinion of the would-be robber, "doesn't fight fair." 

The outlaw will have very good luck today, but not so's you'd notice.

After waking up, he finds his neck in a noose, with a hanging party all ready to carry out its sentence. Fate steps in to get him out of the jam, but also put him deep into another one. He will ultimately learn that there's a good side to everything as long as he has the time to appreciate it.

"Pan-shot!" cried the old man.

3. Meal Ticket

A humble wagon makes its way through the scarce pockets of civilization that mark a mountain landscape. It is a traveling show, featuring a cultured orator, Harrison (Harry Melling), who has the added fascination that he is a quadriplegic. The show is fairly simple—the curtain of a small stage parts to reveal the orator, and after a dramatic pause that allows for gawking, he gives dramatic recitations of the story of Cain and Abel, and other sources as diverse as Shakespeare, Shelley, and Abraham Lincoln, to the spare audiences looking for diversion from the night and the cold. 

Harrison is under the care of his manager (Liam Neeson), who drives the wagon, posts the bills, prepares the stage, does Harrison's make-up, and provides sound effects for the parts in which God appears and needs accompaniment. He also collects the spare change that the audience provides for their night's entertainment, enough to provide a hot meal cooked over a campfire. The manager does that, too, and feeds Harrison by hand. Lodgings would be too expensive and the audiences are noticeably dwindling the farther they head through the mountains.

The two are tied together in partnership, but the days are long and the rewards are meager. 

"Meal Ticket" is a story of entrepreneurship, reduced in all its hard-scrabble desperation, and the eye toward improving business at all costs with little regard to anything but the sound of coins in pockets, and it resonates as timely as the day's financial headlines that emphasize the bottom line at the cost of human dignity...and life.

"The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven."

All Gold Canyon

Based on a Jack London story, "All Golden Canyon" tells the story of a grizzled prospector (Tom Waits), who enters a pristine valley with the intention of culling the riches hidden within it, without regard to the wonders that surround him.

He sets up an elaborate system, digging through the dirt, and noting the glittering specks of gold that he is able to pan out of it, to find the vein of gold that he knows must be there, the source of which he calls "Mr. Pocket," that will allow him to leave the valley a very rich man—if he can survive long enough to hit pay dirt.

And in all that mighty sweep of earth, he did not see a sign of man nor the handiwork of man.

The Gal Who Got Rattled

A mail-order bride, Alice Longabaugh (Zoe Kazan) travels with her brother by wagon train to meet her intended husband. But the journey is long and accompanied by cholera, natives, and her brother's dog, named Benjamin Pierce, whose instinct, owing to its city nature, is to bark at anything wild, upsetting the prickly members of the wagon train, already impatient by the deprivations of the long journey.

When her brother dies, Alice is left alone, on her own, with no experience, few prospects, and a singular disposition towards fretting, which endears her to the ramrod of the train, Billy Knapp (Bill Heck), who takes it upon himself to solve her cares and problems, much to the mute consternation of the train boss, Mr. Arthur (Grainger Hines), who has other considerations than those of a worrisome girl, out of her depth, and out in the wilderness.

The longest and most intricate of the stories, "The Gal Who Got Rattled" is based on a story by Stewart Edward White, and one could comment, here, on the top-tier performances and the exquisite photography (shot digitally, a Coen first) by Bruno Delbonnel, who's been doing a lot of work with the Coens, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Tim Burton and Joe Wright, but that praise can be said for the entire anthology, no matter the conditions or weather they were recorded in. The film is beautiful to look at, frequently threatening to overwhelm the stories, but never quite doing that, becoming an intricate part of the story-telling fabric, the wide expanses of prairie and horizon looming and often overpowering the melancholy insignificances of the tiny figures making their ways through them.

Mr. Arthur had no idea what he would say to Billy Knapp.

The Mortal Remains

Five passengers (played by Saul Rubinek, Tyne Daly, Chelcie Ross and Jonjo O'Neill and Brendan Gleeson) on board a stage-coach as they make their way from a sunset prairie to the enfolding night on their way to Fort Morgan. 

The five could not be less compatible as they hold conversations as to the nature of man and the nature of love on the one side of the stage, while on the other the two partners, Thigpen and Clarence reveal themselves to be "reapers"—bounty hunters, who on this very ride are carrying their latest victim (on the roof of the cabin) to be dispatched at Fort Morgan...but is that the only one designated by the gentlemen who clearly revel in their work? 

Unlike the other segments, "The Mortal Remains" is shot entirely on a sound-stage, even the fronts of the fort's houses are decidedly two-dimensional, but it ends the film on a decidedly creepy, if  ambivalent note, the kind of campfire story best saved for when the last embers glow out and leave only wraiths of smoke.

Whether or not he heard, the coachman did not slow.

And there you have it: the cowboy, the outlaw, the entrepreneur, the prospector, the wagon train, the stagecoach—tropes and aspects of the Olde West, but given a determined melancholy twist that has become synonymous with the works of the Coen Brothers. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is another genre-busting masterpiece that plants a flag in their careers, as they never do less than interesting work, but there are some that clearly stand out more than others.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is one of those. Not a "return to form," so much as one of those where everything works and their experimentation reveals the strengths of the inspiration they've decided to sardonically play around with—in this case, the Western's ability to show us that whatever we may gain, we lose something in the transition, making the genre both the perfect home of triumph entangled with tragedy, sometimes inseparably.

It is, indisputably, one of the best films of the year. Ironically, good luck finding it in a theater.

*

Surly Joe, the gambler, he will gamble nevermore,

his days of stud and hold'em they are done.

It was long about last April, he stepped into this saloon,

but he never really took to anyone!

Surly Joe, Surly Joe!

Oh, wherever he's gamblin' now, I don't know!

He was slick but I was slicker,

he was quick, but I was quicker,

and the table stopped his ticker, Surly Joe!

Surly Joe, Surly Joe!

Won't be missed by anyone, will Surly Joe!

Humankind he frowned upon,

but not now, his face is gone!

Guess your frowning days are done, oh Surly Joe!

Surly Joe, Surly Joe!

A cedilla on the "c" of Curly Joe!

He was mean in days of yore,

now they're moppin' up the floor

One more sight to make him sore, oh Surly Joe!

Surly Joe, Surly Joe!

Where the rest his face has got to, we don't know!

He was never any fun, now his grumpy race has run,

kisser blown to kingdom come oh Surly Joe!