'The Ballad of Buster Scruggs:' A Troubling and Dated Portrayal of Native Americans
The Coen Brothers have returned to the wild West with their Academy Award-nominated film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. A cinematic anthology, Buster Scruggs tells six tonally varying stories set in the 19th century American West. The film features notable character performances by Liam Neeson, James Franco, Tom Waits, Zoe Kazan, and Tim Blake Nelson. Packed with western grit, charm, and comedy, along with a dose of trademark Coen quirkiness, Buster Scruggs is an engaging, if not somewhat under-baked watch. However, as with several of the Coen Brothers’ past films, the fun is overshadowed by the troubling lack of diversity and the issues of representation littered throughout.
From start to finish, Buster Scruggs is a beautifully crafted visual testament to western America. Director of Photography Bruno Delbonnel, of Amélie (2001) fame, captures the immensity of the Rocky Mountains, the isolation of the open prairie, and the brutality of the barren desert in each of the delightful vignettes. The landscape is a character of its own, often dwarfing each protagonist and offering a glimpse at the way things were back when man bowed to nature. A remote tavern atop a red rock ridge or a lonely old man sifting for gold in a picturesque valley translate with quiet potency that this world is yet to be tamed.
The costume design likewise is striking. In the film’s final story “The Mortal Remains,” five characters share a crowded coach. Before anyone has a chance to speak, everything the viewer needs to know is provided by their varying ensembles. A filthy trapper, a prudish Christian, a smug Frenchman, a content and wizened Irishman, and a theatrical Englishman need little introduction. The titular character, who appears in the first story, sports a bright white singing cowboy shirt, contrasting greatly against the many dark leathers and muddied furs that surround him. Designer Mary Zophres manages to add small touches of exaggeration to traditional western garb where needed, bringing a sense of satire to a number of stories in the film’s selection.
Since the film’s Netflix release, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs has been the subject of debate regarding the portrayal and representation of Native Americans in film, and rightly so. Buster Scruggs features Native Americans onscreen only twice in its 133-minute runtime, and during those appearances, none of them are granted speaking roles. That fact alone raises some red flags about the Coen’s ability to capture tales of the old West without glorifying dated practices or robbing minorities of their own voices. To understand the writing and directing duo’s history with casting minorities, it’s important to examine some of their other films set in a western context.
The 2007 Best Picture winner No Country For Old Men is set in southern Texas sometime in the 1980s. As one would imagine, there are a number of Mexican actors present, though none of them are given speaking roles. Nearly every Mexican character in the film is a member or is somehow affiliated with an unnamed drug cartel. In 2010, the Coen Brothers remade classic American Western True Grit, set in 1873. There are a few brief speaking roles by black actors, but the only Native American in the film says nine words before getting promptly cut off. “Before I am hanged, I would like to say—”. These two projects are no exception. Throughout their entire filmography, the Coen Brothers have predominantly featured white actors as the main subjects, heroes, and romantic leads of their films.
Native Americans appear in two stories in Buster Scruggs: “Near Algodones” and “The Gal Who Got Rattled.” The first is a brief, satirical narrative about a bank robber in New Mexico (James Franco) who is caught and sentenced to hang. At the first attempted hanging, a group of young Natives on horseback ambush the authorities, killing everyone but Franco. They scream wildly during their attack, and scalp every white man they are able to get their hands on. When the assumed chief of the war party enters the frame, he is initially depicted as an old, wise sage. The camera slows to meet his horse’s even gait. The sounds of the mayhem fade as a roll of thunderous drums give way to an ominous guitar twang. The chief comes face to face with Franco, peering deep into his eyes… And then the camera bump zooms like something out of The Office as the chief screams, shakes a rattle and laughs like an elated toddler, before turning his horse and galloping away. A character later in the story reveals that the Natives who had attacked were Comanche. He calls them a “nuisance,” further reducing their identity to mere animals; wild beasts with neither a thought nor want of civilization.
In “The Gal Who Got Rattled,” a Sioux war party makes an appearance. This time they attack a single man and woman, failing to kill either of them by the end of the story. The man, who ferries wagon trails across the country, comments on the Natives’ inferior strategy, saying “They don’t know how to fight.” When the conflict is said and done, several Natives lay dead or injured. The woman has shot her self in fright, and the man walks boldly away. As he leaves the scene, he shoots a downed native at point-blank range with nothing more than a glance. Triumphant music swells around him. He has survived the “savages.”
To be fair, “The Gal Who Got Rattled” is based on a 1901 Stewart Edward White short story that is, in all likelihood, unsympathetic to Native Americans. However, this begs the question of whether it was worth being adapted in the first place. “Near Algodones” is a creation of the Coen Brothers, and despite the fact that their story is a satire, and the White story is gritty and realist, the Native Americans are portrayed exactly the same.
As the film industry continues to emphasize the importance of diversity in storytelling, the Coen Brothers, frankly, aren’t aging well. Their prowess for filmmaking has hardly dimmed, but when assessing the problematic representation of Native Americans, it is clear their latest work merits an apology to the Comanche and Sioux Nations.
