The green screen was burst asunder, and a man peered out at the meadow and the pool and the sloping side-hill. Then the voice of the man was raised in song:—, “Tu’n around an’ tu’n yo’ face Untoe them sweet hills of grace      (D’ pow’rs of sin yo’ am scornin’!).

The film causes us to meditate on how pulp literature created our mythology of the American West. At first his golden herds increased—increased prodigiously. There was a flush in his cheek other than that made by the heat of the sun, and he was oblivious to fatigue and the passage of time. Randall Collins - Carter Burwell, 5. Joel and Ethan Coen's The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a movie of six Western stories. It was a treasure-hole. To the west the ranges fell away, one behind the other, diminishing and fading into the gentle foothills that, in turn, descended into the great valley which he could not see. Through each, diverse characters hurry for their final appointment: Oregon Trail-travelers, a gold prospector, a motley crew of stagecoach passengers, a high-plains drifting bank robber, even a singing cowboy.

I could scoff iron-filings an’ horseshoe nails an’ thank you kindly, ma’am, for a second helpin’.”. His first pan of the morning washed out over two dollars in coarse gold. Into this he dropped a few crumbs of tobacco. “An’ you shot me in the back!” he said accusingly. This name was Buster Scruggs and he himself was feared.”, Figure #4: A mysterious hand flips the pages of the green book. His face showed white in the moonlight, like the face of a corpse. Figure #5: The first image of Monument Valley in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. “Never laid eyes on him before,” the miner concluded his scrutiny. When the man agrees, Buster ignominiously shoots off the fingers of his opponent. The newest Coen brothers movie, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, is an anthology film that draws heavily from two sources: Hollywood westerns—including the long-abandoned singing cowboy genre—and the 19th and early 20th century adventure stories. Still squatting on his heels, he continued examining the fragments and tossing them into the pan. Through each, diverse characters hurry for their final appointment: Oregon Trail-travelers, a gold prospector, a motley crew of stagecoach passengers, a high-plains drifting bank robber, even a singing cowboy.

“It’s just booful, the way it peters out,” he exulted when a shovelful of dirt contained no more than a single speck of gold. Slow an’ certain’s the only hand you can play; so go to it, an’ keep to it, too.”. The first shot of the film is of a ragged hardcover book with a dark green cover. white hat. He stood still a long while, surveying the hill-side. He ain’t a-runnin’ away before you can get yer breakfast. His was the feeling as when a cloud passes over the sun. It would seem that all the color of his frame had gone into his eyes, for they were startlingly blue. He continued rubbing the dirt from the quartz fragments and throwing the gold into the pan.

He examined it critically, turned it over and over, and rubbed the dirt from it.