A Postmodern Twist to the Western Film Tradition in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs by The Coen Brothers

Abstract

Although the Coen brothers had already made films related to the Western genre, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) is a different venture, since they wrote the script of this anthology movie comprising six stories themselves. Besides delving into some of the themes that they have dealt with in their filmography–mortality, ethics, violence, justice, etc.–they also provide the film with a number of postmodern twists that hint at an effort to work through some of the problems posed by the mythology of the American West. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs contains the use of intertextuality across various art forms, a parodic treatment, and the inclusion of unusual perspectives that are all typical of postmodern aesthetics and politics of representation.