Why the Coen Brothers' 18th - and possibly last - film may be their masterpiece: Anthony Clavane

I admit that they make unconventional films, which are often shaped by an absurdist aesthetic, and their contrived plots don’t always make much

sense.

Their storytelling skills have not always appealed to the critics. Writing about one of their most memorable creations, Jeff Lebowski

(better known as The Dude), David Denby wrote in The New Yorker that the story of 1998’s The Big Lebowski “is so incoherent he can’t explain

it to anyone”.

To which The Dude would, no doubt, reply: “Yeah, well, you know, that’s just like your opinion, man.”

I am writing this column after spending a delightful hour or two trying to convince a Film Studies lecturer that what turns out to be the lads’ last film, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, is one of their best.

It was made, for Netflix, in 2018. I only saw it for the first time a few weeks ago; after a limited theatrical release, it went straight to the streaming service and, as I was late to the Netflix party – having only signed up during the first lockdown – it completely passed me by.

The thought of an anthology of six, short Westerns initially failed to entice me. It’s not my favourite genre and, over the years, I’ve had my fill of bank robbers, gunslingers, singing cowboys and the like.

Once again, I got it wrong. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a masterpiece, encapsulating the droll essence of the brothers’ astonishing three-decade career.

In the podcast with my Film Studies friend, we discussed the release, next month, of Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand. It will be the first time Joel and his brother Ethan have not joined forces on a movie.

We might have clashed over the merits and demerits of Buster Scruggs, but we both agreed it was the end of an era.

I feel privileged to have lived through the Coens’ era. Even those who find them too smart-aleck, too indie-minded and just too, well, weird, will concede that the brothers have made their mark on popular culture.

Since Blood Simple, their directorial debut in 1984 – which inspired a new generation of filmmakers, including Quentin Tarantino, to pick up a camera – they have fashioned a distinctive genre, an antidote to the glib, formulaic cliches of mainstream Hollywood.

Knowing that the pair have split, albeit amicably, made me view Buster Scruggs as their swan song.

My Film Studies friend declared it to be a minor film in the Coen oeuvre, but not only is it essential to their canon, it seemed to be addressing some very personal concerns.

They are no longer the movie brats shaking up the establishment, serving notice on the old-timers.

Their sympathies, now, appear to be with the old-timers – especially Tom Waits’ grunting-and-groaning prospector – rather than the hip young gunslingers replacing the Old West has-beens.

Once hip young gunslingers themselves, the brothers are no longer young men. True, they are still only in their 60s, but the years are shortening ahead of them, and this film is shot through with a sense of loss and a recognition of the finality of life.

If the prospect of a melancholic meditation on the fragility of life – and the inevitability of death – does not excite you, please be aware that this legendary writer-director-producer team has not lost its ability to make audiences laugh out loud.

As in all of their movies, and there have been 18 of them (including four Oscar winners), they have managed to combine the horrific and the comical, the violent and the romantic, the quirkily playful and the darkly sinister in a gem of a film which will stand as a fitting tribute to a unique, and remarkably imaginative, filmography.

We shall certainly not see their like again.

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