This week I wanted to write about the artist in the “Meal Ticket” chapter of the Joel and Ethan Coen film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) on Netflix. A low budget producer (Liam Neeson) travels in the nineteenth century Wild West with a quadruple amputee artist (Harry Melling). I found this story captivating and gloomy at the same time. It gives a hardcore representation of how tragic it is to be an intellectual artist in the entertainment industry. Because the setting is actually applicable to the present day. Maybe this is because the American Civil War (1861-1865) affected the culture of the northern and southern states so dramatically that the ramifications still continue to exist today. And therefore the portrayal of such a setting in the film reflects the present day perception of history and its relation to the entertainment industry.
The depiction of the artist by the Coens is in such a way that he literally cannot produce anything physical since he has no legs or arms. It makes me think if the artist is a veteran of the Civil War, wearing a sash, and that he lost his limbs due to an explosion or else. The intellectual artist has a pricy diet and requires the help of others for his basic needs. Indeed, he pays for his own pricy diet with his act on the stage. Meaning that his performance is his meal ticket. Otherwise he could not survive.
I don’t want to spoil the film anymore for the ones who haven’t watched it yet but I couldn’t stop myself from finding out the references the artist delivers on the stage. The impact of the chapter lies in his humble recitation with indications of political criticism beginning with tyranny in ancient history and ending with then contemporary American democracy, and especially Abraham Lincoln as a great leader. I would even call it a requiem for Lincoln.
Yet the tragedy of the artist is directly related to the choice (just like voting in democratic elections) of the audience when it comes to being entertained. Keeping such an artist as capital, whose only resource is his intellect and performance, is not sustainable for the producer whose main concern is his revenue. This is the reason why it is melancholic.
The artist has a long monologue. I gathered the lines out of curiosity and felt the urge to read the subtext:
1.
“I met a traveller in an antique land,
who said: Two vast and trunkless legs
stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
the lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias, January 11, 1818
The name of the poem comes from the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II. Ozymandias was a Greek name for this tyrant of his time. Shelley’s writing of the poem coincides with the British Museum’s acquisition of a large fragment of a statue of Ramesses II from the thirteenth century BC. The poet was perhaps inspired by this event, according to the historians. Ozymandias poem is used here to show that history had many horrible leaders and nothing remains of these oppressive rulers.
“Ozymandias” by Glirastes [Percy Bysshe Shelley] in The Examiner, London, Sunday, January 11, 1818, No. 524, page 24.
2.
“And the Lord said unto Cain, ‘Where is Abel, thy brother?’”
Genesis 4:9
This is a reference to the biblical story of Cain and Abel, the fighting brothers. Abel's whereabouts is in question since Cain has just murdered him. The reference could be a representation of the American Civil War and the conflict between the North and South. Bur most importantly, it refers to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, as Abel connotes Abe, the Honest Abe.
Genesis 4:9
3.
“When the sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past …”
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 30, 1609
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 30, 1609
4.
“I alone beweep my outcast state
and trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries …”
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 29, 1609
I believe these lines of Shakespeare are given right after each other to portray the setting of the story. Since it’s an “outcast state”, I would say the artist is performing in a Confederate state. The use of word “bootless” could be a reference as wordplay to John Wilkes Booth, a stage actor and the assassin of Abraham Lincoln.
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 29, 1609
5.
“Four score and seven years ago …
and that government of the people,
by the people, for the people
shall not perish from the earth.”
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 29, 1863
This final part is the first and last lines of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. I’d like to point out for the readers who are not acquainted with the major events in American history that Battle of Gettysburg, near Pennsylvania, was the turning point of the war in favor of the Union forces. “Four score and seven years ago” is a reference to 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed. It ends with the most famous quote of democracy as self-governing in American history.
Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863
But the media has no aim of delivering justice of representation to the artists who create the contents. Its main concern is the popularity of the product among profitable audiences. Therefore I thought of a parody of this definition of democracy in relation to the entertainment industry:
That content of the media,
by the capital, for the masses,
shall not perish from the stage.
Though it is tempting, I will not dive into the association of Marxist interpretation of “opium of the masses” in these lines since it makes me think of entertainment industry having replaced religion as the opium. No, dear thought provoking concept, may be another time.
For the ones who would want to read more about the subject of Coens’ criticism of Netflix, I suggest them go to the article called On THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS’ Most Elegant And Depressing Chapter by Andrew Todd on Birth.Movies.Death.:
https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2018/11/27/ballad-of-buster-scruggs-most-elegant-and-depressing-chapter