![]() Though Waits has had big roles before (in Jarmusch’s Down by Law and in Héctor Babenco’s Ironweed), this is the first time the weight of a film-short though it may be-has rested so squarely on his shoulders.Įach chapter of Joel and Ethan Coen’s latest film plays with a different sense of language. But, in exchange for the wait, the chapter of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs in which he stars is his, and his alone. ![]() To that end, it feels like Waits’s collaboration with the Coen brothers, masters of the kind of strangeness that Waits traffics in, is long overdue. In the four decades Waits has been acting, he has evolved just as he has as a musician, breaking out of being typecast (as a musician, given his background) and moving into more eclectic roles as his music shifted from folk to jazz, from blues to experimental music. And Renfield-with his hair piled atop his head as if in supplication to some higher power while scrounging in the dirt and eating the bugs he finds there-manages to shake free from his master’s sway just long enough to warn against his coming. Nick,” isn’t a force for evil so much as he is looking for a connection and a bit of fun. Though the characters are as different as can be, one a cosmic force and the other a hapless servant, they share a common ground in how human Waits makes them seem. This magnetism is also what makes him a perfect devil in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, as well as a compelling Renfield in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It’s barely a scene at all, but Waits has such an otherworldly presence that the image of him imprints in one’s memory. It’s an owlish quality that doesn’t quite go away even when he’s interrupted for a split-second exchange with Stallone, whose ponderous delivery is complemented by Waits’s natural growl. He sits at a piano, his head twisting like a reed in the wind as he ekes out a melody to go along with what he’s playing. Just take a look at his first film role in 1978, in Sylvester Stallone’s Paradise Alley. His talent as a singer-songwriter is matched by his acting he steals any scene he’s in, no matter who’s got top billing. Terry Gilliam, Francis Ford Coppola, Jim Jarmusch, Martin McDonagh-all of these directors, among others, have harnessed Waits’s talents with wildly varying characters in scenes that might as well play as monologues for how beguiling he invariably is. That strange, singular quality carries over to his acting, and filmmakers have been capitalizing on it for years. ![]() Each song is a microcosm in which Waits, despite being the author, isn’t playing God so much as he is an emissary, providing a glimpse into another world. When he sings forcefully, it seems like he might start breathing flame through sheer will when he tries his hand at sweetness, it’s disarming and enchanting in equal parts. There’s an edge to Tom Waits’s voice-a rasp miraculously capable of carrying a melody-that makes it one of a kind. ![]()
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