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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 12/15/2010 : 22:00:01
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Comparisons, as we know, are odious. And I'm surely not saying that Henry Hathaway wasn't anything except a wonderful director, especially comfortable with the big action sweep of the western.
When he came, as an old man, to True Grit in 1969 he was as empathetic to Rooster Cogburn as he could be. Maybe, though, he suffered from a post-war hangover of expectation, with not enough recognition that the studio movie was in transition to a different kind of story-telling.
Maybe it's just that the Coen Brothers remake has too much superior cinema driving it moment by moment. Or maybe it's just that I've never ever ever bought two words that John Wayne strings together; whereas I think Jeff Bridges inhabits every character he plays with some sublime transcendence that simultaneously reminds you he's a star as well as making you believe he has become another person.
Compare his Cogburn with another recent aging alcoholic Bad Blake. He's just so brilliant at carving out two completely different men built on individual and most importantly specific histories.
The Coens have based their screenplay on the original used by Hathaway, but have cleansed it of any hint of schmaltz. The music is period-perfect and evocative of all the values that the western genre was devised to represent. The brothers' framing of every shot is faultless, and the editing is like a symphony.
The result is an exciting tale of hunt the villain, fueled perhaps not by the most original narrative impetus, but justifiable in its humanity. Perhaps the theme isn't quite as towering as similar treatments by Sophocles, and perhaps Mattie Ross hasn't the heightened stature of a 19th century Antigone, but the film satisfies on a purely human level.
Haile Steinfeld as 14-year-old Mattie has learned much from her three-year career. She's surprising with a determination that proves the title is equally about her as it is about the fuck-up Cogburn.
The Coens never manipulate you - they tell their tale with precision, with humor, with heart. They've surrounded their unlikely pair of protagonists with a uniformly excellent cast, including most prominently Matt Damon and Josh Brolin.
Brolin, especially, turns in one of the bravest performances I've seen lately - never for one moment is he afraid to reveal the pitiable worm of a man who's resorted to ultimate cowardice. He even provides hints, in the brief time he's onscreen, that something quite horrid has made him into what he's become.
There's no big moment of what I'll call the Bonanza-music-finale. But there's a cathartic finality that just about convinces me that the top-and-tail voiceover is justified. And normally, I really hate them!
Go see it.
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 12/27/2010 18:58:40 |
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Improper Username 
"inappropriately amused"
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Posted - 12/16/2010 : 00:28:15
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I'm looking forward to seeing this film, although I will wait for it on DVD. I'm pleased to read that you think it is worth a look, Baffy.
I was never all that impressed with the original. I found the actress (Kim Darby) who played Mattie to be dreadful in the role, and Glen Campbell was equally unconvincing as LaBoeuf. Taking another look at the cast on IMDB, I see it did have an excellent supporting cast, so perhaps I should view that version again with my now older, if not wiser, eyes. What I did enjoy very much was the Mad Magazine satire of the movie. Back then, Mad Magazine was still funny.
I read the novel also, back when the first film was released, and wasn't all that thrilled by it either. In the novel, Mattie had to have her arm amputated, she farmed alone and never married, and one day when she heard that Cogburn had died, she fetched his body and buried him on her farm. Actually, that has kind of an Edith Wharton ring to it--perhaps I should revisit the novel also. |
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ci�nas 
"hands down"
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Posted - 01/25/2011 : 23:16:32
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I'd say that the comments above about the ending of the source novel amount to spoilers.
I've read the novel several times & hope to read it several more. I think it's a minor masterpiece, an ironic, genre-transcending character study that's by turns amusing, affecting & gripping. Portis's use of language is wonderful, & the Coens reuse swathes of his dialogue in the movie. Alongside the many quaint turns of phrase, one striking feature of the dialogue (in both book & movie) is that contractions are almost absent: you'd is invariably you would, they'll is they will, I'm is I am, & so on. This device isn't historically accurate but stylising their exchanges like this helps, I think, to distance the characters from us, locating them at a time when the wildness of the west (Rooster) is giving way to Victorian protestant values (Mattie).
The first adaptation of the novel was naff. Most obvious of its many failings is that it was miscast. Wayne simply played a bloated version of himself with an eyepatch, & Kim Darby was blank & insipid as Mattie. Whereas the actors in the Coens' adaptation � Bridges, Steinfeld, Damon, & the supporting cast � don't put a foot wrong. Hailee Steinfeld's portrayal of self-righteous, priggish, obstinate & unreflectingly brave Mattie is the clincher, perhaps: her avoidance of all normal feminine charm is, somehow, what charms.
I reckon it's the Coens' best since Fargo, which is saying a hell of a lot, & would be a deserving winner of Best Pic Oscar.
The only thing missing was my favourite line from the book, which Wayne got to say but Bridges didn't:
'Get crossways of me, LaBoeuf, & you will think a thousand of brick has fell on you.'
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Sean 
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 06/10/2011 : 03:37:09
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I watched the original a couple of months ago, and the remake* last night. I tend to avoid remakes like the plague unless I have good reason to believe there'll be an improvement; usually there isn't, and often they're a total disgrace. In this case they're both pretty good movies, although it felt to me like I watched the same movie twice.  The beginning and ends are different enough but the middle 90% seemed indistinguishable from it's predecessor in plot, characterisation and even scene layout. I haven't read the book, but I guess this must mean that both are faithful adaptations.
Both Matties and Cogburns were great; in fact everyone was.
Now I'm curious as to what I'd have thought if I'd watched them the other way around...
7/10 for both of them.
*I know that some will consider this a re-adaptation, but in this case I'm calling it a remake as the whole thing was just tooooooo similar to the original.
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True Grit- please see my Bafta thread
