Applause For True Grit

[Bob Boze Bell]

December 27, 2010

   The immediate members of my family, that would be Kathy, Deena and Tommy, are not fans of the Western. I take total blame for this, having basically ruined so many oaters by my pompous commentaries before, during and after the many Westerns I have forced them to endure for the last three decades.

 

   There have been a few exceptions. Kathy joined me for 3:10 To Yuma, and sort of enjoyed. Even I thought the ending was lame. But some recent Westerns have been just too hard of a sell. I saw The Assasination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford all by myself, and, although I loved it, I was very glad I didn't talk the entire famdam into sitting through three hours of that amber glow.

 

   In truth I have become quite snakebit about recommending Westerns to my family.

 

   That said, on Christmas Day, after opening the presents and having lunch, Deena's new boyfriend, Mike, who hails from Minneapolis and is a big Coen brothers fan, lobbied for us to go see True Grit. I tried to talk him out of it, and poo-poohed the film, which I had already seen the week before, at a critic's screening in Scottsdale. I basically told him not to expect much, that it is definitely the least ironic of all the Coen brothers' pictures. He still voted to see it, and, to my surprise, the others agreed.

Six of us, Kathy, me, Deena, Mike, T. Charles and Pattarapan went to the five o'clock showing at Harkins 16 at 32nd St. and Bell.

 

 

   The theater, which probably holds 300, was half-full, mostly Boomers like myself, although there were a smattering of youngsters which my kids pointed out to me. Ever defensive, I dismissed this as "mercy dates", that is, grandkids taking grandpa to see what he wants to see on Christmas Day.

 

As True Grit unspooled and got going, I heard laughs, big laughs (the critics I saw the film with were blandly quiet). Deena, sitting to my left, kept poking me in the arm and whispering, "What?! This is hilarious!" When it was over, there was applause, started by, of all people, Kathy Radina (Meghan Saar said there was applause in the theater she saw it in yesterday and she had never heard this ever before. She is 28). Everyone in the family absolutely loved it. They raved about the political incorrectness of Jeff Bridges kicking the In-din kids off the porch, they raved about the talents of Hailee Steinfeld, the girl who beat out 15,000 other girls for the role of Mattie Ross and they hooted about the mountain man with the bear's head and his ridiculous speech ("So Coen brothers!")

 

The good news is that the applause extends beyond my family: True Grit finished the week (it opened last Wednesday) at $31.8 million and came in second for the weekened, behind The Fokkers. True Grit also provides the Coen Brothers with their highest opening ever; its three-day total of $25.6 million easily outpaced the $19.4
that Burn After Reading brought home in 2008.

 

Last night Kathy and I pulled out the original True Grit with John Wayne, Kim Darby, Glen Campbell and Robert Duvall and watched it. I thought for sure a clear winner would surface, but I constantly found myself saying, "Well, they went at this from different directions, but they both work." I also thought Glen Campbell was much better than I remembered. He still isn't even in the same league as Matt Damon as the Texas Ranger, but he is charming and decent.

 

Both endings worked for me, although the Coen brothers' ending is more realistic and follows the book. Still, I liked the Duke ending, especially him jumping the fence and maybe even prefer the happier ending, but that probably dates me more than I'd like to admit.

 

The one thing that I think the Coen brothers are far superior at is the nuance of the action sequence. They have been showing this for some time, but they really hit the top of their game with the Chigurgh (Javiar Bardem) shootout with Lewellan (Josh Brolin) in Eagle Pass, Texas in No Country For Old Men. The very idea of showing the bullets hit their target (and since a silencer is being utilized we get the shock of the hits without the forewarning of the explosions) was brilliant and scary beyond belief.

 

In True Grit, when Rooster is heading over a distant ridge he turns to fire his pistol as a signal he is leaving. Lucky Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper) is watching through a spy glass. Rooster raises his pistol and we see the smoke and then, a half second later, hear the report. Very, very cool. I can't remember ever seeing this in a Western, the fact that sound travels slower and you would see the muzzle flash before you heard it at a distance.

 

This is also repeated in the aftermath of the meadow shootout when La Boeuff fires his Sharps rifle just in time to save Rooster from being dispatched. We hear the shot, there is a delay for the bullet to travel 400 yards, then we see a puff of dirt kicked up beyond Ned Pepper (photographed from long distance, which works so much better than in the old True Grit where we get the standard close range camera angle). The bullet has gone through Pepper and hits the ground on the other side of him. Spectacular! Bravo! Really impressive narrative filmmaking.

 

I thought Barry Pepper stole the Coen brother's True Grit. I loved his look, I thought he was fantastic, but Kathy votes for Robert Duvall as Pepper in the original and goes as far as to say, "He's the best thing in both movies." Hmmmmmmmm.

 

"I'm shot to pieces."

—Lucky Ned Pepper

[John Campbell]

After seeing the new version, my daughter and I watched the new blu-ray version of the 69 version.Actually the home video and television broadcasts are the only versions I've watched. I never got to catch the 69 version on the big screen I was Vietnam and missed seeing the original in all it's big screen splendor. I pretty agree with your assessment  of the new film. With one deviation, Glen Campbell in the original, despite being the first generation of my family to be born in America, and extremely proud of being a clansman in the greatest clan in Scottish history, The Clan Campbell, I still don't rate Glen's performance very highly. However he was great singer lol.

[Flying R]

Bravo, I pointed out the same thing about the bullet to the Commander when it happened. What a great scene, And good eye Bad Bob. I hope it does well. I'd like to see more westerns.  Hey, were dead body's really worth value? Or was that something for the movie? Or should I ask the Marshall?

[Bob Boze Bell]

Yes, lawman very often claimed rewards for bodies, especially in the latter part of the 1890s in Oklahoma Territory. The dirty secret to all of the bounty hunter, reward money, is that invariably the same people who put out the reward, tried to wiggle out on paying. This happened in Minnesota with the capture of the Younger brothers and, in fact, over and over. Railroad companies were really bad about paying up. Kind of like bankers today. Ha.

[Jim Holden]

BBB, I agree with most of your comments. I took my 12 year old Grandson, and my two sons (37 and 32) with me and we all agreed this was a totally different movie than the original and that they need to be judged on their own merits.  My son's and I all agreed that we prefer the original ending, purely on sentimental reasons, and the interjection of Cole Younger and Frank James was superfluous to the story and the ending.

 

My Grandson said that his favorite scene in the movie was the cabin scene with Moon and his partner.  Although he also really liked when Rooster fell off his horse.  However, since this was his first real Western, he really enjoyed the movie and is ready for more! 

 

We also agree that Barry Pepper stole the show, while channeling Robert Duval.  It's a shame his part was so small; also we thought the exposition at the beginning diminished the "Chaney" role and that more of James Brolin in that character would have added to the movie.

 

The Coen Brothers wit and the skill of their "team" in costuming, photography and music was far superior to the original.  What I didn't like was the lack of any real warmth or connection between Rooster and Maddie in this movie.  If it was there, I don't think Bridges communicated it well enough.  Perhaps the Coen's don't do sentimental.

 

Jeff Bridges did exactly the right thing by making the Rooster character his own and not in any way trying to imitate John Wayne's interpretation.  He did a magnificent job; worthy of it's own Oscar Nomination.  On the other hand, I was a bit put off by Matt Damon, probably by my negative opinion of him generally and his disappearing and re-appearing with the funny hat was distracting at best.  The cabin scene and shootout with Ned Pepper's gang was better in the original, in my opinion, but both were effective.

 

But I'm going again, with my wife, and taking a second look on the big screen to see all the Coen nuances I missed the first time.  We had a good theater audience, with some good laughs at the appropriate times.  My sons and I suspect we were the only 3 in the audience who could identify Iris DeMent singing the closing song - overall the music selections were excellent and complemented the movie. 

 

Great film in it's own right and should be judged as such.  I'm always a little critical of movies about this time because my Grandfather and Great Grandfather were in Oklahoma in the 1870's and 1880's-onward, and were hauled off to Judge Parker's Court by the Yankee Cavalry for being Boomers and fined severely for the times - $1800.  Damn Yankees!  LOL!

[Gay Mathis]

Matt Damon's Mysterious Abs Double--"True Grit-Credits"

 

http://blog.movies.yahoo.com/blog/348-matt-damons-mysterious-abs-do...

[Henry Cabot Beck]

There was a discussion about True Grit on a blog that I found interesting and occasionally infuriating, but it brings up a couple of points that you touch on, and I contributed one comment that quotes the book about the indian boys that Cogburn kicks:  http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2010/12/25/true-grit-humbug/

 

I've been obsessing a bit about the book and the two film versions, and it's silly but fun, for me, anyway.  I expect few people would care at all but I can say that the more I look at it all the more I love the novel.