True Grit -- the Remake

[klondike]

Campbell is a terrific guitar player and has a beautiful voice . .

He also plays a pretty mean bagpipe!
Check out his cover of "Mull of Kintyre" - mostly a vocal, but he does contribute a respectable pibroch in the interlude!

[JackFavell]

I liked Campbell in True Grit. I also like him very much as a singer and musician's musician. I hate Rhinestone Cowboy though!

My first crush ever was on Glen Campbell's backup man on his summer replacement TV show, John Hartford. He wrote Gentle on My Mind, and was featured on Glen's show quite often, playing guitar. I was six and he was ...I don't know, at least 20 something, but that didn't matter. I loved him.

I had the pleasure of meeting him when I was twenty something, and he was WONDERFUL. He kissed my hand. He was such a country gentleman. He told me we would meet again....in that beautiful voice. Unfortunately, that did not happen. The man was fascinating, and one of the true wild spirits - he was a riverboat captain and fiddler, a banjo and guitar player and he could step dance. I'll never forget him. He lived up to everything I thought he was when I was six, and that is really saying a lot.

[klondike]

He told me we would meet again....in that beautiful voice. Unfortunately, that did not happen.

Yes, you are right, in that he passed over the River . . . but maybe he was right, and you still will meet him again . . sometimes, you gotta just believe.

The man was fascinating, and one of the true wild spirits - he was a riverboat captain and fiddler, a banjo and guitar player and he could step dance. I'll never forget him. He lived up to everything I thought he was when I was six, and that is really saying a lot.

Wendy, have you ever caught the indie film Down from the Mountain? It came out back in 2000 (debuted, I think, @ The Sundance Festival), and it documents performances & personalities of all the musical contributors the Coens used for O Brother, Where Art Thou?.
I think you'd really enjoy at least the John Hartford part of it!

[JackFavell]

No! I haven't seen it! Thanks Klonny!That's wonderful. And I like all the music in Oh, Brother..... have the cd and everything. I'm goin to go look for that film.

I did see something on PBS some time ago - a documentary with him going up and down the Mississippi.... I wish I could see it again.

[pvitari]

The original True Grit is coming out on Blu-ray in December.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=5276

[JackFavell]

I just saw True Grit. It was a deceptively simple film. Very good, quite understated. I think I want to see it again, for I am sure that there are some things that need to be chewed on and watched again for depth. Few real highs and lows, but this was not a bad thing. It was more like real life unfolding in front of you.

Jeff Bridges seems to have taken a page out of Lee Marvin's book rather than from John Wayne's, and there is a little moment not too far into the movie where he takes the film for himself. Nothing pointed, but it made me smile. Matt Damon had some really good scenes, and LeBoeuf carried more humor than I remember his character having in the other version. Every character had a good moment. I especially liked the man who Mattie outwits to get her father's horses back from. He sounded familiar but I can't place him.

There were a couple of homages to Ford but so muted that they would not be obvious to a casual observer. There was a breathtaking sad ride under a starlit sky... and an unsentimental ending.....until one looks closely at the last shot.

[MikeBSG]

I saw the new "True Grit" yesterday. I've never seen Hathaway's film, although I've seen clips from it in tributes to John Wayne. I did read the novel way back when and didn't especially like it.

The Coen film is okay. I think I have to agree with David Thomson's review of it, basically that this is a movie you could watch with your eyes closed because the Coens seem to be fixated on the dialogue and narration. I don't think I've ever seen (or should that be heard) a more talky western.

Bridges was good as Cogburn (and it makes me want to see his Wild Bill Hickock movie now). Damon was okay.

The Coens talk as if they know nothing about John Ford, but two shots in the film are clearly inspired by Ford: the first view we have of Damon, sitting on the boarding house porch (Fonda in the chair in "My Darling Clementine"), and a shot of Bridges approaching a mine filmed from within the mine (Wayne in "The Searchers.")

The part of the movie I liked best was the coda, in which Matty is grown-up. Perhaps I liked this best because this (her confrontation with Frank James) is the only part of the novel I remembered. (Or maybe I didn't really like the actress who played the 14 year old Matty.)

Frankly, I think "The Assassination of Jesse James" is a better film.

[Richard--W]

The new version is a legitimate adaptation of the novel and a fine film in many ways.
As a western, it is most welcome (a new western is always welcome).

I'm disappointed that important aspects of the novel are left out, and I'm uncomfortable with the new material the Coens put in. The new stuff miscalculates the original novel's intent. They don't fit together. I appreciate the austere minimalism of the Coen brothers approach -- it's the right approach -- but I find their personality is at odds with the material. I wish they had let someone else direct it, and acted as producers only.

The image lacks definition sometimes, or maybe the lack of definition is just more noticeable during the pans and push-ins. I'm thinking of the courtroom scene in which we are first introduced to Rooster Cogburn. Roger Deakins works hard to keep the light on the edge of over-exposure, capturing texture and a consistent tonality, and then the image is dimmed and smudged by the digital intermediate. Going through the digital intermediate helps with adding snow and distant buildings into the town with CGI, but there is too much loss in it for my eyes. When mood and atmosphere are this important the filmmakers would stick with photochemistry all the way.

I saw the new "True Grit" yesterday. I've never seen Hathaway's film, although I've seen clips from it in tributes to John Wayne. I did read the novel way back when and didn't especially like it.

I can't imagine someone not having seen the original True Grit. That's like not having seen Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, or Citizen Kane. The novel was a literary masterwork in its day, and if anything, it is held in even higher esteem today.

...I think I have to agree with David Thomson's review of it, basically that this is a movie you could watch with your eyes closed because the Coens seem to be fixated on the dialogue and narration. I don't think I've ever seen (or should that be heard) a more talky western.

Can you provide a link to David Thomson's review?

The Coens talk as if they know nothing about John Ford, but two shots in the film are clearly inspired by Ford: the first view we have of Damon, sitting on the boarding house porch (Fonda in the chair in "My Darling Clementine"), and a shot of Bridges approaching a mine filmed from within the mine (Wayne in "The Searchers.")

These are astute observations and accurate ones. Damon's posture may be his own contribution. He works hard at the physicality of his character, and he may be drawing on the same sources of inspiration that you've noted.

Bridges doesn't get as much support from his directors as John Wayne got from Hathaway. Posturing an actor and composing him in ways that show dignity and strength, or in ways that just favor him, used to be a director's job, but it's not what the Coens do.

The part of the movie I liked best was the coda, in which Matty is grown-up. Perhaps I liked this best because this (her confrontation with Frank James) is the only part of the novel I remembered. (Or maybe I didn't really like the actress who played the 14 year old Matty.)

I liked the "coda" as well. Straight out of the novel. It should have been better. It's not quite right. The whole business is so off-pitch.

Frankly, I think "The Assassination of Jesse James" is a better film.

Agreed.

Richard

[MikeBSG]

David Thomson's review is online at "The New Republic."

"David Thomson on Films: True Grit" Dec. 24, 2010.

[klondike]

Posturing an actor and composing him in ways that show dignity and strength, or in ways that just favor him, used to be a director's job, but it's not what the Coens do.

I disagree with that statement - sounds too much like a distended generalization; I'll bet Frances McDormand would disagree as well, especially as the direction by the Coens for her role of Marge Gunderson in Fargo led to her winning a Best Actress academy award.

[pvitari]

Javier Bardem won an Oscar too for his performance as the assassin Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, for which the Coens won an Oscar for best directing. :) (They also won an Oscar for best screenplay for Fargo.)

I think they get wonderful performances out of their actors. I especially loved George Clooney in O Brother Where Art Thou. I though he was absolutely hilarious -- it was a very unexpected performance and I loved it. :)

[Sue Sue Applegate]

I enjoyed the new "Grit."

I especially felt that the Livery Stable Owner Colonel Stonehill was an obvious homage to Strother Martin ( the great Dakin Matthews)..., and I like the moments when we delved into Reuben's character a little more. This new incarnation has more equanimity among the principal actors that just can't happen when you have a big, brawny persona like John Wayne ridin' herd on the bad guys, and everybody else in the cast and crew...

As the adult Mattie walks offscreen for the final time, it seemed such an "Ford" moment, like when Ethan is framed in the doorway.

[Richard--W]

Posturing an actor and composing him in ways that show dignity and strength, or in ways that just favor him, used to be a director's job, but it's not what the Coens do.

I disagree with that statement - sounds too much like a distended generalization; I'll bet Frances McDormand would disagree as well, especially as the direction by the Coens for her role of Marge Gunderson in Fargo led to her winning a Best Actress academy award.

There is an entirely different sensibility at work. A different mind-set. Francis McDormand is not Jeff Bridges, Marge Gunderson is not Rooster Cogburn, and the Coen's aren't married to Bridges like one of them is to Francis. The Coens do everything they can to take the dignity and cleanliness out of Rooster. In the Hathaway version these are assumed traits, as we say.

I don't see a John Ford influence in the Coen brothers True Grit, nor in any of their films for that matter. They have denied his influence in interviews.

On the other hand, if you review Henry Hathaway's earliest westerns and historical films, including his early 1930s Zane Grey adaptations and The Shepard of the Hills with Wayne, you'll see that True Grit is consistent with Hathaways themes and preoccupations, consistent with his dramatic approach, his aesthetics and his technical decisions. Hathaway was a serious director, and he has a lot to say in his True Grit.

Richard

[MissGoddess]

I don't see a John Ford influence in the Coen brothers True Grit, nor in any of their films for that matter. They have denied his influence in interviews.

On the other hand, if you review Henry Hathaway's earliest westerns and historical films, including his early 1930s Zane Grey adaptations and The Shepard of the Hills with Wayne, you'll see that True Grit is consistent with Hathaways themes and preoccupations, consistent with his dramatic approach, his aesthetics and his technical decisions. Hathaway was a serious director, and he has a lot to say in his True Grit.

Richard

Richard,
I'd love to hear more on Hathaway. I'm a big fan of his work and find his spectrum of films intriguingly varied, what with sensitive, lyrical films like Peter Ibbetson, Trail of the Lonesome Pine and Shepherd of the Hills along with his finely tuned actioners. What are some of the consistent themes and preoccupations you think he pursued?

I also agree, Ford and the Cohens are not consistent with each other. I've seen enough of their work to know there is no influence there.

[klondike]

No disrespect intended to anyone's camp, but why do we need to see, or even anticipate seeing, a John Ford influence in either film version of True Grit ?
As mightily iconic & resoundingly inspirational as the Ford westerns were, and are, they are hardly the end-all or be-all of Western Adventure cinema, especially when a movie's story-line is based on a well-known, widely-read, modern (mid-60's) novel, especially considering that the novel was written after the release of many fine Western genre films from directors who chose not to emulate the Fordian blueprint, craftsmen like Anthony Mann, George Stevens, John Sturges, and that other 'HH": Howard Hawks.
As far as whether or not Cogburn's dignity should be kept intact, I would argue that in neither Portis' novel, nor the Hathaway script, is he shown to have very much of that commodity at all, up until his efforts to rescue Mattie, and then his desperate race to save her life.
Or have we forgotten the scenes of our beloved Duke evading questions under oath, or trying to chisel extra cash out of young Miss Ross, or pilfering goods off dead bodies & denying it, or being so drunk on the trail of lawbreakers he can't avoid falling off his horse?
Mind you, I have no difficulty liking the character of US Deputy Marshal Reuben Cogburn, either back when I first met him on the big screen as a teenager, or in the forty-three years since, at the command of my TV remote, but let's call the proverbial spade the dirty shovel that it is, and not go fumbling for those rosey spectacles.
I won't try cleaning-up Travis Bickle, and I don't advocate sponging the 'warts' off good ol' Rooster!