TOP Classic: The Coen Brothers' 'True Grit'

[Originally published January 2011. The movie is no longer in theaters; the DVD is $8.99 or can be rented for $3.99 from Amazon Video.

TOP is off for two days, hence this "Classic" post. Comments will be posted late, but are welcome. —Yr. Hmbl. Ed.]

I saw the new version of True Grit in the theater the other night—Waukesha has a new and very luxurious multiplex cinema called the Majestic, which is lovely—and it's just a terrific western. Very entertaining.

The celebrated Coen brothers, accomplished as they are, suffer from a touch of the universal tendency toward bombast even when they're not being indulgent. The less said about this the better, but maybe I could just mention that I plan to have a T-shirt made for wearing out to the movie theater: it's going to say "NO MORE SNAKEPITS!"

The very best critical exegesis of the modern cinema I've ever seen came in an episode of the TV show "The Office," of all things. Michael Scott, the earnest but bumbling boss played by Steve Carrell, is taking an improv class, and despite being browbeaten to follow the sanction against introducing guns into his improv, he does it again and again, obstreperously and unregenerately. That's modern TV and Hollywood for you in a nutshell.

Despite the incessant gunplay and the usual exaggerated video-game carnage, though, the film is fully characterological, and beautifully cast and acted. No actor strikes a wrong note, and at least five performances are way above average. Jeff Bridges' Rooster Cogburn is even better than John Wayne's, although he makes it into an entirely different role and a different, more naturalistic character. Matt Damon does a good job, possibly because this is one movie in which he is not allowed to wear a fedora.

But how, may I ask, could a female actress possibly have more of a leading role than Hailee Steinfeld playing Mattie Ross (left)? And yet she's nominated for Best Supporting Actress? Come on. If that's a supporting role, you can throw me in a snakepit. Limiting actors to supporting nominations just because of their age is yet another mannered Hollywood convention detached from reality. She deserves to be nominated for Best Actress, and there's an end on it.

Best line from a review: Richard Corliss in TIME, who says, "To those who have fond or foul memories of the Wayne True Grit, the Coens might be saying: You've seen the movie, now see the book." The book's theme, like this movie's, is that Mattie is the one with the truest grit. (Feminist sympathizers, take your daughters.)

Of course, despite being a good plot, it's still a conventional one. That is, you're in no doubt that LaBoeuf is going to hit Ned Pepper and save Rooster, and when Mattie heads to the crick for water you know full well that's not all she's going to find there. All the surprises are in the details. The guy in the bear suit, for instance, or the way that corpse hits the ground—classic Coens.

The book, by the way, is terrific too, a short, fast, tasty read. And the new movie is much truer to the book than the John Wayne version, which is a good movie in its own right but entirely different in tone and mode. The Coen brothers version matches the book better in detail, motivation, locale, even pacing. They make the story back into a real anti-Western, in the best spirit of the times in which the book was written (1968). Their True Grit is worthy of standing alongside any of the other great anti-westerns, even the best one ever made, Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller. (Others might argue with that, but McCabe is a perfect movie.) Even the stilted dialogue is true to the book, and meshes nicely with the Coens' symbolist and surrealist impulses, which you can easily detect even though they're mostly held in check.

To sum up: conventional, but fundamentally different from the original film version and a much better movie than any remake has a right to be. My verdict: A, and it would have been A+ but for the snakepit. Don't miss seeing it in the theater.

Mike

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Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment [from 2011] by JBerardi: "Todd Alcott is the ultimate arbiter of all things Coen. I cannot recommend his analysis enough. Regarding the snake pit: 'Once she puts on her father’s clothes, she takes some apples from a fruit bowl and rides out of town reciting the 23rd Psalm. The symbolism here is obvious: the red apples represent Knowledge, which Mattie will acquire on her journey, before butting up against the apple’s companion, the Snake. (For those keeping score, the snake is in the novel, the Coens brought in the apples.)'"

Mike replies [2017]: The symbolism would not have been served by a perilous encounter with one snake? I think the snake in Eden was Satan, and hence singular, no?

Note: No new comments are Featured on Classic posts. See the Comments Section for all the comments.

Comments

[jim woodard]

You forgot to mention the absolutely perfect soundtrack, all based on variations on one hymn Leaning on the Everlasting Arms!

[Joe]

I remember True Grit as terrific, but I absolutely 100% agree with your note that McCabe and Mrs Miller is a perfect movie. Up there in my top five for sure (which might also include Vertigo and Dr. Strangelove, but now I stray).

But back to True Grit: the novel is excellent, and so is Norwood, by the same author, Charles Portis. Of the five novels he wrote, those two are the standouts, Norwood being funnier.

But back to True Grit: one of the great accomplishments of the Coen's version is the way they used Portis's dialog so well. Really captured the spirit. Elmore Leonard always had that problem: screenwriters who thought the point of a Leonard novel was the plot. So wrong.

But back to True Grit...

[Mark Sampson]

I saw it in the theater in '11, enjoyed it, and have since forgotten all the details you mention. Now you've reminded me that it's a good movie, I'll have to rent it to see it again; the list grows longer.

[Moose]

"I think the snake in Eden was Satan, and hence singular, no?"

Weeeell, that's certainly a common belief among many Christians. OTOH, the Snake, otherwise unnamed, is in the start of the first book of the Old Testament, and a connection with Satan is not made until the last book of the New Testament.

If you believe that John, a cranky, angry exile on Patmos, is a Divine authority, sure. If not, it's far from clear. Without the Snake, the whole story of our human lives doesn't ever happen; in that sense, it's role is ambiguous.

Whether that means we would all exist, not just Adam and Eve, in an Edenic life, depends on which non-bibical back story you may subscribe to.

[Paul Richardson]

I'll second your praise of McCabe and Mrs. Miller. I thought I was more or less alone in thinking it a truly great film. It seems largely forgotten today.