Posted on 12/31/2010 12:28:39 PM PST by Kaslin
"True Grit" is a tale whose time had come and gone. It's the good fortune of a new generation that its time has come again. The novel by Charles Portis, which sold only about 25,000 copies between 2007 and 2009, has been bought by 10,000 new readers since the new version of the movie opened this month.
In an age when twittering conversation is limited to 140 characters, where children become chubby couch potatoes changing channels with a remote control or playing war games moving fantasy soldiers around on a screen, Mattie Ross is an authentic heroine -- lean, mean, articulate and downright inspirational at the toughened age of 14.
Old codgers who loved the 1969 movie for the character of Rooster Cogburn as portrayed by John Wayne will be disappointed by Jeff Bridges as Rooster. He plays the raspy drunk with too much spillover from his role in "Crazy Heart" -- but the character of Mattie is much improved. This time, we get to hear Mattie's voice as the older woman, a spinster recalling the great adventure of her youth. The cadences and perceptions in her speech are richer and more mature because they're often lifted word for word from the novel.
The Coen brothers made the movie first of all because it suited their sensibility of a Western unusual in its mix of ruthlessness with rectitude, irony with sentiment, satire with dead seriousness, and all in the service of delineating the black, white and gray coloring of good and evil. They wanted kids to like it, too. Unlike most of their graphically violent other movies, "True Grit" got a PG-13 rating.
The novel reads like a memoir. Charles Portis' crisp Southern idiom, poetic cadences, sense of place and specificity of detail lends verisimilitude in a tale from the vanishing American frontier. The novel was once required reading in American literature classes, taught along with "Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer," where it belongs. Mattie, however, is made of sterner stuff than Mark Twain's creative children. She has been described as "Ahab's little sister" for her unrelenting pursuit of her father's killer. Tom Chaney, "a short man with cruel features," is her Moby Dick.
Mattie's character draws everyone in close with the opening of her story as remembered a half-century on:
"People do not give it credence that a 14-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood, but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just 14 years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money, plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band."
The novel got lost somewhere in the past two decades as America moved into the post-literate age, reduced to a period piece. Readers lost an appreciation for Mattie's voice and her deadpan perceptions that are rife with comic understatement and ripe with universal insight. The moving prose (and the moving picture) show how Mattie's Presbyterian primness combined with Rooster's ruthlessness inevitably prevail. Duty and discipline ultimately fence in disorder by imposing justice, one way or another. "True grit" is the stuff of courage, preserving a fertile seedbed for the next generation as the Wild West is diminished to a rodeo spectator sport.
In the theater where I watched this latest version of "True Grit," I was struck by the sight of families there to watch it together -- children, parents, grandparents and friends of different generations. The adventure story has that kind of sweeping appeal, and the story is even more exciting in the written word. Americans once grew up on literature like this.
Rooster Cogburn is politically incorrect and revels in it, a "one-eyed fat man" who takes pride in his Confederate service and in having ridden with William Clarke Quantrill, the notorious border guerrilla. Rooster loves to pull a cork and rides into battle with reins between his teeth, blasting away with both guns. Spiderman he is not.
Mattie Ross grows up to be a one-armed spinster and a small-town banker in "Dardanelle, Yell County, Arkansas," who would sneer at the suggestion that she is "physically challenged." She is instead "a woman with brains and a frank tongue," but "feminist" doesn't apply either. She loves her church and her bank, expresses Scripture and platitudes of Presbyterian piety with black humor, and triumphs as a woman we can all admire. The new movie should revive the literary attention the book deserves.
Casablanca and the original True Grit are two very different movies. For one thing True Grit is held back by the presence of Glen Cambell who never did figure out how to act. For another the first movie is very losely based on a book, this second movie isn’t a remake it’s much more tightly based on the same book. The new movie is excellent, one of the best westerns ever, in the level of Unforgiven, and significantly better than the original which really only ever had Duke going for it.
Oh, please. Did John Wayne make a bomb or two? Of course! But, I’m sorry, Lee Marvin was always a (great!)secondary character actor who got jacked up to primary actor when the studio system fell apart. The Duke is fantastic in Rio Bravo and good in every other movie he ever did. And he’s wonderful in True Grit and deserved his Oscar.
The Searchers... my favorite!!! A great Blu Ray transfer!
LLS
We had a debate... we didn’t disagree! ;-) I agree with you completely!
LLS
Everyone keeps saying the original is based “loosely” on the original. But it is not. It is very close to the novel. What am I - or other folks - missing?
Isn’t it lovely to agree? Happy New Year, you liblieslayer!
DITTOS to what you said... My wife and I went to see it with our 22 year old grandson on Monday and I told them the same thing when we left the theater
Happy New Year to you and yours FRiend!
LLS
The original movie isn’t told as a flashback, Mattie keeps her arm, Chaney is played by an actor 30 years older than the character in the book, LeBouf is on his trail for love in the movie and for money in the book, Duke has his “usual” weapons assortment (pistol and large loop rifle) while in the book Rooster wields 2 Navy 6s, the movie clearly happens in Colorado (a “classic” western area) as opposed to the Arkansas/ Oklahoma area of the book. Then there’s the over all tone, the book is more brutal and more humorous (gallows humor but humor all the same) than the first movie.
“I liked all the actors in the new True Grit except for Bridges’ long-hair-maggot-infested Rooster Cogburn.”
I have heard from a few folks that Bridges’ portrayal of Rooster Cogburn is basically The Dude as a cowboy.
“3-BestSupportingActressOscar”
How do you give the supporting Oscar to someone who was onscreen almost the entire film?
I suppose Natalie Portman is already writing her acceptance speech for Best Actress, but ...
Poor Natalie was robbed in 1994 when she gave the best performance of the year (and of her acting career) in “The Professional” and didn’t even get nominated; so perhaps this is her year to get even.
You’re nice!
Thank you mam... you are too.
LLS
This reminds me of the two Miracle on 34th Street movies. Why a remake when the original was just fine? Well, I like both; they are different enough (the new one even involves prayer and church—the old one seems more pc on that point, oddly enough) to enjoy. Neither one is perfect, but they each have their charm.
I’ll wait until True Grit comes on TV; it will be interesting to see the different approaches to the characters and the story.
Like good music, a good story is worth hearing more than once and even from different story-tellers.
You want a movie with the REAL old west falvor? See Charlton Heston in WILL PENNY or Lee Marvin in MONTE WALSH
without a doubt they WERE THE SAME MOVIE....was the cheap payday worth the lack of creativity....
Will Penny and Monte Walsh were both excellent. the ‘Walsh’ vehicle was ‘ok’ with the Selleck remake...just ok...I dont understand why they needed to remake it.
I have heard that they are thinking of remaking JAWS with Tracy Morgan as Hooper....WTF?...
Nothing. The Duke has an emotional connection with most of us on FR (as he was a patriot) that tends to cloud judgment. I thought the new TG was excellent and stands on it's own merit. I thought it was well done and Bridge's was excellent. As was the little lass. This does not minimize the Duke's work. There are many Actors who's work stands the test of time.
Ah! Someone has a taste for South Carolina Low Country Cuisine! :-D
Not knocking the Cohen brothers. They make well written, well directed, high quality productions but they tend to be quirky and off beat. If you like dark, dreary, graphically violent and bloody films, the Cohen brothers are for you. I suppose one day I'll catch the new True Grit. Just not right now.
When you take into account the inflation factor, John Wayne is the biggest box office draw of all time. Wayne is still one of America's most popular movie stars, 32 years after his death. The Duke has kept right up there with the likes of Harrison Ford, Will Smith and Tom Hanks.
While I wasn't impressed with the original True Grit or Wayne's performance, both have gotten better over time. I read that when True Grit author Charles Portis was writing the book, he had John Wayne in mind to play Rooster Cogburn. In fact, Portis was an unofficial adviser of sorts on the original True Grit, but declined to have any input on the Cohen brothers version.
Here's a picture of Charles Portis discussing things with the Duke on the film set of the original 1969 True Grit.
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