True Grit: Compare And Contrast

[poliphilo]

The first film is old Hollywood and the second is new/independent Hollywood.  The first gives John Wayne a wonderful opportunity to cut loose and win himself an Oscar- and the new second is an ensemble piece that feels like it's set in a world closer to the real Wild West or, at least, to the world of Portis' wonderful book- with all the whiskers and Bible speak. I'm not sure I'm convinced by Hailee Steinfeld; she's good at giving lip but looks too soft to have grown up on a hard-scrabble Arkansas farm. Mattie Ross- with her Old Testament vengefulness and rectitude- is a terrific role, but it would require a 14 year old Maggie Smith to fill it adequately- and where are you going to find one of those?  (The earlier film cheats  by casting Kim Darby- who was in her twenties and convinces in some lights but not in others.) Matt Damon is a great improvement on Glen Campbell. (There was a questionable vogue in the 60s for casting popular singers in westerns- presumably to appeal to the yoof- and not all of them could act.) Jeff Bridges is a very different proposition from John Wayne, but he fills the screen in much the same way. So who has the edge, the Duke or the Dude? Don't make me choose because I love them both. The earlier film is high spirited and the second is humorous and dark- with a Coenesque infusion of the weird and ghoulish. They're both good- excellent even- and the book is better. True Grit is an evergreen classic- and I don't see they shouldn't keep on remaking it- just as they keep remaking Little Women and Wuthering Heights and Great Expectations. Every generation deserves a Mattie and a Rooster of its own.

Comments

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

I liked the second better, I think the technical craft of making movies is better now.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I suppose you're right, it's harder to make a technically incompetent movie these days.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Difficult, perhaps, but far from impossible.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

PS. One might add that Henry Hathaway was an industrious studio hack and the Coens are among the most interesting, quirky and individual film makers of their generation.
The first movie came off a production line and the other was hand-crafted.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

The Coens' version also retains the novel's rather bleaker ending.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's good. It's a brilliant book. It doesn't need to be messed with. The Coens add in some quirky stuff of their own but keep pretty close to what Portis wrote.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

While I can see the technical merit of many aspects of the remake, I hated it with a blinding white hatred because of something that could have been fixed quite easily. After Mattie gets bitten and Rooster throws himself with her onto Little Blackie to get her back to a town and a doctor, he doesn't pause to grab the reins of any of the several other loose horses that can be seen in the background. This is idiotic. Even if you suppose that he absolutely *must* ride on the same horse to keep her in the saddle, he knows how far he has to go to get back and that the double weight would likely exhaust the small animal at breakneck speed. If Little Blackie were the only mount available, he'd have to do it anyway, but he isn't. There are several abandoned mounts RIGHT THERE. A rider of Rooster's experience would take the half minute to bring along a second mount so they could switch off, because that's what you do when you have to push an animal too far too fast. Otherwise you risk not making the distance. And so he rides Little Black to death for absolutely no discernible reason, putting the whole project at risk, when he has both the knowledge and the wherewithal to do it right. It's wildly stupid and it didn't have to be done that way.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I hadn't spotted that, but you're quite right- it's a failure in logistics. I guess the Coens just don't know a lot about horses.

I forget how it's handled in the book.