‘True Grit.’ Directed by The Coen Brothers.
Written by: Joel and Ethan Coen. Based on a novel by Charles Portis.
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Hailee Steinfeld, Barry Pepper and Elizabeth Marvel.
Music by: Carter Burwell.
Cinematography: Roger Deakins.
Editing by: Roderick Jaynes.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures.
Run time: 110 minutes.
Budget: $38 Million.
Gross Revenue: $139, 992, 042.
The Coen Brothers are an English major’s best friend. Their films are deeply filled with theme and philosophical ponderance, but at the same time they are bad-arse in ways that fill one with a morbid glee. Remember that scene in ‘No Country for Old Men’ where Anton Chigurh finally catches up with Llewelyn Moss in the hotel? Josh Brolin sits on the bed, cautiously watching the shadow move under the crack of the door. He reaches over and grabs his gun, gets it ready to fire, and then FFFNNTT! The lock of the door is blasted out by Chigurh’s crazy air-compression gun, hitting Llewelyn in the chest. Llewelyn takes the hit and fires back, starting one of the greatest shoot-outs to appear in cinema in the past ten years.
This moment of suspense and action is suitably juxtaposed with the muted, stoic ponderings of Tommy Lee Jones’ Ed Tom Bell, who ends the film as a retired sheriff ruminating over a dream of his father, who died on the job at an age that Ed Tom Bell has surpassed by two years. 2009 has been the only year in recent memory that I have been completely satisfied with the Academy’s choice for best picture. No Country for Old Men is a modern classic that I try to watch at least once a year.
So, you can imagine my jubilation when I heard that the latest Coen Brother’s film was to be a Western, starring none other than Jeff ‘The Dude’ Bridges. When I first saw the trailer on YouTube, I tried not to get too excited. Part of why I loved ‘No Country’ so much was because I went into the theatre having never seen a Coen Brothers movie before (I am ashamed of this, I assure you.) I just filed True Grit in the back of my mind and focussed on other things. Finally, the Australian release date for True Grit creeped around and I attended the film last night.
First off, True Grit does not share the same thematic content as No Country For Old Men. It follows that the two films are almost incomparable. Whereas the latter was a tale about the absurdity of life; namely the role of chance in determining who gets to live and who has to suffer, the former is more concerned with disentangling the romance that many of us associate with the American wild west. Josh Brolin’s Tom Chaney is romanticised throughout the film to the point where you believe he is going to be a methodical, cold blooded killer, much like Anton Chigurh. However, when the young Mattie Ross finally encounters him, he is nothing more than a bumbling idiot. When she confronts him at gunpoint and says “You’re going to come over here and walk in front of me up that hill.” He grins moronically and says “And suppose I turn and walk the other way; what then?” So much for an Angel-Eyes type gangster; this guy possess the same dumb ignorance that haunts us whenever we look into the eyes of a chicken and wonder what it is thinking.
Indeed all the characters are depicted unromantically from the beginning. We have Jeff Bridges’ as U.S. Marshall ‘Rooster’ Cogburn, an alcoholic of questionable moral fortitude; Matt Damon as Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, who seems more concerned with his own macho image than anything else; and finally, we have the young Mattie Ross, who is played by new-comer Hallie Steinfeld. Ross is a fourteen year old girl who demands justice for the killing of her father. Though her bravado is initially impressive, eventually we begin to suspect that she may be too naive and therefore utterly incapable of committing the grave act that she so proudly aspires to.
The myth of the Hollywood Western is almost completely unravelled by the time we catch up with Brolin’s character. However, the film takes an inspiring turn in the third act when Mattie Ross gets captured. After ‘Rooster’ gets shot up in a shoot-out with the gang, he further risks his life to retrieve Mattie Ross from a snake-filled cave only to ride with her for miles and miles to the nearest settlement so that she won’t die from a snake-bite. It appears the Coen Brothers don’t exactly share a full black armband view of American history, where altruism has no place. They seem to be saying that there are good people in any historical period; you just have to look hard to find them.
True Grit is a delight to watch, I was particularly moved by the sequence at the end which depicts a poisoned Mattie Ross slipping in and out of consciousness, catching glimpses of the untouched American country-side on a horse ridden by ‘Rooster.’ The sequence perfectly encapsulates the only way in which we can experience the Old West; through a haze of truth and untruth, represented to us through romanticised versions of old America, and through historical evidence that suggests such romantic views weren’t real.
Four and a half stars:
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