Temple de acero

If there's something to be said for classicism, it's certainly proved in Joel and Ethan Coen's 2010 Western drama True Grit. The adventure begins in 19th century Arkansas, where 14 year old tough-as- nails cowgirl Maddie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) sets out to avenge her father's murder at the hands of outlaw Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). With the most relentless local bounty hunter by her side in Reuben J. Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), she is determined to bring justice to her cause. Complications arise when the pair cross paths with the hotshot LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), a Texas Ranger who is confidently taking aim at the same man. After a series of alliances and realignments Maddie finds herself face-to-face with Chaney; her quivery hand clutching a silver pistol and her mind wrestling with the most important decision yet.

True Grit is a more than worthy successor to it's 1969 predecessor, as the Coen Brothers have followed more strictly the original 1968 novel by Charles Portis. The retention of the female narrator gives the plot an intimate personal aspect, encouraging the audience to root for Maddie throughout her adventure.

Hailee Steinfeld is a surprisingly mature newcomer to the screen, holding her own next to the incomparable talents of Bridges and Damon. With cowboys, outlaws, gun fights and plenty of hard boiled dialogue, True Grit is a classically made conventional western, whose brilliantly raw cinematography transports the audience to the dusty plains of the old west; a land of revenge, passion and grit.

The Coen brothers are known for being one of the best filmmakers of our time. They both compliment each other perfectly. When I heard they were remaking the 1969, John Wayne classic True Grit, I was extremely excited and had incredibly high expectations of the film. Being a major fan of Western movies, I was really interested how it would turn out. I wanted the movie to be more faithful to it's original source material, Charles Portis novel, than the 1969 film had been. I was also hopeful that Jeff Bridges would fill the huge shoes of the classic, legendary John Wayne. I was hoping that they would blend the humor of the original 1969 film with some of the suspense or thrills from earlier Coen brothers films like No Country For Old Men or Fargo. But not become way too violent that it causes to stay completely unrecognizable to Charles Portis classic novel.

After seeing the Coen brothers new film, I have to say. My extremely high expectations were surpassed. The movie actually surprised all the hype I had, what an incredible film. The atmosphere, clothing, and the buildings reminded me of the old classic Hollywood westerns they used to make. I had a feeling of nostalgia watching the movie through the end. I felt transported to another time period of the old western. Hailee Steinfeld was amazing in the movie, I truly believe that this is her breakout performance. Matt Damon and Josh Brolin were as usual amazing. But the true star of the film has to be Jeff Bridges, in all respects ( I don't mean to offend John Wayne or anything), I think Jeff Bridges did a better job than John Wayne in portraying Rooster Cogburn. His performance showed much more experience, strength and power, the performance was pretty much unforgettable. Jeff Bridges handily reinvents the iconic role of Rooster Cogburn in the Coen brothers' back-to-the-book-remake. I congratulate the Coen for bringing back the western genre, that Hollywood has ignored so much the last decade or so. I can't stress enough how much I recommend this movie to people.

The least "Coen" of all of the Coens films is also one of their finest. It has a few Coen inflections to it (Damon's twang of a voice, a few random mustached characters crossing paths with our heroes) but for the most part it's a lot more straight forward and less humored. Surprisingly this doesn't detract from the film at all, which is a riveting character journey in classic old school Hollywood fashion. And while generally "old school Hollywood fashion" would be something I would cringe and run away from, the Coens make it enjoyable, emotional and breathtaking. The technical qualities are all astounding; fantastic costumes, a beautiful score and some of the most exquisite cinematography I have ever seen, courtesy of the always reliable Roger Deakins. It's such an entertaining film, with some emotional power that resonates afterwards. There's a lot of twists that I didn't see it taking and none of the characters ended up being what I initially expected them to be. There's a real lack of obvious arcs for these people and that was a nice surprise. The Coens do what they can to avoid Hollywood conventions in what is, at it's core, a very Hollywood film.

Above all else, the film is a character piece and what a wonderful one it is. Unsurprisingly, these people are written very intelligently, given lots of depth and room to grow and surprise. There's a constant battle over what grit truly means and over the course of the film the balance shifts back and forth over which of the three has the truest grit. From the very opening, we see that Mattie Ross has a whole mess of it, this headstrong girl who won't back down to anyone, despite her small stature. Hailee Steinfeld is remarkable here, an actor with talent well beyond her years. She's entirely convincing, taking a character that could have been this annoying little brat and making her simultaneously strong, whip smart, endearing and adorable. I enjoyed watching her in every second. Jeff Bridges was different than I had expected, but I love his arc throughout the film. Maddie goes to him because she believes he has the most grit of all and that he is the right choice for her, but as the journey goes on she doubts her decision and Rooster Cogburn plays with our perception of him quite a few times. Bridges was my least favorite of the three, performance-wise, but that's not a huge slant given how highly I thought of the other two. Matt Damon gets arguably the most interesting role, a character who is detestable when we first meet him and then has the large task of making us realize that he just may have the truest grit of all. LaBoeuf is a silly man who thinks too highly of himself, but as the film progresses it becomes very hard not to care for him. He's a good man at his heart, as are Maddie and Rooster, and it makes it easy to root for all three of them to come out of this alright.

This is a film that I enjoyed even more than I thought I would, a Coen film in the most un-Coen of ways (which was a nice change of pace given that their previous effort, A Serious Man, is probably the most Coen film out there). I enjoyed living with these characters very much and wish that there had been more time to just be with them on their journey. The final confrontation with the men they are hunting is turns suspenseful, surprising and a little too short-lived. I didn't much care for the epilogue, but with the wildly entertaining journey that came before it, I can't fault the film that strongly for it. It's a real cinematic piece, surprisingly Hollywood for the Coens, but it doesn't fall into a lot of the traps that it could have. In fact, it does the opposite, jumping into holes where it could become clichéd and sentimental and then digging it's way out, surprising at every turn. I like that the story doesn't quite end after the basic plot is resolved, because it's not about hunting down the man that killed Maddie's father and hoping to bring him to justice. It's about so much more. It's about these characters and finding out who they really are when it all comes down to it.

Sadly I am one of the very few movie fans that never got around to seeing the John Wayne movie. But I will now remedy that, it will be in my BD player soon. (Edit: I saw it and to me the 1969 original is a better movie, mostly for John Wayne and, although not authentic, the scenes in the Rocky mountains.)

The Coen brothers are unique in that each of their movies seems to take a different look and a different tone. Two of my favorites are "Fargo" and "The Man Who Wasn't There." Now I will add this one to my list.

Arguably the focus of this movie is young Hailee Steinfeld, 13 during filming, as 14-yr-old Mattie Ross. It is 1878 and lawlessness still pervades the west, as defined by Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, and New Mexico. Mattie's dad is shot and killed by an outlaw, who also stole his horse and two California gold pieces.

Mattie is an unusual 14-yr-old, not one for "girlie" pursuits, and with an unusually high intellect, seemingly an expert in law, she takes off for the nearest town to find and hire a US Marshall who will bring the outlaw to justice.

There she encounters an unwilling Jeff Bridges as drunkard Rooster Cogburn, who has the reputation for killing the outlaws to avoid the trouble of bringing them in. But Mattie's promise of $100, a fortune back then, gets Rooster on board. She was told that he has "true grit" and that is the title reference.

Other main characters are Matt Damon as Texas Marshall LaBoeuf, who joins in the search in Arkansas. And the outlaw they seek is Josh Brolin as Tom Chaney, who has joined a gang led by Barry Pepper as Lucky Ned Pepper.

I can't praise the casting enough, every one is ideal for their roles, and young Hailee is superb, worthy of the Oscar nomination. The script and cinematography are also superb. Overall a very enjoyable movie.

Let's get the comparisons with Henry Hathaway's version of the Charles Portis novel out of the way. The Coen Brothers certainly knew that, however much they want to 'go back to the source material,' their film would play against Hathaway's version.

The Hathaway version, while tampering with details from the Portis original, remains strikingly true to its story and theme. This is most clear in the dialog - the decision not to tamper with Portis' language was decisive for the making of that film. The Coens' tampering with the novel is more subtle than Hathaway's film, but no less an interpretation.

Approaching the characters and composition of the Coens' version without reference to the Hathaway film apparently proved impossible. For instance, the shoot-out at the dug-out cabin was re-written for a night-scene, but the camera angles remain pretty much the high-elevation shots Lucien Ballard provided Hathaway, inter-cut with full body shots of people getting wounded and horses running (etc.)also similar to Ballard's.

Two performance stand out as striking examples of reference to the original film. Dakin Matthews seems to struggle mightily not to recreate Strother Martin's interpretation of the horse-trader Stonehill - and fails. Apparently Martin had the character down pat and there's nothing but to reproduce his interpretation. Far more to the point is Barry Pepper's interpretation of the desperate outlaw chief, Ned Pepper - it is pure Robert Duvall. Pepper can only match Duvall's self-aware determination - and he does - but he can't surpass it; nor can he find another interpretation to set off against Duvall's.

As for the Coens' own re-interpretation of the Portis novel, what was most noticeable to me were the minor points simply dropped out of the story telling. The most irritating to me were a pair of lapses that are interconnected and combine to make an important point about the characters. 1. We never get to see Mattie tell Rooster that Chaney has linked up with Ned Pepper (later Rooster does remark the fact, but how did he learn of it?); 2 We don't get to hear Rooster's remarking how he shot Pepper through the upper lip (because he was aiming at the lower lip). These two incidents combine to let the audience know that Cogburn's hidden agenda on the Chaney hunt is really Ned Pepper, he and Pepper have something of a feud going on - which information fills out the background detail for their final shoot-out. Except here we don't have that connection.

Finally, the whole Mattie - Rooster issue: many critics are saying that Mattie is more at the center here than in the Hathaway picture, which focused attention on John Wayne's Cogburn. Not true. When we add up screen time and lines of dialog, we discover that Mattie not only has as much time and dialog in the Hathaway film but it is in much the same proportion to Cogburn's as in this one. If most remember the Hathaway film as a 'John Wayne film,' that is due simply to Wayne's bravura performance.

Well, enough of the comparisons. Does the Coens' version measure up as film worth seeing on its own accord? Yes; we are presented here with a beautiful, frightening, amusing piece of 'Americana.' There are scenes approaching dream-like states, as in the meeting with the bear-man, and during Rooster's desperate drive to get Mattie to a doctor. Hailee Steinfeld is quite engaging, and Matt Damon develops an intriguing complexity that makes one wish he had more screen-time. Bridges' performance is the most problematic - Bridges plays Cogburn as a a kind of whimsical brute - as he rambles on with his life-story on the trail, we get the gnawing sense that, if we were not along for a dangerous manhunt and dependent on his abilities as a master man-hunter, Cogburn would be someone we would not like to know. This develops a distance between the audience and Cogburn that is actually rather on par for the Coens - there are no 'heros' in the Coen universe.

Perhaps that's a good thing here. Mattie in her experiences with the wild men of the old west has encountered something larger than her life on the farm could ever get her. These are men who make their own laws and are not bound to statutory codes or biblical decrees, and adapt their own law to the wilds of the frontier that surrounds them. Mattie is a confirmed church-goer with a good lawyer, and if she weren't so determined on her revenge, she would actually be impossibly small-minded and dull. This is a subtext to the novel that both films attempt to convey, but neither quite captures, because it's difficult for any film maker to admit that the central character of the story is the least interesting.

The age of such wild-men has passed. It is not that wild-men do not exist - wild-men show up quite frequently in Coen Brothers' films in contemporary settings - but now they are corrupted by moving outside the law and outside the commonplace, they grow sick and psychopathic. The killer in "Fargo" feeding the partner he's killed to a wood-chipper is as wild as one could get, but he is no longer larger than life, and evokes only the sickness at the heart of modernity, not any adaptation one would want to live with.

We look back at historical moments like those of the Old West because anything seemed possible to them, whereas very little is possible for us. But that might simply be a wishful delusion - and the Coens' clear suspicion that it is really determines the limits of what they accomplish here. They don't present the West as 'it really was,' nor do they present what we want from it, rather they present a disappointment with it. Rooster Cogburn is indeed 'larger than life,' but we wouldn't want to spend any more time with him than we do.