True Grit
2010. Directed by Ethan and Joel Coen
When talking about this movie with a friend I mistakenly labeled it the first of the Coen’s adaptations. Obviously that’s not true. The Coen brothers’ first adaptation was their 2007 film, No Country For Old Men, which was almost entirely faithful to writer Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel of the same name. And the Coens have been equally faithful with their latest film adaptation, True Grit, based on a novel written in 1968 by Charles Portis.
I haven’t read Portis’s novel, though I’ve been assured that it is excellent, but I have seen Henry Hathaway’s 1969 film version, starring the legendary John Wayne, and the Coen’s film is almost uncannily scene-for-scene identical to it. The Coens have claimed that they were working with only the novel as a source, so I assume that both film versions are almost equally faithful to Portis’s work, with the Coens’ few unique scenes indicating a slightly more faithful adaptation. All this to say that though I really liked the new True Grit, it was so similar to the classic film that many times all I could do was remember how much I liked its predecessor. In a sense, The Coen brothers’ True Grit is an unintentional remake, and it suffers for it.
For example, though the cinematography is top notch, it doesn’t hold up to the original’s. Famed cinematographer Roger Deakins delivers a dusty, raw late 1800’s American west that feels authentic. He frames the starkly beautiful landscape with polish and precision, but as I viewed these crisp images, I couldn’t help thinking of cinematographer Lucien Ballard’s warm, glowing sunlit plains and vast dappled birch forests in the 1969 film. Both men captured wonderful images, but Ballard’s work just feels more epic and majestic.
The acting in the 2010 version is definitely its highlight. All three main characters are played by actors who give powerful and enjoyable performances. Matt Damon’s Texas Ranger, LaBoeuf, is both wonderfully lovable and brave yet annoyingly caustic and insecure. The Coen’s had a lot of fun sending this otherwise dashing leading man through the ringer, including giving Damon’s character an unseemly injury-induced lisp for a good third of the film, and you can tell that Damon got a kick out of it. Newcomer Hailee Steinfeld steals the show as Mattie Ross, a no-nonsense older-than-her-years teenage girl on a mission. She is both adoringly innocent and harshly shrewd, and is really the emotional core of the film. It’s her story we’re witnessing and the young actress does a solid job holding her own against her powerful co-stars. But it’s really Jeff Bridges’ performance as Rooster Cogburn that gets the most attention, and he’s great as a groggy, crusty old coot of a US Marshal with a strong moral compass but little compassion. He gets most of the laughs and for good reason: Bridges’ performance is hilarious, especially when his character is drunk, and he fleshes his Cogburn out so well that you forget that you’re watching an actor.
These actors and the characters they play are some of the most authentic and best of the year, but once again they only remind me of the original film, and they somehow don’t equal the strength of it’s ensemble.
John Wayne was a legend. He appeared time and time again as the same basic character in western after western, and his legendary status grew till it almost couldn’t fit on the screen. He was never as good an actor as Bridges is, but his somewhat stilted performance as the original Rooster Cogburn still crowds Bridges out. Maybe it’s that irresistible swagger he spent his whole life perfecting, or the tough, dead-pan way he talks. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t stop thinking how great Wayne’s performance was as I watched Bridges, and I couldn’t concentrate.
The same can be said to a lesser extent for the original actors who played Mattie Ross and LaBoeuf. Kim Darby totally out-shouted and out-sassed Steinfeld, and Glen Campbell was just cooler than Damon could ever be. I’m not saying that the Coens didn’t cast well, I’m just saying that the 1969 cast was inexplicably better.
In my favorite films of 2010 post I had to pass on True Grit. I liked it, and I wanted to love it, but all I could really do was love the original film more. Maybe time will turn 2010’s True Grit into an equally classic film, but I somehow doubt it. I think it will always be thought of as a remake.