I’ve been excited to see the new Coen Brothers’ version of True Grit since catching the movie trailer online several months ago. Since watching Raising Arizona multiple times in the early 90′s, I’ve been a big fan of their style of cinema. Each of their movies has a sense of “quirk” that few others seem to attempt and can generate fairly polarizing opinions about them. You are either a lover or a hater (“I don’t get it”) of their movies. I definitely like it when movies take a strong position and don’t appear to succumb to a “focus group” mentality of mediocrity. The Coen films do that for me.
Also – as a fellow Minnesotan – there is a camaraderie and a joy in seeing the Coen Brothers be successful. Even if they exaggerated the accents in Fargo. (We don’t really talk like that, do we?)
In thinking of the new True Grit release, I realized that I couldn’t recall seeing the original film with John Wayne. That version was produced shortly after the book was released (book = 1968, film = 1969), which put it a good decade before my movie-going ways began. I wouldn’t have been able to see it upon release, but there would have been plenty of chances to catch it on the “old movie” channels that flood my DirecTV subscription. Still, I was aware of the movie’s provenance, since it provided John Wayne his only Oscar.
I usually make a habit of seeing any prior references when a new movie is coming out. Thus, if the movie is based on a book or is a remake of an earlier “classic”, I try to make a point to understand the source material before seeing the new interpretation. I recall reading the “Silence of the Lambs” before seeing the movie – realizing that the movie was horribly confusing and very sub-par to the book’s story. As a self-proclaimed geek, the Tolkien series was an absolute read before any screening of the Peter Jackson films. In general, the source material often outclasses the latest movie version, especially when books are involved.
So, on Wednesday night, I was excited to see that the 1969 True Grit was playing on the AMC channel and caught the movie about 20 minutes into the showing. I was pretty familiar with the full story via online research, so I didn’t really miss anything important from the film’s beginning. With it playing in the background, I finished up some kitchen cleanup and joined the movie full-time about the moment where Mattie finally seals the deal with Cogburn and sets out on the journey with La Boeuf to capture Chaney.
The thing that jumped out at me right away was the acting of John Wayne in this movie. Knowing this was his one Oscar winning performance, I was expecting some element of greatness. Instead, I thought it was quite poor – amateurish, at best. It was so distracting throughout the film, I kept focusing on how lousy his approach to the delivery of his lines and was constantly being removed from the story. His performance had the “air” of single-take snapshots, where he may not have had the patience to try again (only harder). At the time of filming of True Grit, Wayne was 61 years old, as big as life, and I would guess that the director was probably not quick to say “Can we do that again, only with a little more feeling?”
If you get a chance to see the film, watch how Wayne approaches his scenes where he is supposed to be drunk. As he is pulling swigs from a jug in the back of Mr. Lee’s house or when the posse is up on the mountain just outside of Pepper’s camp, his “drunk man” acting borders on comical. It’s hard to watch without thinking “What the hell?” He is on-par with a local, volunteer theater group.
Fortunately, the rest of the movie doesn’t do him any favors. The story is intended to convey the strength and resolve of a young Mattie, but the writing of her lines turns her into a whiny, snobbish gnat buzzing around the other characters with no build-up of sympathy. When she gets caught by the villains, I was hoping they would shoot her, just to end it all.
There are also so many rudimentary story-telling elements – such as going out of the way to point out a “snake pit” in the middle of the bad guys’ camp – that someone damn-well better fall into the thing before the movie ends. Of course, Mattie falls into the pit resulting in the surprise rescue by Cogburn, but not before being bit by a snake. I was not expecting such a turn of events (yeah, right).
This was also one of the first movies where I could see how bad editing results in a bad movie. In one sequence, Cogburn, La Boeuf, and Mattie are riding their horses strongly up the mountainside – making good time against their targets. Cut to the very next scene and Cogburn falls off his horse because he is drunk. There was NO transition between the two events.
Bad editing is also seen when Cogburn and La Boeuf have to leave Mattie behind with the bad guys. They are seen riding over the country side to show the villains that they are no longer in the area and in the next scene, Cogburn is facing a group of the villains in an open field – ready to have an old-fashioned gunfight. It is story continuity at its worst.
The final, major action sequence of Cogburn rushing Mattie into town is outright silly. It would work just as well within the context of an old Keystone Cops movie and had no business being part of a rugged Western. Throw in the “yackity sax” music in the background and it would have been complete.
Needless to say, I was not impressed by the movie. By today’s standards, it was a lousy effort. By late 60′s standards, it won an Oscar. I think the Academy was being generous and trying to reward John Wayne an Oscar before the end of his long career and eventual death in 1979. Even Wayne himself acknowledged this by starting his acceptance speech with:
“Wow! If I’d have put that patch on thirty-five years earlier!”
Whatever the circumstances, it was disappointing and did not live up to my nostalgic view of what this movie should have been.
Here’s hoping that the Coen Brothers can do the story some justice and deliver a great telling of True Grit. I’m less interested in a great performance by Jeff Bridges and hoping that they take the wholeness of the story and make a great film.
