More Grit

And just who is this lawyer Dagget who until just a few minutes ago I was so blissfully unaware?

I’m not a big western fan. I think I’ve read two western novels and I rarely watch western movies. Western T.V.? Nope. The exception to my western fandom, or lack thereof, in both movies and books is True Grit. I’ve seen the John Wayne version of the movie many times, and not only is it my favorite western, out of a field that I’ll admit is anything but crowded, but it’s also one of my favorite movies from any genre. I’ve only read the book just recently because my brother Steve sent it to me for Christmas as sort of a half gag gift. Thanks Steve, I loved it and read it in about a week. I believe that I'm going to name him Grit, if I ever get a dog, or a horse.

The other western I read was Hombre by Elmore Leonard. I fear Leonard is an acquired taste that I’m still trying to acquire.

This December a new version of True Grit came out in theaters. This past weekend I saw it. I was looking forward to it for a number of reasons; it’s True Grit for God sakes, it has Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon, it is supposed to follow the book more faithfully, and it was made by the Coen brothers who made one of the funniest movies of all time in Raising Arizona and the dialog in True Grit is ripe with humor.

The story, if you haven’t seen the John Wayne version, is simple. A girl’s father is killed by his hired hand while the two of them are out of town. The girl, the just 14-year-old Mattie Ross, travels to the town where he was shot down, collects his things, ships his body back to their home, and then hires a federal marshal to hunt down the man who killed her father and bring him to justice. The marshal (John Wayne/Jeff Bridges) is the shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later, if he asks at all, type who drinks nearly continuously. At first the marshal hooks up with a Texas Ranger (Glenn Campbell/Matt Damon) who is hunting the same man for shooting a Texas senator who chastised him for shooting his dog, and refuses Mattie permission to come along. But she catches up with them at a river ford as her horse is faster, because their horses are loaded down with “fat men and iron.” A line that made it from the novel to the first movie but not the second.

Speaking of dialog, the first bit of dialog uttered in the movie is literally the first words typed in the book. It’s the voice of the grown up Mattie Ross speaking about how unbelievable her story of what she did at 14 might seem to us today, although the today she is speaking in is about 100 years behind us. If I compare how either movie remains faithful to the book I think I would have to say it’s a tie. The old version has nearly all the dialog and the plot is unchanged, with the exception of the older Mattie Ross’ bookend narrations. The newer version includes the older Mattie Ross talking but has the Texas Ranger leave the group twice during their journey, something that didn’t happen at all in the book.

One interesting thing about the new movie is a scene where they find a man who has been hung from a tree branch over the road, about 30 feet up. Pretty high for a hanging. They cut him down and the marshal “sells” the body to an Indian. The Indian then “sells” the body to a traveling dentist who takes out the teeth and offers to “sell” the body back to the Marshal. None of this has any influence on the outcome of the story and none of this is explained. I kind of liked that, because in real life, not everything is explained. (I once saw a guy in a convertible swerve off the freeway in Bakersfield and start beating his empty passenger seat with The Club) This movie is very violent, but I understood that going in and was okay with people getting shot and hung, or having their fingers cut off. The weird thing is when they cut down the body of the hanging victim and it falls 30 or so feet to the ground, I found that much more disturbing than any of that aforementioned violence. Even though he was long dead.

I’d have to say I liked the movie. It was funny like the first one but somehow more somber too. If that is possible.

I think Jeff Bridges did a good job and didn’t look like he was playing John Wayne. There is a scene where he pushes two Indian kids off a porch as he passes by, both ways, that some reviews chock up to the way white people treated Indians in the 1870s, but if you read the book, those two children had been abusing a mule that is tied to the hitching post, something that is shown but isn’t clear in the movie. A more telling example of how white people treated Indians in that time is the triple hanging scene near the beginning where two white men are allowed to speak before the hoods are put over their heads, while the Indian standing to their left barely gets a handful of words out before he is hooded and the lever is thrown.

Matt Damon is big upgrade from Glenn Campbell so I expected him to add more dimension to his character and he did, acting much more of a peacock than the Lineman for the County.

I’ve always thought that Kim Darby did a great job as Mattie Ross in the original so I didn’t expect the new girl, Hailee Steinfeld to add anything. But she did. Her Mattie Ross seemed more a child than Kim Darby’s, but no less commanding when negotiating a deal with Rooster Cogburn or a local horse trader. The scene where she has to roll up the sleeves to wear her father’s coat, and stuff newspaper in his hat so it won’t fall over her ears is touching, and I won’t soon forget her screaming and her tear-streaked face when she realizes her horse has been literally ridden to death to save her.

The Coen Brothers made a more realistic looking Old West. More grit, if you will indulge me. The clothes seem more worn, the town is bustling, and the vistas that in the first movie look like an ad for a national park, in the 2010 movie look closed in and far less welcoming. I don’t think that at any one time you could see more than a few dozen yards, until the reins in the teeth shootout at the end.

This movie is funny but in a different way than Raising Arizona. Raising Arizona is to this True Grit like a circus clown is to one of those scary opera clowns.