How The West Was Won-The
Coen Brothers Remake Of “True Grit” (2010)-A Film Review
DVD Review
By Sandy Salmon
[As of December 1, 2017
under the new regime of Greg Green, formerly of the on-line American Film Gazette website, brought
in to shake things up here a bit after a vote of no confidence in the previous
site administrator Allan Jackman (using the moniker Peter Paul Markin in honor of
fallen comrade from high school days) some organizational norms have changed.
That vote was taken among all the writers at the request of some of the younger
writers abetted by one key older writer, Sam Lowell, and in the aftermath the
habit of previous site manager of assigning writers to specific topics like
film, books, political commentary, and
culture is over. Also over is the designation of writers in this space, young
or old, by job title like senior or associate. After a short-lived experiment
designating everybody as “writer” seemingly in emulation of the French
Revolution’s “citizen” or the Bolshevik Revolution’s “comrade” all posts will
be “signed” with given names only. The Editorial Board]
True Grit, starring Jeff
Bridges as Rooster Cogburn, Haillee Steinfeld as Mattie, Matt Damon as Texas
Ranger LeBoeuf, from the novel by Charles Portis, directed and produced by the
Coen Brothers as a remake of the 1969 version of the film which starred John
Wayne, 2010
[Apparently the fall-out
from the change of leadership of this site from the now seemingly disgraced and
exiled Allan Jackson out to the wilds of
Utah where he is reportedly by rumor said to be hustling copy for the Mormons
although that sounds improbable on its face since he went out of his way to
skewer the most well-known Mormon Mitt Romney for disowning his great grandfather’s
astounding feat of juggling five wives at one time back in the day Allan Jackson
to Greg Green brought in from a similar position that he held at American Film Gazette is not over. The
basic issue which the reader should know about was Jackson’s heavy-handed manner
of assigning projects tilted heavily toward the turbulent times of the 1960s
when he and a number of the older writers including a few he had known since
high school had come of age. That emphasis despite the well-known proposition
stated in the masthead that the whole of American history (albeit from a
decidedly leftist perspective), culture, society, mores and all were within its
purview. He had brought in a slew of younger writers, not kids out of
journalism school or English dissertations but younger.
They, according to younger
writer and “Young Turks” leader Lance Lawrence, were to broaden the outlook,
widen the time frame and range of subjects. Instead Allan used them as “cannon
fodder” (Eliot Francis’ term) for a continued expansion of that 1960s
perspective. The whole thing came to a head this past summer when he
unilaterally decided that everything of importance was to be thrown through the
prism of the Summer of Love, 1967 which was being commemorated mainly in the
Bay Area on its 50th anniversary. The younger writers balked sensing
that this was merely the first shot in another total immersion in various 50th
anniversary commemorations to come over the next few years. In a heated debate
and contentious procedure in early fall the younger writers aided by the
decisive vote of Sam Lowell one of Allan’s old high school friends who saw the
writing on the wall he received a vote of no confidence.
Subsequently Jackson announced
his retirement through a third party to the assembled audience. That so-called
retirement versus what has been whispered about that he had been “purged” never
to be heard from again like in the time of Stalin in Russia or among New Left
fanatics in late 1960s radical circles seeking purity is what the fall-out is
all about. Nobody quite has the whole story, or at least I have not heard
anything that sounds like the whole story but younger writer Brad Fox in a
recent review of Goya’s Ghosts went
way out of his way to inform the reading public that something closer to being
purged had been the previously missing Jackson’s fate. And Brad would know
since he owes his job to his father’s friendship with Allan going back to their
high school days.
Here is some of what
Brad mentioned with a little comment by me in places as we try to consolidate
the new regime and provide a wider perspective for the reader to imbibe.
Brad thought it ironic,
and I do too, that one of the first assignments that our new site administrator
Greg Green has handed out, handed out to him especially knowing his father
relationship with Allan, Goya’s Ghosts,
dealt with the turmoil of the French Revolution through the prism of the Spanish
occupation in Napoleon’s time by French troops aided by a bureaucracy of both
imported French bureaucrats and Spaniards looking for the main chance. What
Brad called guys who change their allegiances as easily as their shirts.
Sometimes apparently,
and this may have been Greg Green’s point in assigning the review life mirrors
art. The staff at American Left History
were, are as ardent as any Bolshevik was in his or her time to draw whatever
lessons they can from the experiences of the French Revolution. Including many
a hot “debate” over whiskeys at Jimmy Jake’s Tavern near the Seaport in Boston.
Seemingly, at least to
Brad and I buy some of his argument since I do believe that Green was trying to
promote a literary cautionary tale in the guises of a harmless hapless film
review a parallel example existed between rabid Inquisitor turned French
Revolution devotee Lorenzo’s topsy-turvy career and fate and that of Jackson. I
have already mentioned the main reason given but it bears repeating was Allan’s
obsessive tilting of the coverage of subjects in this space toward events from
the turbulent 1960s when most of the older writers came of age exemplified by
the over-the-top coverage of the Summer of Love, 1967 he ordered the writers, young
and old, familiar with the period or not to cover. There has been, and here the
parallel with Francisco who would go to his execution under the Inquisition
once the French were defeated and swept out of Spain by the British with the
aid of Spanish guerillas, a persistent rumor that Allan was purged and that the
retirement ploy was just that a cover for the more aggressive removal mainly
through the efforts of the younger writers. On the heels of what Brad has said I
will try to track this down as I get more information. Information that I
believe will implicate Allan’s his old friend Sam Lowell who may have been used
by the younger writers as a stalking horse once they knew he was anxious to
show his old time “revolutionary turn the world upside down” credentials or maybe
the mastermind behind a plan to ease Allan out for other reasons. For now if you
heard that one Allan Jackson has fallen under the wheels of a modern day
Inquisition don’t be surprised. Don’t be surprised at all.]
*********
Here is the real deal
though:
For those more
interested in old time Old West, Old Revisionist West than the internal
struggle for a new direction at this site you are now home. Old Revisionist
West meaning not the stuff that guys and gals like many of the older writers
and me who grew in the 1950s had to swallow on television where the guys in
white hats were pure good and fast on the trigger if they needed to be and
black hats signifying pure evil and somehow very bad trigger action which makes
one wonder today how they survived to be bad boys, but the dirt under the
fingernails, didn’t wash for a week, put that trigger quick and ask questions
later. For that desire here is a film, a remake of a classic Old West western, True Grit which won John Wayne an Oscar
for his performance as lead character Rooster Cogburn by the bloody thirsty
Coen Brothers last seen in this space as the producers of the remake of the
bloody 1955 British film The Lady Killers
where an old widowed woman held off a horde of ruffians ready to do her in
praise the Lord.
Recently Sam Lowell who
use to do the film reviews here all by his lonesome before he retired and
persuaded me to take over before I retire made some commentary about the 1961
film The Misfits, the film adaptation
of playwright Arthur Miller’s story. He mentioned that the characters in that
film, male and female alike, born in the West, born in the saddle really, or
transported from other parts, were just then at the crossroads where the Old
West and its individualistic values was fast fading in the modern industrial
skyline. That the strip malls, suburban ranches, golf courses, and tourist
traps were heading west. That is not the case in True Grit. Here we have all the bloodshed, the fast triggers, the
fatal triggers the lawlessness needing to be tamed, the lost boys, the losers
in the Civil War, the raw emotions and rawer whisky that made up a big part of
the lifeblood of the Old West, the West that those who could not for one reason
or another make it in the East headed for to start anew-or keep on doing the
same thing in new quarters.
In a funny way, just
like the plotlines from Zane Grey on, this one is simplicity itself “the age of
vengeance is mine saith the Lord. Young Mattie, all of 14, played by Hailee
Steinfeld, feisty as hell even if only 14, is out to avenge the death of her father
by a no account bastard who just shot him down in cold blood named Tom Clancy.
Little did he know his days were numbered with Mattie on the case no matter
that he headed out to desolate Indian country (Native American or indigenous peoples
now).
But even a feisty
precocious 14 year old needs some help against a bad man desperado and so she
hires for a bounty a U.S. Marshall to bring old Tom in to face justice, to face
the big step-off which Mattie makes very plain is her goal-no anti-death
penalty advocate she. So she hires the toughest of them all, the one with, hey,
true grit, Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn played by Jeff Bridges like he was born for
the role, and maybe he was. Mattie had a choice, could have and maybe should
have picked Texas Ranger LaBouef, played by Matt Damon, who had been after
bandito Clancy for crimes in Texas which would also require a hangman’s noose.
But she took Rooster instead.
Eventually after much
banter they, all three, head out to that Indian country (remember think Native
American) and before long all kind of calumny, false leads, a few
confrontations and the like impede their progress. Also some internal bickering
which would lead that LaBoeuf to head out on his own periodically. Not to worry
though after a few rounds of rooty-toot-toot that Tom Clancy is gone to the
great beyond-no one to mourn him. Along the way though Mattie and the Rooster
bond, bond enough that when that Rooster went to his own great beyond he was
buried in Mattie’s family plot. Yeah, wasn’t that a time boys, wasn’t that a
time.
