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True Grit (2010 film)

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True Grit Movie-expert.com
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJoel & Ethan Coen
Screenplay byJoel Coen
Ethan Coen
Produced byJoel Coen
Ethan Coen
Scott Rudin
Steven Spielberg
StarringJeff Bridges
Matt Damon
Josh Brolin
Hailee Steinfeld
Barry Pepper
Narrated byElizabeth Marvel
CinematographyRoger Deakins
Edited byRoderick Jaynes
Music byCarter Burwell
Production
companies
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • December 22, 2010 (2010-12-22)
Running time
110 minutes
CountryTemplate:Film US
LanguageEnglish
Budget$38 million[1]
Box office$176,857,724[2]

True Grit is a 2010 American Western film written and directed by the Coen brothers. It is the second adaptation of Charles Portis' 1968 novel of the same name, which was previously adapted for film in 1969 starring John Wayne. The film stars Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross, and Jeff Bridges as U.S. Marshal Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn along with Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and Barry Pepper.

Filming began in March 2010, and the film was officially released on December 22, 2010, in the US, after advance screenings earlier that month.[3] The film opened the 61st Berlin International Film Festival on February 10, 2011.[4]

Plot

The film is narrated by the adult Mattie Ross (Elizabeth Marvel), who explains that her father was murdered by one of his hired hands, Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), when she was 14; Chaney made off with her father's horses and two of his California gold pieces. While collecting her father's body, Mattie (played as a 14-year-old by Hailee Steinfeld) inquires about hiring a Deputy U.S. Marshal to track down Chaney. She is given three recommendations, but chooses to hire Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), because he is described as the most merciless. He repeatedly rebuffs her attempts to hire him.

Meanwhile, at the boarding house where she is staying, Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) arrives on the trail of Chaney. LaBoeuf has been pursuing him for several months over a murder in Texas. He proposes to Mattie that they should team up with Cogburn, since the Marshal knows the Choctaw terrain where Chaney is hiding, while LaBoeuf knows how the man is most likely to behave. Mattie rejects LaBoeuf's offer, partially because he would take Chaney back to Texas to be hanged for the prior murder, instead of her father's. After finally securing Cogburn's services, Mattie is instructed to meet him the following morning to begin the search for Chaney, though instead of meeting Mattie, Cogburn leaves a note telling her to go home while he goes to apprehend Chaney.

After she is refused passage on the river ferry that conveyed Cogburn and LaBoeuf, Mattie rides into the water and is pulled across by her swimming horse. On the far side, she learns that the two men have agreed to split the Texas reward for Chaney. Accusing him of fraud, Mattie threatens to have Cogburn arrested for breaking their agreement, which specified that she must accompany him on the manhunt. Reluctantly, he allows Mattie to come along. After a disagreement, LaBoeuf sets off on his own in search of Chaney. Eventually, Mattie and Cogburn come across an isolated shack, where two outlaws (Paul Rae and Domhnall Gleeson) are staying. After they turn on each other, Cogburn kills the older outlaw, and as the younger one is dying, he explains that "Lucky" Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper) and his gang were planning on returning to the shack later that night. Believing Chaney to be riding with Pepper's gang, Cogburn and Mattie lie in wait for the gang.

However, LaBoeuf rides up to the shack ahead of the gang. When the gang arrives, they lasso LaBoeuf and drag him behind a horse. Cogburn opens fire from his hiding spot, killing three members of the gang and accidentally wounding LaBoeuf. During the night, Cogburn drinks a great deal of whiskey and is severely drunk the next morning. The following night, he and LaBoeuf argue again, and LaBoeuf departs once more. The next morning, as Mattie draws water at the river, she encounters Chaney, who is watering the gang's horses. She draws her father's pistol and shoots him. The pistol misfires as she tries to finish him off, and he drags her back to the gang. Ned uses Mattie as a hostage to force Cogburn to ride off. Though Mattie is initially hostile to Ned, she calms down when he promises he "doesn't hurt children". Not having enough horses for everyone, Ned leaves Mattie with Chaney, telling him that he will send a horse for him later. He orders Chaney not to harm Mattie and to drop her off in safe, colonized lands afterwards.

Once alone, Chaney disobeys Ned and attacks Mattie; LaBoeuf appears and knocks Chaney out with his rifle butt, explaining that when he heard the shots in the morning, he rode back and encountered Cogburn, who devised a plan. LaBoeuf and Mattie watch from their distant perch as Cogburn takes on the four remaining members of Ned's gang. Although one escapes, Cogburn kills two of them, and mortally wounds Ned before his own horse is shot out from under him. As the dying Ned is about to kill Cogburn, LaBoeuf shoots and kills Ned, impressing Mattie with his ability as a marksman. Chaney comes to and attacks LaBoeuf. Mattie grabs LaBoeuf's rifle and kills Chaney, but the recoil knocks her back into an old mineshaft, where she unwittingly disturbs a ball of snakes. She is bitten before Cogburn can rescue her. Cogburn and Mattie leave the wounded but stable LaBoeuf at the mine with the promise they will send help, and Cogburn rides through the night to get Mattie to a doctor, arriving just in time.

Twenty-five years later, Mattie – now 40 and with only one arm, the result of an amputation necessitated by gangrene from the snakebite – receives an invitation from Cogburn to meet him at a traveling Wild West show with which he is performing. When she arrives at the site, she learns that Cogburn died three days earlier. She has his body moved into her family plot, and the film ends with her standing over his grave and pondering how time catches up with everyone.

Cast

After competing with 15,000 other applicants for the role, Hailee Steinfeld was cast as Mattie Ross

Adaptation and production

The project was rumored as far back as February 2008;[5] however it was not confirmed until March 2009.[6]

Ahead of shooting, Ethan Coen said that the film would be a more faithful adaptation of the novel than the 1969 version.

It's partly a question of point-of-view. The book is entirely in the voice of the 14-year-old girl. That sort of tips the feeling of it over a certain way. I think [the book is] much funnier than the movie was so I think, unfortunately, they lost a lot of humour in both the situations and in her voice. It also ends differently than the movie did. You see the main character – the little girl – 25 years later when she's an adult. Another way in which it's a little bit different from the movie – and maybe this is just because of the time the movie was made – is that it's a lot tougher and more violent than the movie reflects. Which is part of what's interesting about it.[7]

Mattie Ross "is a pill," said Ethan Coen in a December 2010 interview, "but there is something deeply admirable about her in the book that we were drawn to," including the Presbyterian-Protestant ethic so strongly imbued in a 14-year-old girl. Joel Coen said that the brothers did not want to "mess around with what we thought was a very compelling story and character". The film's producer, Scott Rudin said that the Coens had taken a "formal, reverent approach" to the Western genre, with its emphasis on adventure and quest. "The patois of the characters, the love of language that permeates the whole film, makes it very much of a piece with their other films, but it is the least ironic in many regards".[8]

Open casting sessions were held in Texas in November 2009 for the role of Mattie Ross. The following month, Paramount Pictures announced a casting search for a 12- to 16-year-old girl, describing the character as a "simple, tough as nails young woman" whose "unusually steely nerves and straightforward manner are often surprising".[9] Steinfeld, then age 13, was selected for the role from a pool of 15,000 applicants. “It was, as you can probably imagine, the source of a lot of anxiety,” Ethan Coen told The New York Times. "We were aware if the kid doesn't work, there's no movie".[8]

The film was shot in the Santa Fe, New Mexico area in March and April 2010, as well as in Granger and Austin, Texas.[10] The first trailer was released in September; a second trailer premiered with The Social Network.

True Grit is the first Coen brothers film to receive a PG-13 rating since 2003's Intolerable Cruelty for "some intense sequences of western violence including disturbing images."

Soundtrack

True Grit is the 15th Coen brothers film scored by long-time collaborator Carter Burwell. The Coens discussed the idea of using 19th-century church music, "something that was severe (sounding). It couldn't be soothing or uplifting, and at the same time it couldn't be outwardly depressing. I spent the summer going through hymn books," Burwell said.[11]

Johnny Cash's rendition of "God's Gonna Cut You Down" was used in the theatrical trailer. The 1888 hymn "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" is used as Mattie Ross's theme, and about a quarter of the score is based on it. Iris DeMent's version, from her 2004 album Lifeline, is used during the end credits. Other hymns are also referenced in the score, including "The Glory-Land Way" and "What a Friend We Have in Jesus".[11] Because the hymns are considered pre-composed music, the score was deemed ineligible to be nominated for Best Original Score in the 2010 Academy Awards.[12]

Box office

In the holiday weekend following its December 22 North American debut, True Grit took in $25.6 million at the box office, twice its pre-release projections.[1] By its second weekend ending January 2, the film had earned $87.1 million domestically, becoming the Coen brothers' highest grossing film, surpassing No Country for Old Men, which earned $74.3 million. True Grit was the only mainstream movie of the 2010 holiday season to exceed the revenue expectations of its producers. Based on that performance, the Los Angeles Times predicted that the film would likely become the second-highest grossing western of all time when inflation is discounted, exceeded only by Dances With Wolves.[13] During its third weekend of release, True Grit reached the No. 1 spot at the box office, displacing Little Fockers, which had held the No. 1 spot for the two previous weeks. True Grit took in an additional $15 million in what is usually a slow month for movie attendance, reaching $110 million.[14]

Both the brothers and Paramount Vice Chairman Rob Moore attributed the film's success partly to its "soft" PG-13 rating, atypical for a Coen brothers film, which helped broaden audience appeal. Paramount anticipated that the film would be popular with the adults who often constitute the Coen brothers' core audience, as well as fans of the Western genre. But True Grit also drew extended families: parents, grandparents, and teenagers. Geographically, the film played strongest in Los Angeles and New York, but its top 20 markets also included Oklahoma City; Plano, Texas, and Olathe, Kansas.[13][15]

Reception

The film received critical acclaim; Rotten Tomatoes reported that 95% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 203 reviews, with only 10 negative reviews and an average score of 8.3/10, with its consensus stating: "Girded by strong performances from Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, and lifted by some of the Coens' most finely tuned, unaffected work, True Grit is a worthy companion to the Charles Portis book."[16] Metacritic gave the film an average score of 80/100 based on 40 reviews from mainstream critics, indicating "generally positive reviews".[17] Total Film gave the film a five-star review (denoting 'outstanding'): "This isn’t so much a remake as a masterly re-creation. Not only does it have the drop on the 1969 version, it’s the first great movie of 2011".[18]

Roger Ebert awarded 3.5 stars out of 4, writing, "What strikes me is that I'm describing the story and the film as if it were simply, if admirably, a good Western. That's a surprise to me, because this is a film by the Coen Brothers, and this is the first straight genre exercise in their career. It's a loving one. Their craftsmanship is a wonder", and also remarking, "The cinematography by Roger Deakins reminds us of the glory that was, and can still be, the Western."[19] Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, writing, "The Coens, not known for softening anything, have restored the original's bleak, elegiac conclusion and as writer-directors have come up with a version that shares events with the first film but is much closer in tone to the book... Clearly recognizing a kindred spirit in Portis, sharing his love for eccentric characters and odd language, they worked hard, and successfully, at serving the buoyant novel as well as being true to their own black comic brio."[20] In his review for the Minneapolis Star Tribune Colin Covert wrote: "the Coens dial down the eccentricity and deliver their first classically made, audience-pleasing genre picture. The results are masterful."[21]

Rex Reed of The New York Observer criticized the film's pacing, referring to plot points as "mere distractions ... to divert attention from the fact that nothing is going on elsewhere". Reed considers Damon "hopefully miscast" and finds Bridges' performance mumbly, lumbering, and self-indulgent.[22]

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops review called the film "exceptionally fine" and said "[a]mid its archetypical characters, mythic atmosphere and amusingly idiosyncratic dialogue, writer-directors Joel and Ethan Coen's captivating drama uses its heroine's sensitive perspective – as well as a fair number of biblical and religious references – to reflect seriously on the violent undertow of frontier life."[23]

Awards

The film won the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Young Performer (Hailee Steinfeld) and received ten additional nominations in the following categories: Best Film, Best Actor (Jeff Bridges), Best Supporting Actress (Steinfeld), Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup, and Best Score. The ceremony took place on January 14, 2011.[24]

It was nominated for two Screen Actors Guild Awards: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Bridges) and Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Steinfeld). The ceremony took place on January 30, 2011.[25]

It was nominated for eight British Academy Film Awards: Best Film, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Bridges), Best Actress in a Leading Role (Steinfeld), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design. Roger Deakins won the award for Best Cinematography.

It is currently nominated for ten Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor (Bridges), Best Supporting Actress (Steinfeld), Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Sound Editing. The ceremony will take place on February 27, 2011.[26][27]

References

  1. ^ a b Barnes, Brooks (December 26, 2010). "Strong Start for Coen Brothers' 'True Grit'". New York Times. Retrieved 27 December 2010.
  2. ^ "True Grit". Boxoffice Mojo. 18 February 2011. Retrieved 18 February 2011.
  3. ^ Washington, DC, Film Society website.
  4. ^ "Coen Brothers' True Grit to Open the 61st Berlinale". berlinale.de. Retrieved 2010-12-15.
  5. ^ "Joel and Ethan Coen saddle up for truly gritty remake of Western classic". Daily Mail. Retrieved 2010-02-16.
  6. ^ "Coen brothers to adapt 'True Grit'". Variety. Retrieved 2010-02-16.
  7. ^ "True Grit Exclusive – Movies News at IGN". IGN. Retrieved February 16, 2010.
  8. ^ a b Carr, David (December 10, 2010). "The Coen Brothers, Shooting Straight". New York Times. Retrieved 22 December 2010.
  9. ^ "True Grit Film – casting Call". Truegritcasting.com. Retrieved February 16, 2010.
  10. ^ "Coen Brothers to film 'True Grit' remake in NM". Boston Herald. Retrieved February 16, 2010.
  11. ^ a b "Burwell in tune with Coen brothers". Variety.com. 2010-12-21.
  12. ^ "Academy nixes four score contenders". Variety.com. 2010-12-21.
  13. ^ a b Fritz, Ben (January 3, 1011). "Company Town: 'True Grit' rides tall in the saddle". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 3 January 2011.
  14. ^ Tourtellotte, Bob (January 9, 1011). ""True Grit" wrangles top spot at box offices". Reuters. Retrieved 12 January 2011.
  15. ^ Cieply, Michael; Brooks, Barnes (January 5, 1011). "As a Hot Ticket, Will 'True Grit' Sway the Oscars?". New York Times. Retrieved 6 January 2011.
  16. ^ "True Grit Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2010-12-22.
  17. ^ "True Grit Reviews, Ratings, Credits, and More at Metacritic". Metacritic. Retrieved December 22, 2010.
  18. ^ "True Grit Review". Total Film. Retrieved December 22, 2010.
  19. ^ "True Grit". rogerebert.suntimes.com. Retrieved December 22, 2010.
  20. ^ Turan, Kenneth (December 23, 2010). "Movie review: True Grit". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved December 23, 2010.
  21. ^ Covert, Colin (December 23, 2010). "Classic Coens". Star Tribune. Retrieved December 23, 2010.
  22. ^ Reed, Rex (December 14, 2010). "Year-End Roundup: What to See (and Skip) Before the Ball Drops". The New York Observer. Retrieved February 6, 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  23. ^ True Grit review at Catholic News Service – Media Review Office
  24. ^ "Broadcast Film Critics Awards Nominees". Retrieved 2011-01-25.
  25. ^ "17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® Nominations Announcement". Retrieved 2011-01-25.
  26. ^ "Oscar nominations 2011 in full". BBC News. 2011-1-25. Retrieved 2011-1-25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  27. ^ "Oscar nominees 2011". MSN Movies UK. 2011-1-25. Retrieved 2011-1-25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
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