No Comparison: Henry Hathaway/the Coen Brothers' TRUE GRIT

 TRUE GRIT

John Wayne, Kim Darby, Glen Campbell, Robert Duvall. Dir. Henry Hathaway, Paramount, 1969

For those who read the title of this piece, "No Comparison," to mean that I prefer the Coen Brothers' 2010 version - it's ludicrous to call it a remake - over Henry Hathaway's 1969 take, I've got bad news. Though the plot of both films is, with two exceptions, identical, these films have very little in common, to the extent that doing a head-to-head comparison does both films a disservice. Preference is a willful creature. The heart wants what it wants. We love what we love, regardless of whether it makes sense. I prefer Hathaway's version, but that doesn't make it better than the Coens' or vice versa.

What do I prefer in Hathaway's 1969 production? Quite a bit. Barry Pepper's reading of secondary villain Lucky Ned Pepper may well be one of his best performances, but I'll take Robert Duvall over Mr. Pepper. Domhnall Gleeson gives an excellent take on Moon, but I'm partial to Dennis Hopper. Ditto Jeff Corey's self-pitying Tom Chaney to Josh Brolin's. On the other hand, while non-actor Glen Campbell's Ranger LaBeouf is serviceable, Matt Damon's turn in the role towers over it.

As for the primary stars, I found Kim Darby & Hailee Steinfeld's Mattie Ross equally affecting. Mattie was Kim Darby's breakthrough performance, yet she never became a star, soon relegated to episodic TV & bit parts in films, such as playing John Cusack's mother in BETTER OFF DEAD. The commentary for the '69 film claims that Wayne disapproved of Darby's marriage, at 18, to LANCER star James Stacy, but Darby has only ever praised Wayne & Wayne returned the sentiment. Director Hathaway is said to have loathed Darby, but I found no evidence he sent her career into obscurity. A close friend & Hollywood insider speculates that her two turbulent marriages, coupled to being a young mother, likely motivated her career choices. Hailee Steinfeld, also terrific as Mattie, gets better dialogue, but both actors bring the same brittle, rigid energy to their performances. In fact, at a number of points in the Coens' version, Steinfeld appears to ape Darby's approach.

Which leaves The Duke. I'm going to rant a little now - I am beyond tired of people who slam Wayne as an actor. I used to be one of them, when I had seen perhaps four of his movies. Having since seen FORT APACHE, SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON, THE SEARCHERS, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALLANCE, and a couple dozen others, I wonder if Wayne's contemporary critics have seen many of his films, because most of their critique looks oblivious compared to his best work. Good as Wayne is here, I recommend seeing Mark Rydell's 1972 THE COWBOYS, one of the most restrained and quiet performances in Wayne's 50-year career and one of less than half a dozen films in which his character dies.

What makes Wayne so effective here is that his Rooster Cogburn is intended to poke fun at the stock character he played across the decades without resorting to a flamboyant caricature. It's a restrained, subtle self-parody, a genuine comedic performance from a man who avoided comedies the way I avoid episodes of The Kardashians. The Coen Brothers' chief critique of the '69 film is that it lacks laughs, leading me to wonder about their sense of humor, since the comedy abounds here & is not difficult to appreciate, regardless of Wayne's restraint.

That isn't meant to detract from Bridges' Cogburn which,  though doubtless more true to Charles Portis's novel, cannot function as a commentary on his career. Bridges hasn't done a traditional Western and hasn't played the same basic role throughout his own 50-year career, leaving him with few options other than investing in Portis's original vision. It's a smart investment - Bridges' Cogburn marks THE moment many filmgoers realized that he has become one of our finest leading men. I cannot rate one performance over another in any objective sense. Each works equally well because they're so different. Again, while I prefer Wayne's turn, there's no way I can throw shade on Bridges.

My chief complaint applies to both films. How hard can it be to shoot in Arkansas? The Coens shot in New Mexico, which explains the desert scene - there are no deserts in Arkansas - and Hathaway filmed in Colorado & the Sierra Nevadas. Though New Mexico looks not unlike Northern Arkansas - where the Coens filmed, anyway - both feature mountains so obviously not the Ozarks it's unintentionally hilarious. As complaints go, though, it's a small one. John Ford staged his version of Little Big Horn in Monument Valley, which in no way resembles South Dakota, but it's so goddamn beautiful it seldom distracts a viewer. Same applies to both TRUE GRITs.

The other thing that drives me a little crazy about those convinced the Coens' film is superior is their tendency to claim it's truer to the spirit of Portis's novel. The statement is so amorphous as to lack meaning without substantiation, yet I rarely see that substantiation. The dialogue certainly hews closer to the novel, but there's no way a John Wayne audience in '69 would have tolerated the hyperstylized, archaic speech of 2010, rendering it - in my ears - an irrelevant distinction. Both productions create at least one scene out of their directors' imagination instead of the book, Hathaway significantly altering the ending, but, again, that's a concession to the audience. Dark, unhappy endings had become more common by '69, but with audiences younger and more liberal than Wayne's. If I like the Coens' ending better for its poignance and fidelity to Mattie's rigidity - and lack of arm - I can't say Hathaway's ending is any less satisfying & heartwarming.

Still, this is all personal preference. To the degree which objective measurement of both is possible, the Coen Brothers film is stronger. Roger Deakins' cinematography works better than Lucien Ballard's, but that's a rare case. I love the stylized dialogue's richness & literacy - it's not a film for idiots, and I love the Coens for being unapologetic about making smart pictures. The latter film feels more authentic than the former, though that can be difficult to quantify.

And yet I still prefer the John Wayne version, if only slightly and, though I've attempted to delineate my reasons why, it comes back to where I started. I love what I love. My heart wants what it wants, and I am hostage to it. I can imagine worse.

TRUE GRIT
Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon, Barry Pepper. Dir. Ethan & Joel Coen, Paramount, 2010