True grit movie trial#

Indeed, one of the filmвЂ™s first scenes is of a court trial centering on whether or not in the course of his duties as Marshal Cogburn killed men that posed no imminent threat to him (the film makes clear that they didnвЂ™t). This is not to say that the Coens donвЂ™t deconstruct many of the heroic myths that are staples of the studio Western-several killings in the movie, including that of Mattie RossвЂ™s father, are in cold blood.

Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld in the Coen brothers' 'True Grit,' 2010

This is the Coens at their best, as the scene is preoccupied with intertextual reference and fully complicit with the conventions of the Western, but not at the expense of the authenticity or continuity of their story or of the viewerвЂ™s immersive experience into the mythical spaces of the Old West. It is a haunting scene, with the camera and the story loitering on the moment in a way that throws into relief the вЂhanging treeвЂ™ as a set piece of the genre, yet does so without disturbing the illusion of the film or its narrative coherence. Not surprisingly then, the Coens linger on Cogburn and MattieвЂ™s encounter with the hanging tree, the scene becoming particularly protracted as Mattie slowly climbs up the trunk and inches out onto the branch to cut the corpse down. The so-called вЂhanging treeвЂ™ is in fact a stock motif of the western genre, so much so that there was even a film titled Hanging Tree starring Gary Cooper in 1959. The tree is massive and the dangling body seems unnecessarily, almost impossibly high off the ground. In fact, I would argue that the convincing realism and authenticity of their film is paradoxically fashioned through, and thus entirely and purposefully based on those very conventions.Д¬onsider, for example, one of the most riveting scenes in True Grit, wherein Cogburn and Mattie, while traveling into Choctaw territory in pursuit of her fatherвЂ™s killer, come across a clearing where a body hangs from the branches of a tree. With a range of frontier-hardened characters, a period musical score, and the requisite sweeping tracking shots to give a sense of the epic proportions of the western expanse, the Coen brothers patently employ many of the conventions and serialized forms of the genre. Precisely for his problematic ways, Cogburn is prevailed upon by an outspoken and implacable young girl named Mattie Ross to bring her fatherвЂ™s killer to justice.Д«efitting the tradition of the Western film, True GritвЂ™s landscape is filled with sagebrush and its plot is centered on such fundamental concerns as the maintenance of law and order on the untamed frontier, justice overcoming injustice, and good confronting evil. Marshall whose violent past and reputation for fierce vengeance places him increasingly at odds with an increasingly more formal rule of law in the western territories, which threatens to render him and his methods of administering justice obsolete. True Grit centers on a man named Rooster Cogburn, an aging and drunken U.S. What follows is my attempt to get to the heart of that paradox. To this second point I would add that what makes their homage so compelling is that at the heart of the Coen brotherвЂ™s fine iteration of the Western lies a wonderful paradox.

My argument in defense of their Oscar-nominated film more or less hinged on the basic point that True Grit can be enjoyed on a couple of levels simultaneously-enjoyed for the wonderfully told story and stunning visuals, and also enjoyed on a more conceptual level, which has more to do with the film as an homage to the genre of the Western. In the lead up to this yearвЂ™s Academy Awards, I found myself on a few occasions defending Joel and Ethan CoenвЂ™s True Grit as something other than simply a good remake of a classic western.

True grit movie