The Coenification of True Grit

There has been more nonsense written about Joel and Ethan Coen’s new version of True Grit than I can recall in the several decades that I have followed the Hollywood film industry. The novel True Grit was originally published by Charles Portis in 1968. Its cinematic potential was immediately recognized. John Wayne attempted to purchase the film rights, but was outbid by Hall Wallis. No fool, Wallis knew that Wayne was the only person to play the role of Rooster Cogburn, and Wayne was quickly cast. The 1969 film was successful critically and commercially, provided Wayne with his only Oscar, and is remembered even today with considerable fondness, though it never reached the classic status of other films in Wayne’s oeuvre, such as Red River, The Searchers, or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

Given this history, one might wonder why the Coen brothers chose this project as their first remake. Well, to hear them tell it, the new True Grit is not a remake of the 1969 film at all. It is, rather, an attempt to get back to the root of the story, which is the Charles Portis novel. As they or any of the film’s cast members will be happy to repeat on cue, they were making a more faithful adaptation of the 1968 novel, not remaking the 1969 John Wayne western.

Obviously, I cannot know for sure, but one imagines a meeting between the Coens and the studio in which this stock response is agreed upon as a standard line to be trotted out when the inevitable remake question is asked (of the several promotional interviews that I have seen, the question was ALWAYS asked). On the other hand, the Coens may actually believe that theirs is a more faithful retelling of the Portis novel. We can’t know.

However, what we can know is whether this claim withstands serious scrutiny. It does not. Though the marketing campaign for the film is either mildly dishonest or innocently inaccurate, this failing pales in comparison to the epidemic of journalistic malpractice committed by the many film reviewers who have written about the Coen's True Grit. Let’s take a look at a few of these reviews.

• The Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel, go back to the Charles Portis novel, rather than the 1969 film, as the source of inspiration for their adaptation of “True Grit". . . . In the earlier rendition, the Duke was the star, period. Here, while Jeff Bridges is the star, it is as first among equals with his costars, especially Steinfeld. This helps give “True Grit” the feel of verisimilitude lacking in the earlier version. Anyone who has read the book, per the Coens, will get the true “True Grit.” That may be, but the new film stands on its own, anyway. - Robin Clifford, Reeling Reviews

• Still, Portis admirers rankled at the sanitizing of the many elements of the story, at the demotion of Mattie to a supporting character attending Wayne's cinematic coronation and at the transforming of Mattie from a girl at the portal of her teens to an elderly tomboy played by Kim Darby, who turned 22 the week the film opened. In an act of literary restitution, Joel and Ethan Coen have made a more faithful movie version. . . Without unduly reducing the Rooster role, the brothers have restored Mattie to the center of the action and cast 13-year-old Hailee Steinfeld as Portis' diminutive, female Ahab. To those who have fond or foul memories of the Wayne True Grit, the Coens might be saying: You've seen the movie, now see the book. -Richard Corliss, Time Magazine

• Mattie and her quest to avenge her father's murder have gained new prominence from the filmmakers' decision to use the structure of the book, which Mattie narrated, rather than to emulate the earlier film, which was dominated by John Wayne's stirring, larger-than-life presence. -Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

• The Coens . . . have come up with a version that shares events with the first film but is much closer in tone to the book — think of the original crossed with Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven." 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. -Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

• Joel and Ethan Coen have pulled off an impressive feat: repurposing a classic film with their idiosyncratic blend of dark, deadpan humor and palpable suspense, while remaining ultra-faithful to the novel. In fact, their elegant version, with its distinctively formal dialogue, hews more closely to Charles Portis' book than the 1969 film. -Claudia Puig, USA TODAY

• Leave it to the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, to do right smart by True Grit, the 1968 Charles Portis novel. . . . By staying true to Portis—the richness of his language runs through the film like a vein of comic gold—the Coens have crafted a vastly entertaining Wild West show that is memorable in every particular. . . .
  What makes True Grit a new classic for the Coens is the way the brothers absorb the unfairly unsung Portis into their DNA. . . . -Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

• In the Coen Brothers' “True Grit,” Jeff Bridges is not playing the John Wayne role. He's playing the Jeff Bridges role — or, more properly, the role created in the enduring novel by Charles Portis, much of whose original dialogue can be heard in this film. -Roger Ebert

• Third, there are those who have read the book and seen the 1969 movie and despaired at how the latter gummed up the startling and often funny tone of the former, with a sweetened ending that was great for Wayne but hell for Portis. . . .The Coens lay their more deadpan filmmaking voice over the proceedings, but at least as screenwriters they're truer to the original story, and to Mattie's place at the center of it all. -Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

• The new "True Grit" restores all the grit removed in the first version (the 1969 Henry Hathaway film starring John Wayne) of the 1968 Charles Portis novel. All of Portis' sardonic wit has been retained this time, and then some. . . .The biggest change from the '69 "True Grit" is the best thing about this formidably well-crafted picture. Portis's narrator and heroine, 14-year-old Mattie Ross, runs the show this time, not the one-eyed marshal. - Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

• Based on the title, this would seem like a remake of the 1969 Western that earned John Wayne his only Academy Award, for best actor. But the Coens were actually more interested in creating a truer version of the original source material, Charles Portis' novel of the same name. - Christy Lemire, AP

The theme from all these reviews is essentially the same: the 1969 version was a star vehicle for John Wayne in which the Mattie character is pushed into the background, whereas the 2010 version is a more faithful adaptation of the Portis book on which it is based.

This is--not to put too fine a point on it--hogwash. Taken in its entirety, the 2010 film is a LESS faithful adaptation of the Portis novel, not more. Furthermore, the Mattie character is no less prominent in the 1969 adaptation than she is in the more recent version.

Let’s take the claim that Mattie is less prominent in the 1969 version first. 

Rooster Cogburn’s first substantial scene doesn’t appear until 20 minutes into the film, and the only two instances in which Mattie and Cogburn are separated—the aforementioned opening 20 minutes and her meeting up with Tom Chaney and imprisonment by Ned Pepper (a sequence that lasts a full 12 minutes)—the camera stays with Mattie, not with the John Wayne’s Rooster Cogburn.

There is no doubt in the 1969 film that from beginning to end it is Mattie’s story, told from her perspective about her experiences. So why did so many critics claim otherwise? There are only two reasons I can think of. First, John Wayne was a commanding screen presence, perhaps uniquely so in the history of American cinema. Whenever he is on screen he dominates. But this is a function of his star power. Director Henry Hathaway and screenwriter Marguerite Roberts can hardly be blamed for the mysterious and unique phenomenon that was the Duke.

The other reason lies in a framing device. Much of the book is told in first person as a recollection by Mattie. When it was adapted into film, this narrative structure was rightly abandoned in favor of an anonymous third-party perspective. In fact, there are many instances in True Grit (1969) in which the musings of Mattie are simply converted verbatim into straightforward dialog rather than being offered in the form of voice-over narration. On the other hand, True Grit (2010) retains a very small portion of the original first person narrative at the very beginning and end of the film. These framing devices are very brief and I would argue unnecessary. The remainder the story is told in the more conventional fashion, just as in the 1969 version. It is these brief sequences at the beginning and end of the film on which the claim of faithfulness to the book are based. This is especially true of the ending.

The claim that True Grit (2010) is a more faithful adaptation of the book is dreadfully inaccurate and I think nearly libelous to Marguerite Roberts. True, the ending of the Coen brothers' version sticks faithfully to the book. We are taken 25 years ahead and we see Mattie attempting a reunion with Rooster only to discover that he had died a few days earlier. In the 1969 version, the film makers decided to end the story with the completion of the Chaney/Ned Pepper quest. However, the filmmakers needed an ending, so Roberts wrote a brief sequence in which Mattie asks Rooster if he would like a space in their family cemetery. He accepts, but mentions that he doesn’t intend to move in too soon. Mattie chides him for being too old and fat to jump fences on his new horse and the film ends with Rooster saying “Come see a fat old man some time.” This 3-minute concluding sequence in the 1969 film is the only meaningful deviation from the Portis book and bears the entire weight of the claim that it is a less faithful rendition of the source material. 

By way of comparison, the 2010 film deviates from the novel repeatedly in tone and substance. The most serious deviation from the book occurs during the trek from Bagby’s store to the dugout where Rooster ambushes Ned's gang. The 1969 version recounts this series of events precisely following the Portis's novel. They find Moon and Quincy inside the dugout and Mattie recovers one of her father’s gold pieces, which tells them that they are on the right trail of their hunt for Tom Chaney. Quincy and Moon are killed and then Mattie, Rooster, and Laboeuf prepare for an ambush. LaBoeuf hides in the rocks above on one side and Mattie and Rooster position themselves on the other to await Ned’s arrival. During the wait there is a memorable and lengthy speech by Rooster in which he tells how he used to be married, how he had robbed a bank for a “grub stake”, and how he finally tired of the posse chasing him and turned his horse around and charged the posse. This is an important speech because it foreshadows Rooster’s subsequent charge against Ned Pepper and his gang in what is surely the most famous scene in the film and the entire basis of the book and film's title. When the gang arrives, LaBoeuf shoots too soon, and Ned gets away. Much of the dialog throughout this lengthy and pivotal sequence is taken from the book nearly verbatim and the events unfold just as they do in the novel.

In the Coens’ version, this middle section—which accounts for 25-pages in the script—is nearly unrecognizable. In their telling they find the gold piece at Bagby’s store, and then LaBoeuf separates from them after an argument with Rooster. Mattie and Rooster soon run across a bizarre man in Buffalo skins who claims he is a dentist and offers to sell them a corpse he is mysteriously carrying with him. They also come across a man hanged from branches high in a tree who Mattie cuts down. Rooster recounts essentially the same speech about his past, although it is broken up into several pieces as they make their way towards the dugout. They encounter Moon and Quincy in the dugout as in the book, but the ambush is completely different, because, remember LaBoeuf is no longer with them. In the Coens' version, LaBoeuf arrives at the dugout just ahead of Ned Pepper and his gang and a fight ensues in which LaBoeuf is wounded and nearly bites through his tongue in the melee. For the rest of film LaBoeuf speaks with a lisp, presumably for comic effect. There is simply nothing in 1969 version of this length and centrality to the narrative that was essentially invented by the film makers without regard for the original novel's tone and content.

There are several, less serious, but interesting, deviations from the book and the 1969 film.

One of the truly weird claims made by many critics is that True Grit (2010) has a lighter, more humorous, tone than True Grit (1969) referring I suspect to the transformation of LaBoeuf into a comic foil, oddly seeming to ignore the assertion of faithfulness to the novel. However, the 2010 film leaves out entirely the comical speech that Rooster gives when Mattie and he initially meet at Chen Lee’s to discuss her proposal. In this encounter Rooster becomes intoxicated (“genuine double-rectified busthead”) and then shoots a rat while bemoaning the criticism he has gotten for being too quick to shoot. Unlike Laboeuf's lisp, this comedic exchange is taken directly from the book.

To give some flavor of how closely the 1969 screenplay sticks to the original, consider this speech by Rooster from the Portis novel:

• I have a writ here that says for you to stop eating Chen Lee’s corn meal forthwith. It is a rat writ. It is a writ for a rat and this is lawful service of said writ. . . .
  Judge Parker knows. He is an old carpetbagger but he knows his rats. We had a good court here until the pettifogging lawyers moved in on it. . . Now they have got the judge down on me and the marshal too. The rat catcher is too hard on the rats. That is what they say. Let up on those rats. Give them rats a fair show! What kind of show did they give Columbus Potter I ask? A finer man never lived.” – Charles Portis, 1968

From the 1969 film:

• Mr Rat...My writ here says you must stop eating Chen Lee’s cornmeal forthwith. It’s a rat writ, writ for a rat, and this is lawful service of same. See, he doesn’t pay any attention to me. . . .You can’t serve papers on a rat, baby sister. You’ve got to kill him or let him be. . . Judge Parker... Old Carpetbagger! But he knows his rats. We had a good court......until those pettifogging lawyers moved in. The rat catcher is too tough on the rats! ‘Give them rats a fair show,’ they say. What fair show did they give old man Potter? Tell me that. Finer man never lived.” Marguerite Roberts, 1969

There are other, smaller but extremely odd, changes in the Coens’ film. For example, Mattie has her first exchange with LaBoeuf in her bedroom. He apparently lets himself in and simply waits for her to waken. There is no reason to stage this scene in this fashion, except for stylistic flourish. It is unthinkable that in the post-Civil War era a man would enter a young single woman's bedroom to whom is was not related while she slept. In the novel and 1969 film, their exchange occurs more plausibly in a public area of the boarding house in which they were both staying. Even stranger, Mattie insults LaBoeuf by calling him a “rodeo clown.” The events portrayed in True Grit occurred in 1878, an era in which the phrase “rodeo clown” would have had no meaning. The term “rodeo” was not widely used until well into the 20th century. Mattie’s reference to it is simply an anachronistic invention of the Coens.

Viewers will disagree over which film is better. That is a matter of taste. However, compared to the new Coen brothers’ film, the John Wayne version of True Grit is not a less accurate rendering of the book, is not simply a star vehicle for Wayne, and does not place Mattie in the background.