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Completely agreed.  This movie is an excellent piece of art………..

shotbyesso:

TRUE GRIT {review}

A couple of things off the bat…

1-The Coen brothers can do no wrong in my book (don’t suggest otherwise!).
2-This is a western and should be treated as such.
3-The aforementioned brothers make art, not blockbusters. There is a difference.

With that in view, I wouldn’t suspect this movie to be enjoyed by those flocking to see Tron, Transformers: Dark of the Moon (shuddering at the thought), or “insert next blockbuster phenomenon here” yada yada yada.

Why?

It has far too much depth than any of those.

Not that one is better than the other, but they are different and must be viewed and digested differently. Okay, who am I kidding? There is a difference in value and virtue, but that’s another sermon for another day.

While some may search high and low for theological themes and overtones in this film, I aim to avoid them to judge the movie on it’s cinematic merits. True, it takes place in a day and age in which biblical though pervaded the culture, but that convo doesn’t interest me right now (even though there is quite a lot there).

Some have said that this film is a remake of the 1969 featuring John Wayne…That may be happenstance as this film, as well as the former, is an adaptation of Charles Portis’ novel, True Grit. With that said, even though I haven’t seen Wayne’s lone Oscar-winning performance, I doubt there’s much overlap given the difference in aesthetic and direction.

No cliche dialogue.
No superfluous scenes.
No John Wayne meets Arnold Schwarzenegger action scenes. (Whew.)

“Malum in se”

This was the latin phrase mumbled by LaBeouf (Matt Damon) to young Mattie Ross during an intimate, significant and telling scene in the film. I believe the film revolves around this exchange of ideas.

“Malum in se (plural mala in se) is a Latin phrase meaning wrong or evil in itself.”

Mattie explains this concept to the aging Cockburn (Jeff Bridges), yet distinguishes it from another Latin expression, which means wrong only as society deems it so.

And this theme is the umbrella, or meta narrative under which all the events of the movie develop. More specifically, against the principles that each character hangs the stakes of their lives on.

Young Mattie is a coming of age woman of principle. Every determinate action of hers is based upon theoretical principle. She argues on the merits of principle and expects others to hold the universal virtues that she holds so dear and true. She’s had an informed worldview, but never had the opportunity to see it applied in action.

Cockburn, on the other hand, is an aged man of his own principles. He is a man of practical principles. Seemingly once as young and naive as Mattie, he seems to have graduated to a more pragmatic approach that has not completely turned from the principles that control Mattie, but has tasted the reality of a cold world. A world in which differing principles grind against each other like sandpaper at war with itself. He has become disillusioned and seems to survive by hanging on to principle in an enflamed relationship with practice.

And the movie revolves around the nucleus of this dynamic. The contrast between Mattie and Cockburn.

Young and Old.
Vibrant and Tattered.
Optimistic and Pessimistic.
Female and Male.
Theoretical and Practical.

And we can’t help but to be transfixed as these opposites interact on screen. It is the centrifugal force of the film and it’s a beauty to behold. As the chase spins out of control, we quickly see Mattie start to develop more into an association with Cockburn, as the world has soured him, so it does her. So much so, that she totters on the edge of losing all principles as she so vehemently tries to live by them.

The beauty and depth of the characters in this film is brilliant. As in most other of the Coen’s movies, the characters tend to be nearly caricatures, but not hyperbolic. They are pushed to the extreme, on the edge of losing their roundness and humanity, but they never do. They are real.

Finally, the cherry on top for me was the dialogue. It took me half of the film to figure it out, but the detail was stunning. The fact that the characters DO NOT use contractions was simply amazing. “A contraction is the shortening of a word, syllable, or word group by omission of internal letters. (wiki)” An example is instead of saying “do not”, we might say “don’t”. We have (or we’ve) cheapened the English language for the sake of convenience. It’s quite an exhilarating thing to see a cowboy speak more eloquently than most today. And it’s those minor details that make this film so thrilling and enjoyable to watch. It’s nothing that the average movie-goer will appreciate, but it’s these little touches that are unfortunately overlooked by our over-sensationalized, malnourished appetites.

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