You can hear the Fresh Air interview here.
Having listened to part of the interview, it’s actually Terry Gross (the interviewer) who disses the film. She calls it a “bad film,” and then she tries to lead the Coens into agreeing with her. They say that they’ve only seen the trailer recently, and responding to her prompts they call it “shocking” and when she asks them to elaborate they call it “campy.” (Again, referring only to the trailer.)
Gross also obsesses over (and criticizes) the more colorful palette of the earlier film (as compared with the browns and blacks of the Coens’ film). She expresses her shock and dismay that Kim Darby wears an orange dress at one point. :rolleyes:
One of the things the Coens discuss in the interview is the difficulty of casting for Mattie Ross, and particularly of finding someone who could “get their mouth around” the baroque dialogue. That led me to look at some of the many Mattie Ross auditions on YouTube. And damn if I don’t pity the casting director sifting through all the off-key readings.
I guess that’s par for the course for a casting director, though.
It helped set the mood. How brutal must the Wild West have been that hangings were so mundane that folks yawned and talked over the doomed men’s speeches? And afterwards, they just went on about their business like it was just another day at the office. That’s a rough town.
With 99% of films where people are hanged, the hangings are huge dramatic moments because you’re emotionally attached (one way or another) to the person getting hanged. In this film, you have no emotional attachment to the doomed men, so you’re able to recognize and laugh at the absurdity of it, even as you wince (albeit momentarily) when the platform drops.
What’s up with that? They also ridiculed their cameraman wanting to film a scene in daylight as it was in the 1969 version. It’s like it was bad because parts of it were filmed differently. At least we get a long shot of Ned Pepper’s horse bolting when he is shot, and Cogburn even says of Blackie, “He’s the only one I could catch”. 
Yes, Gross did seem to lead them on. That surprised me.
Well the first movie really is kind of cheesy.
I wondered if he’d taken them to make dentures–wasn’t it reasonably common in the past for dentures to involve human teeth?
Yes, especially the front (most visible) teeth. George Washington’s falsies had some human teeth he had bought from some of his slaves and in the novel Les Miserables Fantine sells her front teeth to a denture maker.
Cool, thanks!
Also, it’s interesting to read someone else’s thoughts on the the Quantrill backstory. I was unfamiliar with him during the movie, and so I assumed from the bitterness between LaBoeuf (sp?) and Cogburn that the former was Confederate and the latter Union. Afterward my wife told me about Quantrill’s Confederate nastiness, and we read up on him online, which added a layer of subtlety to their rivalry (LaBoeuf was basically saying, “You might have fought for the right side, but you were a sonofabitch even then!”) Yet another reason to watch it again.
La Boeuf is the worst sort of insufferable paladin, despite being a ranger. Cogburn is a true neutral rogue/ranger multiclass. And I don’t know how Maddie started, but she’s clearly taking levels in the prestige class Bad Motherfucker.
Maybe there weren’t a lot of men willing to put up with her.
If she’d married, she’d still been subserviant to her husband in that era, wouldn’t she? I can’t imagine a woman as strong-willed and interested in business as Mattie voluntarily giving up her professional interests to a husband.
Yeah–I didn’t get a lesbian vibe off of her so much as I got a can’t-stand-the-incompetence-of-other-people vibe off of her, and by “incompetence” I mean “failure to act according to Maddie’s wishes.” She’s an awesome character, but holy christ would I not want to know her.
I don’t know if it can be called “cheesy” so much as “dated.” It was released at a time when the “Old Hollywood” and “New Hollywood” styles of film making both coexisted uneasily. The 1969 version of True Grit definitely represented the “Old Hollywood” style.
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From watching Venom ER, breathing issues aside, rattlesnake bites can cause limbs to swell grotesquely. I’d image if the pressure wasn’t relieved in a timely basis, then amputation was the best route because once the damage was done, there’s no going back. I don’t know if they knew enough to cut open a swollen limb to relieve pressure or how soon it has to be done before necrosis sets in. I do know that without antibiotics or sterilization, cutting to save the limb might have done more harm than good than cutting off the limb.
[/QUOTE]
One thing I wondered about is whether applying alcohol to the wound would help stave off infection. During the scene when Rooster was treating Mattie for the snakebite, I half-expected him to pour some of his whiskey on the wound.
It might have helped with the infection but wouldn’t have done anything for the poison.
Something I didn’t realize about rattlesnake bites until my sister’s dog was bitten this summer is how much the wounds bleed- the venom is a powerful blood thinner. (My sister’s dog lived and fully recovered but only after receiving two [outrageously expensive] vials of anti-venom and even then it was touch and go for a while.)
He wasn’t, but I’m pretty sure Mattie’s lawyer (well, his voice) was. Wasn’t he?
ETA: I checked IMDB - he was not. I sit corrected.
I have never seen the original, nor have I read the book, but I certainly felt Rooster’s opinion of Mattie going up, even if grudgingly and reluctantly, during that scene. I also can totally see why Mattie would feel affection for Rooster by the end of the movie. However, and maybe this is addressed in the novel, but I felt her transplanting his remains to her own graveyard was more a repayment of a debt, in the obligation sense, not monetary. Not that she didn’t feel for the guy, but it was her own sense of honour that demanded it of her.
I loved this movie. I’m a huge fan of the Coen brothers and was surprised at how straight they played it. I really want to read the book to see how much it differed from the movie. I also really want to see the movie again, but I will do like a previous poster and shut my eyes during the whole riding the horse to death scene (I’ll admit - I cried during that scene).
Agreed. He’s constantly revising his opinion of her up, grudgingly, haltingly, from when she’s some harridan haranguing him from outside the shitter, until she’s a child dreaming of revenge but no means to get it, until she’s a legitimate employer who’s far too annoying to take along, until she’s hard-core (the crossing-the-river scene), and so on. He watched her cross the river with an “I’ll be damned!” look on his face, and you get the impression that Rooster likes being surprised by people like that, even if it’s annoying. His slow, thoughtful decision to draw on La Boeuf as Mattie was getting whipped shows his change in attitude toward her.
It’s not even the first True Grit shot somewhere other than the putative setting. 
(The other was shot in Colorado - huge mountains, cliffs, etc. Not Oklahoma.)
To elaborate:
[spoiler]
In the older version, they actually show Tom Cheney kill the father. The new version just describes the incident with a narrative. I thought the older was superior for that.
LeBoef separates and follows the two. In the old version, they are together when they get to the dugout. In the new version, Maddie and Rooster take the cabin, and LeBoef shows up later, just in time for the bad guys to arrive.
That scene plays differently. Instead of LeBoef screwing up and shooting early, instead he gets caught off-guard alone against the 4 or 5 guys. Rooster has to shoot to save him.
In the earlier version, after LeBoef is hit on the head, he manages to be alive long enough to hook up a horse to pull Rooster and Maddie out of the hole, then dies. In the new version, he survives, but we never see or hear from him again. I thought it was interesting to have a scene in a movie where a blow to the head is actually fatal. [/spoiler]
But it was done differently. For starters, the old version was rated G. This version was rated PG-13. It had a darker and grittier tone and feel. The original was campier, and downright cheesy in places.
As others said, she didn’t rob him. He was trying to take advantage of her. She was much more shrewd than he anticipated.
Yes, it was shot in Texas and New Mexico, but that is not the setting of the story. The story occurs in Arkansas (Fort Smith is right on the border, Dardenelle county is East of there by ~60mi.) and Southeast Oklahoma. The Winding Stair mountain is ~60 south of Ft. Smith (been there), and McAlester (the place where they take the bodies after the dugout scene with the sherriff and doctor) is ~100 mi from Fort Smith. While the scenery was somewhat better than Colorado, it was not authentic.
I don’t follow - she thinks he is a dirty scoundrel, so is disappointed when he’s a dirty scoundrel?
I was thinking dentures, when somebody else mentions.
Both movies do describe Rooster’s past, in that he has stolen from “a paymaster” and banks, “but not from people”. Both mention being on the run from New Mexico.
Yeah, she seemed more likely to have particular standards and generally be more inclined to look out for herself than put up with someone trying to control her.
I just came back from watching it. I had no idea a book or movie existed so I wasn’t comparing the Coen’s True Grit to anything else but westerns and movies in general. I must say it was an excellent film all the way through. I’ll probably like it even better in a 1080p blue ray version instead of at a smelly theatre.
Spoke, the character of Rooster Cogburn shouldn’t by a wry, charming fellow. By the time he meets Mattie, he’s killed, officially, 23 men…lord knows how many men he killed as a confederate marauder. You don’t kill that many people and remain charming, likable scamp. But really, now…Mattie hired him because he has grit…not a charming personality…that’s the whole point of the story.
John Wayne had actually met and talked with Wyatt Earp on several occasions. Wayne said he based his “western lawman” characters on Earp.
But I’m sure Jeff Bridges knows better.